All,

Worth highlighting here that the lack of liquidity comes essentially from the fact that Shipchain Inc. is located in the USA where the regulatory framework defining utility tokens from securities is yet to be fully clarified. Therefore it is natural for Shipchain Inc. to refrain from engaging on usual crypto promotion activities (exchange listing, airdrops) until a) the token is truly used in a public dPoS blockchain (testnet is on since one year, mainnet later this month) proving its utility, or b) US regulators come up with a clearer proposal with less room for interpretation.

The article also calls out plans to transfer governance to a non-profit foundation abroad. more to come on that later this year.

Now I'm not quite sure people who saw the lack of token liquidity as a show stopper have taken the time to read the article tbh but what I'd say is that while lack of liquidity certainly prevents any kind of short term trading mindset on this token, it doesn't necessarily have any correlation with its long term value.
I'm outlining below some criteria that would be better suited to evaluate that potential.

PS: I have written this article so please feel free to shoot any questions, I'll do my best to answer. I'm not a shipchain employee but definitely a long term investor and node validator so do cross-check everything I say.

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* purpose: is the team trying to fix a real problem? Does blockchain truly act as a enabler to solve that problem?
* business development potential: do the founders have experience and business connections in the industry they are trying to transform?
* funding: is there enough funds to scale the team and last long enough to develop the product and cope with a possibly slow adoption curve?
* technical complexity: are they trying to do too many things at once? Is it too early?
* token economics: what are the token use-cases? Could the product run without the token? What are the mechanisms that would lead to demand to overreach supply?
* distribution: are the tokens sufficiently distributed amongst as many holders as possible? Do you know the ultimate purpose of the total supply?
* regulatory: is legal compliance a priority for the team and what safeguards have been put in place to be compliant with today's regulations and be future-fit?
* competition: is there a competitor with a technical lead? Or stronger business connections?
* hype cycle: does the market cap already reflect the potential of the product? Is the token under the radar?