It is a fair question, isn’t it? After all, at the time of writing (January 2020), the SHIP token is 98% down from its ICO price and it probably takes 5 seconds of Google search to find very upset investors claiming to the world that Shipchain’s cofounders and associated token holders should be prosecuted by the FBI and the SEC - ideally twice, just to be sure - ... Got to be a scam, uh?

To answer this question, this article intends to bring mostly objective and a few subjective elements that may help new comers to forge their own opinion on Shipchain.

Disclaimer: Before you continue, please keep in mind that everyone has a bias. An ICO investor who spent 10kUSD in Dec 2017 and looks at tokens worth 200USD in his wallet can hardly believe he bet on the right horse… Past and current competitors could spread fud to follow their own agenda…And your writer today has a bias too: he’s running a Shipchain node and has clear incentives for that blockchain to take-off. Always #DYOR and develop your own judgment.

/!\ Since this article’s release, a more detailed FAQ was published. We highly recommend it instead. /!\

What problem is Shipchain trying to solve?

Some people will like a simple video more than a long text so here you go:

Most impatient one will accept only 3 words but John thought of that already.

Shipchain provides Trust

Now as a Supply chain and blockchain enthusiasts, we prefer examples. So, imagine a parcel shipped from China to Europe. In today’s world, at best will you get a tracking of specific milestones in a journey that will involve multiple different parties, each with their own systems who barely communicate together, and prone to blame each other’s when something went wrong.

With the Shipchain Track and Trace Platform and associated IoT devices (GPS, temperature sensors… Check this partner for example: https://hanhaa.com/parcelive/) or even the Shipchain Mobile App for truckers, your parcel’s journey will be recorded in real time on a decentralized ledger that cannot be altered and this is where Trust is coming from.

Shipchain’s latest product: The Last Mile Delivery Platform

That SHIP utility token, what does it do?

You’re still here? Ok then, let’s go more technical. You most likely know Ethereum (if not, 5 sec… well you know the drill now).

Ethereum in its current state (1.0) got clogged by a fairly reasonable peak of interest in CryptoKitties. Let alone concerns from the industry on sensitive data storage and privacy, the prospect of tracking on Ethereum hundreds of thousands of shipments with a live GPS localisation every 5 mn for each of them isn’t quite encouraging… To deep-dive on these challenges, take a look at this great article from the former Shipchain CTO who built the dapp and the network for the last 2 years to what they are now. #farewell mate.

This is where the Shipchain Network and the SHIP token comes into play: to address scalability without compromising on decentralization and take into account entreprise requirements. Call it Layer 2 or independent blockchain with built-in interoperability (sounds great doesn’t it?), that’s what the SHIP token is all about.

The SHIP token powers and secure a blockchain that is entreprise-ready, fast enough to cope with a high supply-chain related throughput and that inter-operates with Ethereum, Binance Chain and… wait for it (literally) bitcoin (coming soon!).

Do you want more? Here you go, otherwise fast-forward to the next question:

📦 The Shipchain network is a soft fork of Loom (an amazing project with top notch developers and healthy community, look it up here!)

📦 Loom is a Production-ready, Multichain Interop Platform for Serious Dapp Developers (like Shipchain), a dPoS blockchain:

📦 In other words? SHIP is to the Shipchain Network what ETH is to the Ethereum network. or say ETH2.0 if accuracy matters to you.

📦 Did you say ETH2.0? Does it mean I can stake SHIP and receive rewards? Yup! Up to 15–20% YoY with 1 year lock-up period! This fork runs on the SHIP token so replace ‘LOOM’ by ‘SHIP’ when reading this article: https://loomx.io/token/ or http://network.shipchain.io/en/faq

📦 Spend time on Loom’s blog post to fine tune your knowledge about blockchains interoperability https://bit.ly/35oobi5

📦 First draft of the token economics is OUT 🔥. How many times did you find this level of details in other ICOs out there?

Copyright to myself on that one, so if it makes no sense, you know who to blame!

📦 In another article, we will analyze top SHIP wallets to understand better the token distribution. Short teaser: Once company reserves are allocated to their real purpose (see grey boxes on the right side of the chart above), actually NONE of the 18k-ish token holders owns more than 1% of the SHIP tokens. Take that XRP!

Ok here is the 1 million dollars question… is the SHIP token under-valued?

No one should answer that question for you but there are elements that may help in the process:

• in dPoS networks, blocks are validated by special nodes (51 validators) who need to demonstrate an exemplary behavior towards network’s security and performance (at risk of being replaced by one who will, through the ‘voting process’ of delegation),

• minimum specs to run a shipchain validator node represent an annual bill of roughly minimum 1000$, without any extra security measures (sentry nodes, HSM, for exemple)

• the minimum bond to be candidate to a validator seat is 250k SHIP.

➡️ it can be argued that the minimum price for the shipchain network to be considered economically viable is one that guarantees to its validators an annual return that is superior to the one they would get by only being simple delegators. (otherwise uh what’s the point?…)

➡️ Based on year lock up rewards of 20% p.a and a validator fee of 25%, that price would be 0,08$.

• Follow the link to access a simple excel model that can be used to deduce that price.

• The model can also be used to determine when (which SHIP price) running a validator node would be more profitable than delegating your own stack of SHIPs to one.

Here is also a selection of articles, helping to get a feel of the industry’s recognition of what Shipchain is trying to achieve and of John Monarch’s credibility.

Only going to quote the first one…

Key Players Influencing the Market: SALT Lending, Mythical Games, Gemini, Circle, Coinbase, Chronicled, IBM, Voatz, Steem, Shipchain

‘But wait a minute, why I am still down 98% from the ICO price then?’

