MastChain expands decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN) with professional-grade AIS hardware purpose-built for global maritime data collection

MastChain first opened its doors to a small group of alpha testers in August 2025. Our goal then was simple: prove that AIS shipping data can be captured effectively through a DePIN model. By encouraging "failing fast," we learned more about our system and our contributors than we ever could have in a controlled environment.

At MastChain, our goal has always been simple to say and hard to do well. We want to bring real world maritime data on chain in a way that people can trust, scale globally, and feel good about contributing to. That means data that is verifiable, infrastructure that is resilient, and incentives that are fair to the people who actually generate the data.

This year has been a turning point for MastChain. The project officially began in April 2025 and, at that time, it was little more than a bold idea and a website. When the alpha test opened to the waitlist in August, momentum took off. Today, the network has passed 300 nodes and continues to grow every week.

The idea behind decentralised physical infrastructure networks, often called DePIN, is to move ownership and control of key infrastructure

At the AIS Summit in Hamburg this year, Co-founder and CEO, Owen Taylor presented a simple question that hides a difficult challenge. How do you grow from a standing start to a global network of one hundred thousand active AIS receivers?

MASTCHAIN broke through as the defining story of the AIS Summit in Hamburg, taking Best New Startup 2025. The reaction in the room made one thing clear. The way AIS coverage is built is about to change.