Thoughts on dCrops Before ALPHA Packs are Gone

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Disclaimer: None of this is financial advice. Just do your own research before you put money into the game.

dCrops is a passive farming simulator cryptogame built on top of Hive blockchain. You plant seeds on land and wait for them to grow, harvest in exchange for shares in the reward pool, and earn CROP tokens based on your shares acquired.

At the time of this writing, the amount of ALPHA packs left on the market is near 18,000 packs out of 50,000 packs initially put up on sale. @dcrops has experienced a recent surge of new names onboarded which contributed to the rise in sales (and holding rewards).

For players that have stacked up a large amount of CROP power these passed few days, you would notice the trend of having high APR values along with the price of CROP on the market being a good thing. Well yeah, ALPHA packs run out and we’re stuck with the curation rewards as a source of the reward pool for CROP holders. That 211% APY selling point would have to drop.

Remember that 30% of the Hive collected from pack sales goes to the reward pool for CROP holders. Other avenues of funding the pool include earning from curation and author rewards (the account isn’t posting often). So what happens when all those packs are sold and no more 30% Hive flowing to the reward pool?

Unless new editions are released right after ALPHA packs are gone, holders may just have to be contented with the decreased in income from holding rewards as more holders join in the club diluting the pool for everyone else. We aren’t given a time table when BETA packs will be released and it may not be anytime soon. Every 15 days (duration of a season in game) more CROP is put into circulation and this creates more competition for the reward pool both for CROP and Holding rewards paid in liquid Hive.

On one hand, it’s great that new users are taking more interest at the game, on the other hand this growth and the hype around the returns may create some false expectations from new users prioritizing return on investment. Wait till players realize that every 15 days that passes in game also means their card’s efficiency at getting them CROP also decreases relative to how much active cards are used within the season. Go back to how CROP power is computed.

Realize that you can only use your Spring seed cards during Spring and it’s CROP power contribution is reduced to half for 45 days after Spring ends. If 1 Broccoli (Common) card can hypothetically get you 7 shares (21 shares if 3 stars) from the reward pool, you may get 50 CROP tokens by the end of the season (let’s pretend it does). By the next cycle when Spring comes again, the same amount of shares will just earn you a hypothetical amount of 20 CROP tokens. Why?

The maximum supply of the reward pool per season decreases 0.5% that each new season that comes after. New packs are opened and new players can join to compete for the pool rewards thus further diluting your claim from the pool each season.

There is little use case for CROP other than selling it once you earned it or hold for holding rewards. But when the holding rewards aren’t being profitable as they used to, it’s reasonable to expect CROP selling pressure to come sooner once those ALPHA packs run out and more content for the game is nowhere in sight.

Tips and Previous Tips

• Acquire more Land > Seed when you’re factoring in CROP power for holding rewards. Seeds can only be used in their respective seasons and are half their burn value when not active. Land is different, it’s always active as long as you got the right seed to plant on it. Its not limited by whatever time of the season is which makes it more valuable than their equivalent seed rarity (and I can argue 4x more than their equivalent seed rarity for all seasons).

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• If you’re just after the holding rewards, it’s better to just buy packs and hold as these give you instant 2,000 CROP each and 10 of them can make you eligible for holding rewards if you hold them for 15 days.

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• Tomato has the lowest return for shares among other EPIC seeds unless you can time the plant and harvest to maximize it’s ability to keep reproducing after each harvest. It’s a good card compared seeds below its league.

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• The bonus chances to produce an extra crop for lands isn’t really a big deal unless you got a large farm where the smallest percent of chance can affect your numbers. For small to medium farmers, land stats hardly matter. But if anyone is curious about my opinions on which land is better, EPIC > LEGEND. It’s the 10% that matters more and the higher drop rate for epic over legendary makes me lean on wanting EPIC lands instead. The benefits aren’t really going to make an impact for smaller players but for those constantly trying to top the leader boards this stat will matter. Another redeeming quality of a legendary land is the extra plot compared to an EPIC land but if you ask me by price, rarity, and practicality, you’re better off just buying 4 average lands as the bonus rates aren’t a big deal.

