Market

The market is a feature released as part of Dragon Cave's 12th Birthday Release. With it, a new in-game currency called shards was introduced to the game, which players can earn by raising eggs, breeding their dragons, and participating in other site activities. Players can then save up these shards to purchase eggs from the market. Players can earn up to 100 shards per week, and this limit is reset every Sunday.

Purchasing eggs
In order to purchase an egg from the market, the user must first have unlocked the egg in the Dragon Encyclopedia. Every egg in the market costs at least 100 shards. If the player chooses to buy an egg from the market, they'll be taken to a screen to confirm their purchase. Eggs are nonrefundable, are not immune to sickness, cannot be traded, and have their habitat listed as "Market".

On August 26, 2018, an update to the market was released; several previously unavailable location-specific breeds are now available for purchase in the market. These location-specific variants may not behave like their counterparts from their respective biomes when breeding due to being clearly marked as from the "market."

Market values
The market value for any egg may change over time. TJ09 has stated that the following principles apply to the market's concept values:


 * The market should never supplant the cave/hunting in the cave.
 * The market's primary value is smoothing out the randomness of the cave.
 * Getting currency should not be a "grind" or require crazy levels of activity.
 * Things not in the cave are not currently available in the market.
 * Breeds with location-specific alts are not currently available in the market.
 * Market prices will roughly respect cave over-/under-population. It's not a 1:1 match to "rarity" (especially when comparing breeds—breed A being more expensive than B does not necessarily mean there are fewer breed A eggs made in the cave), but it does mean that prices will go up as a breed becomes more overpopulated.

A market watch has been set up on the Dragon Cave forums, where users discuss price changes and log price data in a tracker on a weekly basis.

Earning shards
The following actions are known to produce shards:
 * 5 shards: Pick up an egg from any habitat.
 * 3 shards: Hatch an egg on your scroll.
 * 3 shards: Hatchling matures to adulthood on your scroll.
 * 2 shards: Breed an egg from your dragons (unsuccessful attempts do not give shards).
 * 1 shard: Pick up an egg from the abandoned page.
 * 1 shard: Review a pending dragon description.

Currently no shards are known to accumulate from Breed Specific Actions, including the various types of summoning.