This might meander a bit, so I apologize in advance.
Rumblings of a Brighter Tomorrow
We got a pump in the $GODS price seemingly out of nowhere.
It's important to understand that, unlike regulated securities, there are currently no laws against insider trading of cryptos like GODS (although it may vary by jurisdiction).
Then we had this tweet right at the spike:
~~~ embed:1527911699457748993?s=20&t=vJTJRuMueaV0L1sGniYhBw twitter metadata:MHhmZXJnfHxodHRwczovL3R3aXR0ZXIuY29tLzB4ZmVyZy9zdGF0dXMvMTUyNzkxMTY5OTQ1Nzc0ODk5M3w= ~~~
Could be staking rewards, daily p2e, enhanced forging, or something else. None of us knows, but it appears someone knows and took advantage of that knowledge.
This morning we then get this blog post from Chris Clay and the team literally titled "Building for the Future":
https://blog.godsunchained.com/2022/05/23/building-for-the-future/
Overall, it's one of their strongest posts. Takes responsibility for some failings, but also proposes some ways to address them. Perhaps most interestingly, they will establish a players' council. Yes, they have done it before, but if they really invest in it, it would be a great idea.
To their credit, they really have gotten some persistent bugs addressed (HP bug!) and the game is running a lot smoother. A number of their systems were waiting on anti-bot tech, and it looks like they are really close in that department. All reasons to be optimistic.
So what am I doing?
Weekend Ranked
Making sure to at least participate in each weekend ranked. I haven't played a full 25 games in a long time, but I have been stacking my GODS and earning my packs. Several devs have confirmed they want to lower the event to 15 games. This is a really welcome development. Making it easier to get rewards and preventing burn-out is great all around.
Golds
I'm also fleshing out my collection of cheap gold neutral cards in anticipation of shine bonuses in daily p2e.
This is a big part of the reason why I'm working on decks with numerous gods that can best utilize armor. We've got no idea what the details will be. How much bonus will golds give? It's hard to say, but Guild Enforcers are such good cards that can fit in so many decks. Skeletal Hoplits are also auto-include in my zombie/nether decks. The others aren't quite as meta, but if you can keep a win rate above 50% with half-gold decks, you should be able to stay in Mythic and earn hefty bonuses.
Other cards on the cheap
The other thing is to pick up meta cards on the cheap during this bear market. For instance, I picked up 3x Flying Carpets for a little under $3 each (missed them at the lows of $1.30). 2 to play with and 1 to sell if they make it back to highs around $8.
Staying Active on HIVE!
This is a big one. It's clear to us all that activity is down in our HIVE community, but the people who are still posting (including me!) are still getting nicely rewarded for it. My latest round of purchasing was actually 100% funded by my HIVE activity! I used SimpleSwap for the first time (check your wallet on PeakD to find it). I swapped some of my HIVE for ETH and then moved by ETH to L2 (the fee to get to L2 was $3!).
What was my big purchase? I picked up a card I've been eyeing for months:
Do I wish I had gotten it for $40? Yes. Will I be sad if it drops back to $40? Also yes. However, I bought it for one reason: I want to play with it! Check me out with my meta deck thanks to HIVE:
Really thankful to everyone who is active on HIVE and the OCD crew that curates us all.
Conclusion
The larger crypto bear market could stretch for another year easily. This will put downward pressure on GU assets/tokens, but if the team can hit some of their major milestones and start increasing their playerbase, the upward pressure of that surge will dwarf the general crypto malaise.
If you had asked me a month ago, my outlook was bleak. I'm back to being (cautiously) optimistic. Here's hoping for the best!
I'm wondering how shiny prices will do with shiny forging around the corner. Prices will probably move towards being 5x previous shine + fees so I think most shines are going to go up in price.