The year 2022 for our project was a difficult one. The crypto-winter has hit our products just as hard as anyone else. The various investor’s commitments agreed on before the problems with Tera started were put on ice indefinitely.
Even though we had enough liquidity to continue at the same pace as before until the end of the year, the changed market conditions would make such a move very irresponsible. Therefore, it does not make sense to burn through our reserves and continue the planned roadmap without regard to the changed market conditions.
Yes, we could have continued the exact roadmap and might have been much further ahead with our planned roadmap that was updated at the beginning of the year after the Binance Incubation. However, that would have left our reserves dry, and we would have had to shut down entirely by the end of 2022.
These unpredictable and turbulent made updating our roadmap senseless. When there is so much fog ahead, how do you plan and update the roadmap that could change weekly?
Hence, a new strategy was devised:
First, we activated all our available time to find new liquidity that would increase on the runway, which required much time and effort.
Second, we focused all of our development resources on products with the most promising outlook and the most appealing to new investors we were talking with: MintedVodka.
MintedVodka’s main focus was cooperation with smaller chains. This had the additional positive effect of more exposure (marketing) without spending our reserves, which was the correct move to defend the project’s liquidity as long as possible.
The technological expanse towards chain integrations required additional work on inter-chain infrastructure, which is barely visible on the “front” of the product, but was required and needed for a solid product and integrations in the future.
Laser-focus on our core products and cooperations with the most impact in marketing and investor’s appeal: MintedVodka, integration with IOTA’s assembly, and additional, long-promised features of niche minting solutions. The GameFi products (AlchemyToys and Arena) must wait on a second plane when we have resources to fix and improve on those.
Third, cutting on costs. Since we have yet to determine how the crypto-winter will last and how long it will take us to find new liquidity, we must ensure that the current liquidity lasts us as long as possible. The initial roadmap was too risky in the current market conditions.
For this purpose, the founders took on additional part-time jobs. For instance, I am listed as CTO/Advisor on the Clinq.Gold project, where I steer the development of quite revolutionary gold-backed tokens. Another crypto-related project might require my expertise shortly. Staying in the same field while keeping our company reserves untouched leads us to the last point:
Synergies. My advisory role at Clinq.Gold allows me to asses and propose solutions, including partnerships and integrations with third parties. The gold-backed NFT, currently in development, is a perfect candidate for our marketplace. It’s not just another crypto-art project but a real digital twin of physically stored bullion. And it will profit from our cross-chain bridge and marketplace. And we could profit from their immense marketing firepower.
The result is that we can look for partnerships, synergies, and investors while keeping the company funds untouched. The work on Minted.Vodka continues, even though it has to go a little slower because of the points above.
I do see MintedVodka prevailing and that we will have a solid, mature set of products before the next bull run. I know this is not what we all expected one year ago, but given the circumstances, it is the most responsible way we could have taken and are taking now.
Thanks for your understanding and your patience.
Roman
