Projected Market Cap of @steemmonsters 30 Days After Guild Play Has Full Announcement

Above is about an eight month overview of the market cap (as defined by SM). This encapsulates all of the existing cards and their combined value relative to the trading price recently. This is their in house assumption in value more so geared to the collector and the general public. Over revenue sources that aren't included in consideration are DEC prices, steemmonsters bid bot (SP and delegations), booster pack/starter pack sales, revenue from SM market, and other sources that are taken in by the owners of the game and distributed of course at their discretion. What I will be commenting on is though the graph listed above in relation to the public and the collectors perspective.

I want to mention that some of you may have not involved yourself with this game perhaps not seeing it as investment but as something else. That is fine I am not selling you anything here just providing you with my experience and you take with it what you please. The common phrase of "past performance in any market does not guarantee future return" should as always be taken in its full seriousness whenever talking about the buying and selling of anything whether you consider an investment or not. I want my narration of my experience to this point to made clear and to provide those of you who peddle in information to have something in your back pocket of someone who knows where a skeptical speculator in anything that is not considered "a non-traditional investment."

For a quick point of reference I was first told about this when there were rumblings of it starting I believe back in early May, but I am not positive, but somewhere right in there. For a month I told my buddy @davemccoy who was letting me know about it, "It's interesting, yeah sure, okay, I'll get to it in a bit." And after his explanations of what exactly he thought was going on I became intrigued and dumbfounded very quickly at the upside in this.

At that time I had begun to power down my account, I think before I even started talking about the game, not exactly sure but I do know where the powered down steem went from my account, in fact all of it. Virtually every dime (with the exception of a few post promotions and other tiny odds and ends on steemit) went into buying the alpha cards. At the time they had characters, no abilities, no stats, no numbers or any other markings only card type and color...and it was up to everyone to guess rampantly what cards were going to do what and become valuable.

Over this time I was lucky enough to flip and trade my way up to a very nice collection with some fiat included of course, and took what was about 1000 steempower that was powered down into a collection of cards I just checked to be worth about $7200 at the moment, which I am proud of and laugh at the time and effort included, there is more sweat equity in there than I would like to admit but it was a blast building all of this up. Of course steem prices were different year over year as of right now so the cards accumulated pretty quickly. I would buy for X, and sell for X plus whatever tiny margin I could muster at the time. Sometimes flipping cards and buying the same card back several times a week. I can remember cringing when the cards started going up and my pal @davemccoy having conversation along the lines of "Half a steem for this alpha epic, that's getting too rich for my blood," when a card would get bought heavily on the market. Now just about every alpha epic is trading north of a buck, some of them well over a buck which is at the moment about 3 steem of course.

I stayed with it, got really heavy into the golds, put together a really nice collection, maxed out most of the alphas, maxed out a lot of beta golds, got a couple of maxed out alpha golds and was thrilled when the cards starting rising in value. It seemed like a validation in a way of what I was certain to come with time as the came was developed and grew.

As steem continued to fall greatly I kept buying it, and then buying heavily when it went it up swapping steem for cards and haven't really stopped since. I share this because having followed this really close (again, close enough that it is almost an embarrassing level to admit in public) I see some things around the bend that can be tremendous boons for the game and those that are involved in the community of the steemmonsters/splinterlands crowd.

Guild play is fairly close to coming out, within the next month is fairly safe to say as head game designer @yabapmatt has hinted on discord. He is an unbelievably laid back, very calm character when it comes to talking about the game. So when he starts using any superlatives with any excitement around them it gets my instant attention. To paraphrase what I read on discord DEC will be a big deal in guild play. Other things may as well though I have not heard for certain on that but the ingenious breakthroughs in this game that have come out especially recently have shattered my imagination for what is expected and how well it has turned out DEC being a prime example. That alone has created a much higher floor and created immediate liquidity to those that have cards they'd like to move, as well as existing holders creating scarcity of those cards as they can be burned for DEC to be gone forever from an already announced limited print run on everything.

Having seen some heavier buyers, especially as of late, having 40k packs basically get gobbled up last week overnight, along with a massive supply of DEC and orbs has those that follow closely intrigued to say the least with their successful campaign of introducing the Tron TRX community in their booster seed campaign recently.

So without further chatter here is my prediction of what the above chart will look like within thirty days of the full release of @steemmonsters guild play: I think the value will see an instant 25% pop up, currently pegged right at $2 million this could easily see $2.5 million. A stretch estimate can carry this as high as $3 million (maybe even more if there is a continued frenzy) as mentioned before what DEC did to cards values overnight was staggering. Gold cards given away as quest rewards went from as low ten cents a common to instantly 50,60, then eventually settling at 75 cents a piece (conservatively-with many of them higher up to 20-25% consistently above a 1/10 cent DEC value), along with rare golds seeing an eventual price of $3 with some of them trading as low 20-25 cents at one point. Epics the same with the golds seeing bottoms of under 4 and 5 dollars easy on the market prior to DEC release have steadied easily at 15 dollars minimum with most trading at a premium to the above-mentioned DEC value. Gold legendary reward cards sat as low 25 dollars to be valued at a minimum of $75, with most all now trading at a 85-$100+ now. That is one example and their best as of late in boosting value for the card holders and participants in the game and I think guild play could bring that kind of hype and excitement, and then some.

The possibilities here are quite endless with the ingenious game play and programming being the limits of so far have certainly not upset this original monster holder but actually blown my mind at how successful so many new game feature rollouts and promos have been in spreading the word about this blockchain game that is a game within itself accumulating a collection for whatever your uses of the cards are for.

My educated guess is a bold one, and I don't put these kinds of speculations out there lightly. This game has thrived in the midst of what turned out to be nearly a year long "crypto depression," (or panic in the least) so the resilience in this game and its team and community is one to not bet against. The excitement and value created could very likely send DEC prices soaring and card prices as well, especially when considering the line between readily available cards on the market and genuine scarcity is coming very close. With new people coming in and buying more heavily these cards to get leveled by any group of a relatively small crowd could send these cards to prices many of us have not imagined, creating a possible arbitrage opportunity for investors that want to rip open packs and sell the cards they don't want for their profit or break-even point. This was done a lot in the early days with the alpha packs, but the difference now is that the cards can be burned for DEC and they have a very solid backing in floor value because of this and what DEC has come to mean in value for the player. If DEC becomes scarce in the least bit this also could create a frenzy the likes of which could be shocking and send the steemmonsters/splinterlands into FOMO the likes of which I could not even imagine, again. This chart may not want to buy too many clothes currently because the 2.5 million max will not take into account the growth spurt that I think this valuation has in store for us in the events to soon unfold.

I welcome your comments, questions and any general discussions you would like to have on this. I don't not put this estimate out lightly, and will certainly eat my share of crow in future discussions if I am wrong here, but my confidence in the team of developers in this game is high enough and the current market dynamics in the game in my humble opinion and careful consideration warrant this bold prediction. This information was free and for your entertainment purpose, take it for what its worth. Also, if you check my steemit account you may see that my account is powering down, for where that steem is going there are some very good hints in the hash tags below.