The Site

Cardsphere was only an idea in 2016, so there's an awful lot of ground to cover when reviewing 2017. This was the year everything became real. It's been busy. All-consuming at times, but most of all very rewarding.

Not only because we did what many people said we would not: deliver the product. Not only because together with all of you, we have built an excellent reputation. Not only because we're happy to be trading online again.

But also because we've had an awful lot of fun, and made loads of new friends. Cardsphere started as a legal entity that meant Michael Baranov, Tom Reece and Ted Rodney. But that's not really what it is anymore.

Not even close.

Cardsphere is real collaboration to build something we all want to use together.

Cardsphere is helping your friend find that 7th edition foil she wants.

We're shitposters and trolls (who really aren't).

We're pickup MTGO games with cheap, crazy decks.

We're knowing why NE OH is the center of the universe.

We're "Welcome to Cardsphere, I love you."

We're fantasy football trash talk in #pub.

We're stickers and custom tokens and funny avatars.

We're the hustle for VG cards.

We're about forgetting old fights so we can make new friends.

And we're always getting better.

Since launch, there have been 48 deployments of new Cardsphere code to production. All of these are described in our changelog. In 2018 you can expect to see us continuing weekly deployments with incremental improvements week over week.

2017-05-27 - Launch

2017-11-06 - 5,000 users

2017-12-29 - 100,000 trades worth over $350K reached

Social & Support

Number of Reddit subscribers: 782

Number of Facebook followers: 247

Number of Twitter followers: 351

Number of Discord members: 394

Number of support tickets received: 90

Number of support articles published: 33

Number of blog articles published: 32

The People

Number of business accounts: 62

Number of premium accounts: 38

Number of referred users: 17

Number of messages sent: 41,651

Number of users named Michael : 171

: 171 Named Tom : 85

: 85 Named Ted : 12

: 12 Named Efren: 2

...and there'll of course always be only one Frank.

Top Ten Countries by User Count

United States of America (4,484) Canada (532) Brazil (209) Australia (157) Great Britain (116) Italy (53) Germany (43) Denmark (33) Netherlands (26) Portugal (24)

Top 20 All-time Senders (Number of Cards)

Top 20 All-time Senders (Value)

The Trades

Value of most expensive card traded: $531.50

Average package size: 3.68 items

Largest package: 445

Average value of traded cards: $3.58

Number of cards available for trade (excluding multiples per user): 1,389,816

Including those that are Non-English: 34,456

Number of Wants (excluding multiple copies per user): 91,016

Including those that allow more than one language: 5,881

First 10 Unique Cards Traded

Top 20 All-time Items Traded

Disappointingly, only a single Slitherhead has been traded throughout Cardsphere's existence.

Cash In and Out

Number of times funds were added: 2,126

Number of users who added funds at least once: 565

Number who added funds more than once: 327

Most times a single user added funds: 50

Largest cash out request: $5,555.56

Total amount cashed out: $76,401.23

Most money ever in escrow (value of cards in transit): $25,332.02

Money held by all users: $65121.04

What Comes Next?

In 2018 our plan is to keep on as we have been doing, improving the platform incrementally each week, and adding even more value with the content on the blog. Over the last few days I have been knocking out contracts for authors and streamers, many of whom developed out from the community itself.

There's still lot of work to be done. We have whole areas of our vision that remain untouched to date, and we'll be looking to rectify that in the short-term. As always, keep your eyes and ears open for weekly news on what we're doing.

We can't say thank you enough to the community members who put in that extra effort to welcome new users, spread the word through social media, run our secret santa and just be generally awesome. We're most especially thankful that as much love as you guys give back, you're clear in your expectations. We have to keep the quality and the commitment up.

Woadworks goes full Dread Pirate Roberts, even: "Good work today, Cardsphere. Sleep well. I'll most likely troll you in the morning." So far, so good. Phew.

Many of you we speak to on a daily basis, so you've heard all this before. But it's just so hard to stop saying:

Thank you.

Michael, Tom, and Ted.