You've heard the phrase - 'play to earn' games, right? So have I. I've been involved with hundreds over my years of fervent gaming. Playing to earn means that you play a game and it gives you some kind of reward that you can use in real life. A lot of those would be considered gambling, but life is one big gambit, is it not? None, however, have granted me with the massive payout I have gotten recently from #splinterlands.

History

Before I get too into my fresh earnings exploits, I want to share with you a few of the things that led me to today, here and now. I've been in the gaming scene since I was 6 and a giant yellow and black thingy that plugged into the TV where my cousin and I just watched a little square bounce between a few lines was invented. Then other things came out and I got older. I visited arcades frequently in high school and college and had several consoles like the NES and Sega lineages.

I've also always been a collector. My first collections were rocks. That progressed onto coins and when I was 9, my grandfather bought me pack of Donruss baseball cards. It was the blue borders, if anyone remembers and was collecting back then. I still buy cards to this day.

Then, my two passions started to combine in the likes of a few games called Pokemon, Yu Gi Oh and Magic: The Gathering. I thought this was wicked awesome! I have the cards from games I like to play! I like Pikachu so much, I just bought some oversized card binder a few days ago - just because it came with a huge Pikachu card.

Enter #Cryptocurrency

While I was working at a printing factory, back in early 2010, a friend of mine said, "hey, you ever heard of #Bitcoin?" No, but since it was a coin, it had me intrigued. We set up some miners and got a handful, but they weren't even worth a penny so they have long since been lost in a junk pile on a smashed hard drive somewhere.

As fate would have it, coins would still tease me and a little over four years ago, along comes this Hive thing and a few of my favorite game types started popping up! Card games! One was called Drug Wars, which I did make a few dollars on. Another that came out right about the same time, was Splinterlands. I loved this one because of the monsters - it reminded me heavily of Yu Gi Oh. So, I went pretty much 'all-in'.

Present Day

Splinterlands did something unique though, that at the time, was brand new. Non-Fungible-Tokenization. #NFTs. I didn't quite understand what @aggroed was talking about, until I did. When I say unique, it was exactly that. Each and every card has what is comparable to a serial number attached, making them limited edition prints of each card. I could then see a whole new world open up and made sure I set aside a little here and there to build up a decent collection. In total, I think I invested just under $10,000 USD to amass everything I have had.

Playing To Earn

This game also introduced a system where you could earn cards, get airdrops and collect the in-game currency known as DEC (Dark Energy Crystals) through completing daily quests, ranking in tournaments and season rewards. They've only added more badassery since then with the introduction of the SPS governance tokens and the hot-off-the-press Merits from guild wars. I have constantly rerolled my earnings back into the game. On the SPS alone, in the first week, I had made back what I put into the game. I had finally succeeded in the play-to-earn category.

Sure, I could have sold some cards and I did try. I had a Gold Foil Alpha Gold Dragon up once for $1000 a little less than 2 years ago. I even dropped it to $500 after a week and nobody bought it. That same card - I sold a few days ago for $10,000!!! One card. That officially doubled my investment into this game and put me in profit.

And that graphic? Pure profit. I just sold one of my decks and am in awe that it went so fast. It wasn't more than a few weeks ago, that I had them listed for $30,000 less than that. I thank the people like @asgarth and @jarvie over there on @peakmonsters that run their escrow service. Through them, I was able to collect $148,000 USD (in DEC minus their 6% fee for the service) for 6 sets I had listed. Can you believe that? The other one there, the $26,000? That went directly to me as a buyer preferred not to swap a whole bunch of currencies that had just come to the game. $184,000 USD total in the past three days ladies and gentlemen.

$184,000😱

IN THE PAST 3 DAYS! I mean, is that even possible? But then again, when you look at what NFTs can go for these days? It is entirely possible and I am living proof of that. That's enough to buy a house in most places. Several vehicles. Honestly, that's more than I've ever made in a single year of working any legitimate job ever (had a few close to 6 figures). So guess what? I can now proudly wear the title - #thecryptopimp.

And all for what? Because I'm me. I have stayed true to myself despite being bashed on various corners on and off chain. This is a success story. One you can show your friends and family and say hey, I know a man that just made a boatload of money from cryptocurrency and ya know the best part? It was doing something he loved - playing a game. REMEMBER TO BE YOU MY LOVELY HUMANS! I always am, even while waiting for new Chaos to emerge.