PORT Harbor — September ‘21

A Monthly Newsletter from the Founders

Anchor Point

Even though summer has officially ended and autumn has begun, things here are still heating up with PackagePortal. We released the KYC update earlier this month, and have had over a thousand verified users successfully complete the process.

We will continue to back-fill any valid scans from KYC’d users in batches, to be distributed at least once per week until the launch of V2; after which all retroactive crediting will end. A second batch just went out today. So go get your KYC complete sooner than later, you’ll be happy you did.

Q4 is shaping up to be explosive for us, with V2 going live before mid-quarter, followed by more positive news and announcements. We’ll have additional feature releases that will come in waves over the final months of the year, as we begin to press into the wider crypto communities, thanks to the ZIL Bridge.

On that note, we’ll be watching the ZIL — ETH bridge contracts for a short time before migrating tokens to the ERC standard. But its only a matter of days (from time of publishing) before we see $PORT being delivered to multiple Ethereum based DEXes, as well as applying to list on a few select CEXes.

Our staking contracts are coming along nicely too. We plan to roll that out before year’s end. We’re also working on some off-chain rewards that are designed to increase daily active use, as well as features for the users who aren’t ready to create or add a wallet.

Overall, as V2 rolls out, we intend to focus our energies on driving traffic to the app to increase our user base beyond a single blockchain community. Incentivizing online shoppers to engage with crypto, (& introducing more humans to the digital revolution) is a goal of ours that can’t be priced in.

The APP

Version 1.1.2 is live in both app stores, with the most notable improvement being the introduction of KYC. This feature acts as a fraud filter, protecting and hardening the validity of scan data.

Lots of other stability improvements have been added to provide a smoother user experience. And we fixed some bugs that were causing a few users to see unconfirmed reward confirmations (false green checks), in addition to some reported login issues.

We’re also excited about hiring a very talented design studio to revamp and elevate the overall user flow and visual elements for V2.

They’ll help with a new web app too, which we hope to launch later this year. Users will be able to connect wallets and do some fun Web3 stuff. That’s all the detail we can share at this time.

THE BUSINESS

Developments and relationships on the business front remain ongoing and fruitful. We continue to have incredibly valuable conversations with the right people at the right time, and we’re seeing a growing number of excited supporters champion our protocol within their networks.

We’ve made further inroads with the Wyoming Secretary of State’s office as well. We’ll keep those developments under wraps until the time is right to share, but it’s important for us to communicate to users the ways in which we are nurturing our relationships with regulators. It’s not easy being a US-based crypto startup, but we’re up to the task, & we’re making influential friends…not enemies.

Finally, a very important part of any company, is protecting product and innovation. As such, we’ve pursued strategic protection of our intellectual property, having successfully registered our trademark with the USPTO over the summer. What’s even more exciting is that after months of application reviews and amendments, our new delivery confirmation and rewards system is now Patent Pending in the US, with international applications in the wings!

So…that’s kind of a big deal.

THE TOKENS

PORT has had some wild fluctuations over its short lifespan, and this month was no different, ranging in market value from $2.18 to $9.03. The volatility comes from a number of factors; low liquidity on a single DEX being the main driving force. Despite everything we’ve seen, PORT is still ranging around 5x above its initial launch price.

The ZIL community has had exclusive access to PORT for over 10 months now; end of November is the one year mark. It’s been a wonderful opportunity for our home team, but its time for PORT to expand outwardly to all crypto users. Migrating tokens to other DEXes with their own liquidity incentives and rewards, will be effective and interesting to observe.

As PORT branches out to other exchanges, it will open the door to arbitrage, which should begin to soften some of those sharper movements, as traders move assets across networks and exchanges to take advantage of the swings, somewhat flattening spikes along the way.

Summer Shipments — Distribution #3 will ship out on October 1. Liquidity Providers on ZilSwap continue to accrue rewards automatically while in the pool. 100k PORT will be rewarded to LPs proportionate to their share of the pool during August & September. Then the final reward — Distribution #4 will occur on November 1, for those who LP’d during September & October.

A Final Word —

By J.G. Whitley, CEO

It’s been really hard to keep some of our developments quiet. I’ve dreamed up all kinds of fun features and functions for PackagePortal, but none of them are simple to program or easy to execute. Nevertheless, our team’s expertise and diligence has paid off, and now we’re in a position to begin capitalizing on the hard work and preparation.

The two sectors we’ve entrenched ourselves in (e-commerce and crypto) are like fast moving streams; one carrying vital goods to consumers and the other transferring financial control to its users; each one frothing and flooding its river banks. But now PackagePortal stands at the confluence of these two streams, as they converge into a raging river, ready to harness the power of the waters as they flow through our channels.

The velocity at which things are moving, feels like a billion cubic feet per second, which could knock anyone off their pivot. But we’ve adapted and evolved into something like a world class kayaker — able to control the chaos & tame the waves, as they chase thrills and glory. But that doesn’t mean we can ever become complacent. Navigating the ups and downs of market swings, regulatory fog, community needs, & devops keeps us on our toes at all times.

Who knows what new features the crypto world will introduce in the next couple of months. Innovation happens at break-neck speeds here. But whats so exciting is that we’ve done the work to position ourselves in the right place at the right time. First mover’s advantage is ours…now we tighten our grip and sink in our teeth. By creating and facilitating a free and open marketplace for consumers to share their data with retailers, we’ve kicked in the door. Next, we show the world where it leads.

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