There currently is a crazy oversupply in card assets in Splinterlands with no real action in order to fix it which is one of the main reasons for the current death spiral since everyone who plays the game is most invested in this asset. Here is why there is a need to really fix it and possibly how...

Chaos Legion Packs Price = 0.29$ Now

While at max price, Chaos Legion Packs went for 5$ each, right now with 2 Million+ that are still unopened in circulation, they go for just 0.29$! This means that everyone who got into the game during the main adoption phase got absolutely wrecked. They also bought Untamed cards at crazy peak prices which for a single card at that time you paid more compared to a max level now. One of the main issues in the game for the economy is that there always have been an army of bots that were trying to extract as much value from the game as possible. Measures were taken to end this which seems to have worked but right now the cost is being paid which comes in the form of extreme price drops in pretty much every asset in the game. (Cards, SPS, DEC, SPT, Node Licenses, Vouchers ...

Card Oversupply Failsafe Mechanism

The game in a way has a failsafe mechanism build into it in case there are too many cards and no demand whatsoever. As each of the non-soulbound cards has a DEC Burn value, it is possible to burn them creating deflation in Cards at the cost of an inflation of DEC. The main downside is that this causes a DEC selloff making it go way under peg and an environment where more SPS is created with no incentive to burns any SPS. This creates a Death Spiral market where DEC, SPS, and Cards just continue to drop in price. Eventually, there will be a moment when everyone who wanted out capitulated at a big loss and a decreased supply in cards puts the game again al a level where there is some scarcity so prices can go up again. This now is the 2nd time the game is going through this phase. Last time it was 'solved' by creating yet another asset in the game with SPS which can't be pulled again as there are already way to many different assets and currencies.

The Problem of Low Card Values!

I would say at least 99 of the players of the game see their card collection as their main investment in the game which they want to see maintained or rising value in or at least some kind of continued return. Nobody in their right mind is willing to pay 3$-5$ for a pack when almost knowing for sure that cards will become more and more useless as time passes by. New players that come into the ecosystem also will see that cards are bound to get crushed in prices as Max Level older cards containing 400 Common copies are cheaper compared to a single pack with 5 cards which most likely had 4 commons and a rare in it. So with nobody (aside from the hardcore whale players who don't care) willing to buy new packs, the game doesn't get enough revenue to keep going properly. It clearly can be seen in the Rebellion Sales as only 840k packs so far were opened and over 4.4 Million have been burned.

Solving The Card Oversupply!

With a new set of Soulbound Reward cards coming, there will be a way to unlock the current set. How it looks like it will be done right now to me is the worst possible way in that the only benefit that unlocking gives is that you are able to sell and rent the cards. The price to unlock will be at least 10x the DEC burn value and it will become more expensive as time moves on until a point where they no longer can be unlocked.This basically becomes a game of speculation with the only real reason to unlock is the hope that one day new players come in that want to buy the card and the supply is smaller than the demand so the ones that paid to unlock can sell for a small or bigger profit.

I believe this will create a low drive of players who want to pay the high price to unlock and in the future possibly a big advantage for older players in ranked as they can keep using the soulbound cards while newer players might have to pay a lot for them in order to be somewhat competitive.

How Soulbound Unlocks Should Be Done!
I don't believe that it should be possible to continue earning at 100% just with Soulbound cards and I do think that the unlock is a great opportunity to lower the oversupply or at least not make it even bigger.

1. Card Burn Requirement for Unlocking: Each unlock should require a similar type card to be burned (along with max 2x the DEC burn value), So a common Life cards requires a common Life Card to be burned, a Rare Water Summoner cards requires a rare water summoner cards to be burned, a Legendard of a certain spinter requires another legendary of that Splinter. This would create an actual demand of people buying older cards pushing the price up while they get burned. If for each Reward set this was the case, it means that these cause zero actual card inflation and players that buy new sets will know that there will be some kind of demand for them in the future.

2. Bonus % for Games with no Soulbound Cards: Instead of 'punishing' players for using soulbound cards that have or had the option to be unlocked, just reward players who do have them unlocked or use none of these soulbound cards in their decks. This can be done gradually starting with a small % that ramps up slowly but surely during the unlock period. I would also not mind a 50%+ reward cut for players that use 4 or more Soulbound cards in their match just to avoid continued extraction from bots or players.

Conclusion!

The oversupply in cards has gotten Splinterlands in a Death Spiral and the Unlock of Soulbound cards should be and excellent way to actually start fixing this issue. As long as cards continue to go at such low prices, there is zero intention for anyone to ever buy new packs or cards and the game is pretty much dead in the water.There is no point in getting new players in the game if they are unwilling to buy packs or cards because it's clear that they will get crushed on them!