PORT Harbor — February ‘22

A Monthly Letter from the Founders

ANCHOR POINT

Cross winds and typhoons -

Historically, turbulent seas have toughened any sailor worth his salt. Venturing into the deep black night and being tossed about, with monsters all around you will do that I suppose. Yet, no sea-faring adventurer has ever stumbled upon any bountiful treasure without first braving the unknown, yielding himself to the violent chop of the open ocean, and staying the course.

In many ways, the crypto markets are synonymous with the rhythm of the sea. Sometimes calm and peaceful, other times erratic and dangerous. Nevertheless, with a proper heading, a sturdy vessel, and experienced crewmen, pressing into the storm can bring you out on the other side with fresh winds effortlessly guiding you towards treasure island.

Today, financial markets (and digital assets) are thrashing against all those who have set sail. Amid inflation, wars and rumors of wars, there is uncertainty all around. Yet it is these very conditions that can turn some of you new boots and greenhorns into proper mariners. Those pirates and explorers in times past who weathered the storm, reached new lands and treasure on the other side, and so shall we press into the storm, with confidence because we trust our heading is true.

Our platform is growing in value week by week. And while the markets may not indicate as much, those who are privy to the enterprise services being readied for the world, feel a calm in the chaos. Knowing that PackagePortal will soon exist outside of the boundaries of any single network or market pairing, instills a peace and confidence, as we have full assurance of value being added to all involved, and not simply extracted from latecomers.

The APP

We spent January planning for our year and getting succinct goals that would guide the product. The primary objective that emerged was this: increase daily active users. Consequently, if we can give more value to our users every day, it will attract merchants to connect with our users, benefiting everyone.

For the product to give more daily value to our users, we must add more ways to earn XPORT. The proof-of-receipt confirmation will still be an important way to earn, and remain our core service to merchants, but we are working on two huge features that will allow users to monetize even more of their e-commerce consumer data.

By giving consumers more points of engagement beyond mere package arrival, we open up lots more optionality for earning, in parallel with loads of more data sets for merchants. We are targeting beginning of April to release these, along with a new dynamic referral system & new-user onboarding process. We are very excited to get these features into the hands of our users, and to push even further ahead along the cutting edge of technology, with a fun new and balanced user experience for frictionless engagement.

THE BUSINESS

Just as markets continue to chop, we continue to plow ahead. Business Development has been in hyper drive for months now, and we are beginning to approach some various milestones for Q2.

We’ve been in serious talks with 3 exchanges over the last few weeks, and are ready to list on one, as soon as we check a few more boxes. The most important of which, is a new ERC-20 contract. Since our existing ERC token was set up hastily by Switcheo and Zilliqa team members, without our explicit instruction for parameters, and had people outside of our company with access and ownership at one point, we have not had peace about the security of the existing contract enough to deploy heavy supplies through that bridge to wrap more PORT. So we are deploying a new contract in March, and thereafter will begin to migrate tokens for CEX listings and liquidity provision. More details to come next month.

On another note, we are currently engaged with numerous venture capital and private equity firms, in regards to our traditional (non-token) seed round. We intend to use the funds raised to double our engineering team, and hire experienced sales and community managers. These hires will enable us to build faster and fork our backend to multiple other blockchains for real interoperability, and to better manage our community of users as we convert prospects into clients.

THE TOKENS

PORT has suffered immense drawdowns over the last month, right in step with the macro market, as BTC continues to test various support lines. If market volatility amid war and inflation wasn’t enough, we’ve also seen major regime change at Zilliqa Research, and investors are rightly worried about the future of the platform under new and unproven leadership, as brilliant founders continue to depart.

While these things are troublesome, be reassured that PackagePortal exists outside the confines of any single blockchain. No doubt we have invested countless hours and resources into Zilliqa, and our upcoming implementations will leverage new token standards and network upgrade features. However, PackagePortal’s driving force is not reliant upon any single blockchain to provide value. Our proprietary software and processes are chain agnostic, and that will become more plainly evident in H2 of this year.

In the meantime, market cap and token price are much lower than what we’d all like, and is not indicative of the value this platform brings to merchants and both non-crypto natives, and crypto OG’s alike. As we begin to make PORT more accessible with listings, and more valuable with partnerships, our innovation and unique service proposition will soon be evident for all to see.

A Final Word:

By J.G. Whitley, CEO

I like to close out these newsletters with a final word, that I write up on the morning of publishing, so that I can capture any relevant news that may trickle in last minute. This morning, I learned with many of you that Jun Hao is leaving Zilliqa Research, just days after confirmation that Amrit has parted ways as well.

Having been a community member of ZIL for 4 solid years, it pains me to learn that the pioneers and founders of something I’ve loved so dearly, for so long, have been seemingly discarded by the board of directors. As chairman of a board myself, I understand the big-picture strain of stewarding a company, and feelings sometimes being hurt by unpleasant change. But as a founder, my heartbreaks for those who pour their lives out for a cause from the beginning, to then be under-appreciated, under-valued, and made to feel unwelcome.

The crypto space is a fickle one. New fads and trends will arise nearly as often as the sun, and capital will follow hype, but only what is built with a strong foundation will last in such a turbulent space. In a building, that means concrete and rebar. In a ship, it means a sturdy keel and hull. For a business, that means founding team members and mission. Sometimes people leave and the mission can be pivoted. Ultimately, time will be the judge of any ship’s captain, and will show whether or not his heading is true, and if he can train and lead a new crew.

For this, I’m grateful for my team. For our unified vision and motives, as well as for our agility and cohesiveness. Hiring well and mitigating bureaucratic processes gives team members the freedom and flexibility needed for their experience to mesh with their creativity, and enables quality production. The fruit from a tree you plant and nurture with friends tastes much sweeter than fruit from any market. The only thing better is scaling that tree to become an orchard, able to feed and nourish many; providing shelter for creatures, with shade and food to the weary wanderer.

So let’s sew this seed!

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