Hey guys! Like @aggroed, I've also been very into stats and looking at them truly fascinates me, which is why I've written articles like this to help more people better understand the stats and probabilities involved in Steem Monsters!

In response to @aggroed's article here, I'd just like to start of by saying how excited I am for the future of Steem Monsters! I'm pretty sure I have more money in Steem Monsters cards than in Steem now! I am a massive believer once alpha/gold only tournaments come and delegations are live, we're gonna see a MASSIVE increase in the price of alpha cards.

This article will mainly talk about Steem Monsters as an investment, not just a game

Steem Monsters Market Cap

This figure should be continuously increasing, not just because card prices are going up but because more and more packs are being open. I feel like this is quite a good indicator of the overall game's success, but not necessarily the success of Steem Monsters as an investment!

I propose a new metric, the expected value of packs or E(packs)! I plan on doing somewhat daily posts regarding the expected value of an alpha and beta pack. This is more of a true indication of Steem Monsters as an investment, since it averages out the price of all cards.

Growing Community

I have personally heard rumors of a lot of big money (5 figures USD in crypto) coming into Steem Monsters soon, which should shake up the market even further! Once I'm done with exams, I also plan to invite a few of my personal friends into the ecosystem! For those that have been following me for a while, you'd know that no one in real life knows about my Steemit username apart from one friend @doobid, who doesn't really use his account anymore anyway. So this will be a big step for me coming out to the rest of the world about my true identity here on Steemit, and my Steemit identity in real life!

Anyways, back on track. What I'm trying to say is with the limited supply of alphas and the increasing utility of alpha cards, I expect to see collectors flock to grab up what's available on the market! The current prices of commons averages around $0.17, but I expect that to more than double soon as more and more people combine them to create max level cards.

Delegation

Finally, this MASSIVE news! Although we've always heard talks of it, it's never been so concretely cemented that it will become a feature. Now that it has, I'm more confident in my investment than ever!!

Theoretical Example

For example, if there's a $1000 tournament a week + 7* $100, and you expect to have a 10% chance to win just one $100 tournament but you don't have cards. Let's say you're just missing one card so you're prepared to spent $5 a week leasing it out for an expected return of $10 (not including leaderboard/PVP packs). Now if someone is prepared to lease it out for $5 a week, that card can earn you 5*52 = $520 per year! If you have 10 cards at that you can be earning $5200 per year passive income just from 10 cards (probably max level alpha/alpha golds).

Now, let's assume you want a 10% ROI, that puts the price of those cards at around $5200 EACH! That to me is just crazy.