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• For Winter: Peas > Radish, For Fall Garlic = Carrot, For Summer Wheat > Turnip, For Spring Broccoli = Kale. This only applies if you got a lot of seed in stock but less land as you can only use 1 seed once per season. Wheat takes 4 days to harvest so if you stock up more of these, you can get more mileage on a single land just by using 3 Wheat seeds on it (per slot so if you got more slots, the better).

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• If you stand in front of a mirror during midnight with the lights off alone, say @scriptkittie 13 times for max giggles.

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• Selling only half of your crops harvested for a season and carrying them over to the next season to be sold increases your shares over the pool but not sure where it’s statistically significant to be worth doing as a small farmer. Not selling for 3 seasons and dumping it all on one go on the last season can be fun if you whaled the game and had a lot of harvested crops. The leaders boards can be even be more competitive if people can see previous stats and keep track of who’s who and what they got.

Other Shower Thoughts:

• When you’re using CROP to buy more packs, you’re not exactly adding more to the reward pool but double dipping on your speculation that this game would get you more kickback than what you initially put into. The reward pool needs more people funding it from pack sales at the time of this writing. If more players acquire their CROP from the market other than the site, this means they can use those CROP to buy more packs. No hive gets added to the reward pool.

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• dCrops will exist as long as the cat keeps working on it. If you read the terms and conditions, no where in that page mentions the devs are obligated to help you earn or ensure you get a return on investment for your time playing. In the even that the cat decides to call in quits and gives up on the game, you’re just left with a string of codes with an attached png file, some tokens worth nothing, and a none working website for the game. Pray that the cat doesn’t get hit by a bus and still have motivation to continue the game and endure this community.

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• While most people have been hooked into cryptogames for the money, they forget that cryptogames have their own inherent risks like monetary consequences and loss of digital assets. It has been mentioned over discord that if you got your account compromised and theft happened, dCrops won’t be giving you back your stuff even if you can prove you’ve been hacked. There’s safety net unlike games where there’s a support ticket and you got second chances on recovering your in game assets.

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• Saying @scriptkittie 13 times in front of a mirror at midnight when the lights are off is not going to summon the cat.

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• Players that think they are “investing” in the game are just gambling for potential profit and kickbacks. While anyone can still say they will earn from the game, it’s only when more people put their money into the game that generates your potential income and that’s only possible if the game continues development.

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• I was one of the earliest players of the game and only spent 100$ on it. I understood that this was 100$ USD for entertainment and gambling for potential kickbacks as the nature of cryptogames usually go. I would love to see the game grow big as it becomes a huge pay off but in the event that it gets rug pulled, I wouldn’t be sore about it. As far as I’m considered I just paid for entertainment (I spend five times more monthly on stupid things like waifu collection, this is nothing). The game doesn’t have a lot of content to go on and it’s hype is perpetuated by speculation.

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• It would really suck for new players to join only to see their returns diminish over time with new content nowhere in sight. And it would be even harder for people that just bothered with the game because of the potential returns. As a cryptogame, it’s going to be normal to see a divided player base where some are just sticking around for the money playing to earn vs for kicks and giggles with side kickbacks as incentives. We’re currently in the sunny days of the game and we’ll see how the community reacts when the rainy days come.

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• While card collecting may not be profitable especially when the rainy days come, it will have it’s time to shine when artificial scarcity kicks in. It is hinted that card burns will be a mechanic in exchange for better cards so even a useless piece of land may be a component for something better but that’s just speculation. If I learned anything about market behavior when artificial scarcity is used, it’s that even useless NFTs get highly valued without any practical impact on their stats other than these being rare collectibles so maybe it’s worth the gamble to be a bag holder one day.

These post dividers were made by @cre47iv3
If you made it this far reading, thank you for your time.

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