Someone Sold a Splinterlands Region for Almost $700,000 Via the WAX Blockchain
Property values in the Splinterlands have gone a little crazy: Someone recently sold an entire region for $695,000 on WAX. And since then, a region has been listed for a whopping $900k.
To put this all in perspective, you could buy a one-bedroom apartment overlooking Central Park for the same price. Yep, you read that correctly the first time. To understand why this is such a monumental milestone, and what it means for the future of blockchain gaming, read on below.
How We Got There
Late last year, the Splinterlands development team announced it was releasing a new expansion and a different way for players to interact with the game: a land sale. While this might induce a few yawns from the uninitiated, for crypto enthusiasts (and Splinterlands players alike) this marked not only the release of new card types but a mechanic that allows players to take control of minting new cards. Specifically, Item and Spell cards are only available by minting them yourself or purchasing from a secondary market. They’ll never be sold by the Splinterlands team or included in booster packs the way Monster and Summoner cards are.
If you want to mint those cards, you need to own land NFTs. There were 30,000 plots and during the presale users could purchase a single Plot, a Tract (100 Plots) or a Region (1,000 Plots). As you might imagine, the NFTs sold out extremely quickly. A total of 27 Regions were sold off via a lottery system, and the 3,000 Plots remaining for the general public sold out in 21 seconds. There was so much interest that the Splinterlands servers crashed and took the website offline. And you thought the physical real estate market was tough.
When the second presale began, up to 23 Regions of land were available for lottery members whose numbers weren’t drawn during the first presale, while an additional 7,000 were open to all players. Those all sold out too. There was a third presale. Those sold out as well. Jump over to the shop tab today on the Splinterlands website and you couldn’t purchase a plot if you wanted to.
The Secondary Market
Buying one on AtomicHub is a different story, though. There was a 20 percent off sale for each of the three land types, where a single Plot would’ve run you 54.83 WAXP ($16) — which was honestly pretty reasonable. If you had a bunch of crypto burning a hole in your pocket though, the other two land types were likely more interesting. A Tract would set you back 4,663.92 WAXP ($1,360) and a Region would cost you back a whopping 41,152.26 WAXP ($12,000).
It’s a bit different now that that sale has ended. Market listings for a single Plot are top a million dollars, and the two Regions available are going for over $900,000 each. The Region that sold for $695,000 suddenly seems like one helluva value.
What It All Means
Because you need land to mint Items and Spells, and because those cards fundamentally alter how battles play out (and thus beget more NFTs) these land prices are driven by real utility. It’s what makes blockchain gaming so revolutionary. Not only are you playing games you love and earning real money, but you’re also boosting the in-game economy.
