As 2021 comes to a close, we wanted to take a look at what 2022 has to offer specifically for Splintershards (SPS) - the governance token for the Splinterlands game.

While 2021 saw the launch of the token, the beginning of the airdrop, and more, 2022 will be the year that the full utility of the token gets realized around both the governance aspects of the game as well as the ability to participate in future game content and promotions.

SPS Validator Nodes

First and foremost, the team has been hard at work building the SPS validator node software which we expect to be released in Q1 of 2022.

The validator node software will be open source and will allow anyone to independently track and verify all SPS transactions that take place on the Hive blockchain. Additionally, it will allow all staked SPS token holders to vote for validators in a delegated proof of stake system very similar to that of the Hive blockchain and other chains such as EOS, WAX, BSC, and more.

Anyone running the validator node software will be able to register as a validator and earn SPS rewards from the "oracle rewards" pool based on the amount of staked SPS that is voting for them, and the top 10 validators by votes will be the signatories on multi-sig wallets on both Hive and BSC (and potentially other chains in the future) that control the SPS foundation funds among other things.

Much more information about the specifics of running a validator node, validator rewards, and SPS governance will be made available when the software is completed and released to the community in the near future.

Foundation Treasury

The SPS foundation is an entity created to hold and manage the funds for the development and promotion of the Splintershards token and ecosystem. 10% of the total supply of SPS tokens go to the foundation as specified in the SPS token whitepaper.

The SPS foundation currently holds around $4M worth of various cryptocurrencies not including its SPS tokens which has come from a combination of the private token sale proceeds, SPS token sales, and earnings from LP positions in various pools.

These funds - including the SPS tokens - are owned jointly by the staked SPS token holders and as soon as the SPS governance system is released the community will be able to submit and vote on proposals regarding its use. Proposals can include things like purchasing SPS tokens, providing liquidity to an Automated Market Maker (AMM) pool, paying for a product or service, burning tokens, or even distributing funds back to token holders. It really can be anything the community agrees upon.

The ownership and management of the SPS foundation treasury is just one of the many utilities of the SPS token and we hope and expect that the value of the treasury will grow significantly over time as a result of asset price increases, yield from liquidity pools, and other investments.

Riftwatchers

As most of you know, Splinterlands plans to release a new mini-edition of cards called Riftwatchers which is expected in Q2 of 2022. Riftwatchers will be very similar to the past mini-editions - Essence Orbs and AZMARE Dice - however instead of being exclusively available to purchase using DEC tokens, Riftwatchers will only be able to be purchased using SPS tokens - all of which will go directly to the SPS foundation treasury.

In this way, all income from sales of Riftwatchers booster packs will go directly to the staked SPS token holders who can then propose and vote on what to do with the funds.

The Splinterlands team currently anticipates that a total of 3M Riftwatchers booster packs will be available for sale, at a price of $5 USD per pack (payable only in SPS) with bonus packs available for purchases of 100+, 500+, and 2000+ packs in a single transaction. This means that roughly $12M (after accounting for bonus packs) of income will be coming into the SPS foundation over the course of the edition, and all via the SPS token.

We are aware that this will shift what was previously a significant source of utility for the DEC token over to the SPS token. At the moment, DEC derives much of its value from the ongoing SPS airdrop, so adding more utility for SPS indirectly also adds more utility for DEC as well. When the airdrop ends next summer we plan to add additional utility for DEC token and work to structure it in a way that hopefully makes it a more stable, transactional currency for the Splinterlands.

Land Expansion

One of the top priorities for the Splinterlands team in 2022 is the development of the land expansion which has been detailed extensively in posts such as the following: Splinterlands Land Expansion Details.

We expect the land expansion, once fully developed, to be groundbreaking in terms of providing real value and utility to NFTs through their ability to exclusively mint new types of cards that can be used in the Splinterlands card game battles.

While the land economy details are still in the process of being developed and will be released as soon as they are available, one thing we can assure players of is that staking SPS tokens will feature HEAVILY into the land expansion in order to get the most out of your land resources.

Private Sale & Airdrop End Dates

Finally, we also wanted to remind everyone that both the airdrop and the distributions to the private sale investors will be ending in the coming months, at which point the rate at which new tokens are minted and distributed will drop substantially, even when accounting for more of the reward pools coming online.

The private sale investor distributions amount to 20M SPS per month and those are scheduled to end in April of 2022 at which point no more SPS tokens will be distributed to private sale investors. The airdrop amounts to 33,333,333 SPS tokens per month and will end in July of 2022.

In total, that's over 53M fewer SPS tokens that will be distributed each month starting in the latter half of 2022, and that rate will continue to decrease by 1% each month going forward as specified in the SPS token whitepaper.

Reward Pools & SPS Delegation

As for the remaining reward pools (listed here), we are planning to implement the SPS reward pool for ranked battles around the time that the airdrop is scheduled to end so that players can continue to earn SPS through their card collections via battles, and we are also working on implementing the reward pool for guild brawls as soon as possible although we do not have an ETA for that at this time.

Additionally, we are planning to implement the ability to delegate staked SPS to other accounts which has been a highly requested feature by players for things like tournament entry requirements. We expect that to be released in Q1 of 2022.

Summary

For those of you looking for a tl;dr version of the above, here's a bullet-point summary of the main things we're looking forward to specifically related to the SPS token in 2022:

• SPS Validator Nodes & Governance Voting
• $4M+ non-SPS funds in treasury to be owned & controlled by staked SPS token holders
• ~$12M of Riftwatchers pack sales purchasable exclusively with SPS, all going to the SPS foundation treasury
• Land expansion heavy reliance on SPS token staking
• Private sale & airdrop distributions ending leading to over 53M fewer SPS tokens distributed each month
• New reward pools to incentivize gameplay + SPS delegation

2021 was an amazing year for Splinterlands, but all indications are pointing to 2022 blowing it out of the water. We attribute much of the success of 2021 to the launch of the SPS token and to our amazing community of people all working and experimenting together towards the goal of creating one of the first player owned and controlled gaming experiences in the world!

How to Get SPS

For those of you who are as excited as we are about the future for Splinterlands and the SPS token in particular, you can pick some up on the following third-party exchanges:

• Tribaldex / Hive Engine (HIVE)
• PancakeSwap (BNB / BEP-20 tokens)
• SushiSwap (ETH / ERC-20 tokens)
• Gate.io (USDT)

Stay tuned for more updates from the Splinterlands!

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NOTE: All rewards from this post will be burned.