I wrote a short piece to show the benefits of bitcoin in my former work. Ports. Curious if the Nostr community is open for review of this piece. Please comment your improvements 👇

“Securing and optimizing port operator financials in a volatile time.

How can a worldwide final settlement layer without counterparty risk: increase revenue, secure money flow and reduce seigniorage for port operators? Reap the benefits in the long term by using a monetary network that works 24/7 and hasn’t had downtime for more than a decade.

Port operators own ports across the globe. There are money flows between client, shipping line (with or without agent), the port operator, local port operation and the employees. In this piece we focus on leveraging the monetary final settlement layer for port operators and try to quantify the benefits.

Increased revenue

Most port operators own ports in many different locations across the globe. The financial settlement between port operator, shipping line and employee often moves through different currencies and banks. Every financial hop (a transition from a money owner to another) introduces counterparty risk and has seigniorage.

What if we could automate the settlement and move to direct payments across the globe? What if we can settle directly with our clients and our employees?

It would bring transparency, reduction of counterparty risk and direct complete insight in all financials. OPEX (operational expenditure) can be monitored and settled real time without risking over expenditure.

A physical example: a port operator owns a port in a country that has currency value swings of multiple percent per month. The employees have to be paid in the local currency and therefore you have to hold local money in a local bank. The use of a local bank is costly in multiple ways. Exchange, you’re exchanging money from the client to your HQ preferred currency. To transfer money between the clients bank and your bank has a cost. A possible exchange cost but always a transfer cost. This is similar for the transfer to the local port. The cost is often much higher. The employees and local port often lose a large percentage through exchange, transfer and currency devaluation.

What if we introduce instant final settlement across all operations? The employee holds an app on his phone and gets paid per hour / minute or even second streaming his money while he is working on his machine or performing his task in port planning. This money is flowing directly into his personal wallet straight from HQ. No local bank can introduce seigniorage over the pay to the employee. Also government or manager seigniorage can be set according to agreed terms. This reduces risk, especially in volatile markets ensuring continuation of operations without risk of losing money for both operator and employee. How does this increase revenue? When seigniorage is taken out of the equation this (often high percentage) lands directly at top line. The exact payment lines are fully controlled from headquarters which introduces full grip on cost of the port operation. When direct payments are introduced all middlemen are cut out. Which means you’ll need significantly less people to control the money streams. Because final settlement is created throughout every part of the operation the reduction of counter party risk will reduce administrative pressure significantly.

Secure money flow.

On the income side from the clients there is a high administrative burden for port operators. Why can’t we settle the cost of the process directly to our clients. This gives transparency throughout the operation and clarity on cost. A client agrees to terms for shipping his goods. When additional costs are incurred, for instance storage, there’s often difficulty both administratively as financially. When a container is stored longer than agreed the money automatically flows from the client to the operator from their payment channel. There is no administrative need once this is setup.

Another example is confirmation of final payment to clear the container for pickup. This could be instant. For small or large clients picking up containers, direct payment links could automatically be generated and when they are settled instantly cleared. The clearing would find place on the distributed worldwide network which reduces counterparty risk and is instantly verifiable.

Introducing direct final settlement without counterparty risk would reduce financial risk throughout port operations. And speed up port processes.

Reduce seigniorage

Port operators are often in a difficult position with regards to seigniorage. Local governments, banks or sometimes even maffia can put pressure on people that manage the port operation. When money flows are coordinated from HQ the risk of unwanted seigniorage becomes zero. All money flow can be exactly directed and contracts with governments can be set in stone within the payment protocols. Because banks are not necessary in this modus operandi, local currency and bank risk is removed.

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