Dear PN Community,

I’d like to address some updates and to answer a few questions.

Those odds are stacked against us, but we are still here.

We ran out of money months ago. We are still here.

You guys got behind us because we would keep going despite all odds.

We’ve taken our fair share of people upset with, but we are still here.

We made some mistakes, but that’s also why we are still here.

Very few projects in the NFT space are left or have money to spend.

It’s bad out there. Real bad. We talk with fellow entrepreneurs all the time, and nobody can raise money for a Web3 company.

We’re still big believers in the NFT technology and blockchain, but we are currently in a bear, and will be for some time.

We think the market needs to mature and weed out the bad actors, and we’re seeing that now play out now.

OG’s know they need to survive long enough for a new cycle.

Because of our cash position we aren’t in an optimal situation, but we’re trying to make the most of it.

• The company was funding salaries and expenses through March, with some people only receiving partial payments in March and some working for free in March
• Some people started taking pay cuts as early as January
• By February the entire team was receiving reduced pay
• I haven’t taken a salary basically the entire life of the project. And I stopped paying anything to myself in July 2022.
• I have personally funded over $200,000 in salaries, conferences, operating expenses, legal, marketing, travel, giveaways etc.. over the life of the project.
• BCP and Lash have paid portions of software and services out of pocket.

In addition to funding challenges, we hit regulation and market condition issues.

What we did not ancticipate the government would crack down on regulation this quick, and in the way they have, so we need to put ourselves in a position to succeed.

Another issue we ran into is that even if we were able to deliver, and there weren’t regulatory concerns, the budget’s for our target market customer dried up with the market. So we must pivot for a time.

Everyone on the team has needed to find sources of income which has brought us to this period in time where development is moving at a much slower pace.

We’re calling this low power mode.

Despite nobody being paid, everyone has agreed to participate in low power mode, however they can.

We still meet every week.

We chat every day.

On Rug Radio:

• The initial plan with Rug Radio went much deeper than providing liquidity. We believed in Farokh and his vision, and the people he brought on board.
• There were aspects of the plan that are still relevant to Zero today and could still be implemented so we do not want to give away too many details but the tl;dr was offering a range of services to NFT projects — this ultimately morphed into Zero as our first step in that process
• The purchasing of the RUG NFTs and providing of liquidity did not go as we had expected, you could say that was a mistake — mistakes are all part of the process in growing a company. We are still holding onto these assets and will have a plan for them.
• RE: Rug Radio and Zero — we spoke at length with them about Zero, our plans, our vision, and ultimately decided the best first step was the DAO proposal without requesting funding. We have since spoken to them about low power mode, and what this means resource wise for our partnership. Many other projects are running into the same issues so they are understanding of our position. They are behind us, and we are behind them.

We are proud of the fact we developed technology that works, even though there is still a lot more we need to build to make it scalable and hands free.

But anything can happen in crypto.

Things change really fast.

Brands in crypto recycle like fashion trends when the next bull comes.

We have an awesome name, and people recognize it.

More importantly, we still have a team of people that are here to support it for now.

We need to be positioned to take advantage of a shift in the market when the timing is right.

Instead of packing it up because we ran out of money, we go into low power mode.

Were going to do as much as we can with the resources we have.

We owe this to you guys.

Please keep notifications on, and don’t hesitate to reach out. My DM’s are always open.

Thanks,

Fun