This results most probably from a combination of factors but we would group them in 2 common denominators, negative effects of hype and need for regulatory compliance.

Hype

Do we need to call out that Ethereum itself (arguably not a scam right?) is also 88% down from its ATH price (1440$ or so)? Or that we all bought into ICOs when Bitcoin was reaching an ATH level that will take at least 3 years to claim back?

Can we blame Shipchain co-founders for taking advantage of the ICO-craze to fund their startup? Absolutely… as long as each one of us takes also responsibility for their own decisions too. For example, who read this article BEFORE his/her first acquisition of a (utility! not even security!) token?

Is it fair to mention that today’s crypto market is far from mature, and still full of people buying XRP, DOGE and BITCOIN GOLD (or DIAMOND, whatever…)? This irrational (to say the least) behavior from retail investors reminds us the quote from CheapTickets during the dot.com bubble

‘The head of a rival website named CheapTickets complained that his company couldn’t compete with Priceline’s hype. “We’ve got a policy here at CheapTickets,” founder Michael Hartley groused. “We need to make money. It hurts our valuation.”

The reality is: in 2017, SHIP was a utility token, with no MVP and essentially nothing but a conceptual idea captured on a whitepaper. So, 2 years later, being few weeks away from Mainnet launch, with first customers in the pipe and few years left of runway thanks to wise spending and proper priority setting during this bear market is already a small miracle.

High risk, high reward they said.

If you’re not convinced, take a look at that article below, outlining quite clearly were crypto startup priorities should be.

Regulatory compliance

That part certainly played a big role in today’s lack of exchange listing (and subsequent lack of liquidity).

However whether we like it or not, Shipchain Inc. is a US-based company, subject to a regulatory framework that can hardly be called crypto-friendly.

Shipmates of the first hour will remember missing heart beat(s) when discovering Shipchain received a Cease and Desist letter in 2018, since then withdrawn (call that a warning! or a welcome test for your legal team — that must have left some marks).

Under these circumstances, it was and is still crucial that Shipchain Inc. doesn’t act in any way that could be interpreted as promoting the token value (next Google search “Howey test”!). Many disagree with that statement but… it can be argued that triggering or worse… paying! for an exchange listing would be perceived as such.

So… no more exchange listing after April 2018, a C&D, lots of FUD out there, in a crypto bear market, that is still today convinced that all #alts are scam…

A recipe for success! #facepalm

When can we buy on other exchanges than IDEX and hitBTC?

No one knows really, but there is a short and longer path to get where we want to. You can also fast forward to 2021 and forget about all this.

The longer one will take place later this year (second half) in the form of a non-profit foundation — a topic that will require a separate article.

The shorter one is that the community is committed to do what it takes from Q2 onwards as soon as we have a live blockchain to promote.

LOOM is already listed pretty much everywhere. SHIPCHAIN is exactly like LOOM. That’s a pretty straight forward story line.

Moreover, we’re convinced that 2020 will be a big year for #DEFI and let’s not forget that the SHIP token can be staked. Something appealing for exchanges like Huobi, or Binance who run their own validators on… Loom! for example.

Stay tuned.

Here are LOOM’s current 21 validators. Call them our TARGETS

Ok, last question, but the most important one surely: When Moon?

As Paul Taylor would say “Glad you fuckin’ asked” !

This guy is a genuis! but I’m biased…

Alright, let’s look into this… several factors can affect the token price:

• Network use:

The intrinsic value of a utility token like $SHIP is to be USED. The SHIP token is to the Shipchain network what ETH is to the Ethereum network. You need SHIP to buy the gas needed to run transactions on the network. Active users tracking shipments means more transactions (it is worth nothing the exponential impact of periodic GPS locations recording on the sidechain) driving more demand for the Shipchain token. Shipchain Inc. with its Last Mile Delivery Platform and mobile app is one of these users and already committed to allocate company reserves to network security and to buy its own SHIPs to acquire network gas.

Shipchain’s mainnet is expected to go live within Q1 2020, thus representing a significant milestone this year.

• Liquidity:



Orders books on idex and hitbtc are getting thinner and thinner, those 2 exchanges holding less than 3% of the total supply. In this context, selling is difficult whereas market buys trigger double to triple digits price swings. The effect of a live platform and associated network, with dapps owners having to buy tokens for their users’ gas, under such low liquidity context, remains unknown but it is allowed to wonder what kind of attention a 10k$ market buy would trigger on the token.

• Scarcity:

The more token holders delegate their tokens to the shipchain dPoS smart contract, the more scarce becomes the asset. As a live experiment, Loom has demonstrated that high level of staking up to 50% of the circulating supply was possible. Furthermore it is expected that professional stakers will join the shipchain network to run validator nodes and these ones have most likely not acquired their 250k bonds yet.

• Speculation:

ShipChain is still pretty much under the radar. Following 2 years of alts bear market, when most of the hard coding occurred, most crypto enthusiasts have fallen to the despair that all alts are scam, specifically the micro caps which do not bring the same reassurance to speculators than top 50 coins’ supporting crowds would do. It is likely though that, if blockchain starts to deliver its promises and lands in 2020 first tangible use cases aside from ‘getting rich schemes’, this market will turn favorable again to utility tokens that can demonstrate a real use-case and robust token economics. At that time it will be up to the community of SHIP token holders to make itself visible to the world.

Conclusion

I shouldn’t write anything here really. The conclusion is all yours. There is lots of FUD out there — this article’s author has even been called “John’s scapegoat promoter” somewhere…whatever that means.

Do not point finger at me, it is rude!

Hopefully this article will help balancing the amount of positive and negative opinions about Shipchain.

Should you feel the need to reach out to the author of this article or other community members, you will find us on the Telegram Channel.

Hope you had a good read.