MASTCHAIN broke through as the defining story of the AIS Summit in Hamburg, taking Best New Startup 2025 and signalling a clear shift in a field that has barely moved in twenty years. The reaction in the room made one thing clear. The way AIS coverage is built is about to change.

The team behind MASTCHAIN has long experience in maritime regulation, emissions compliance, global shipping networks, and AIS operations. Members of the leadership have worked with major shipowners, government regulators, classification societies, and port authorities. This background gives the project a depth of insight rarely seen in early stage maritime technology startups.

At the summit the team introduced MASTCHAIN as the first AIS network built on blockchain. The system uses a DePIN (Decentralised Physical Infrastructure Network) model, where individual contributors purchase, install, and maintain their own AIS receivers. They are then rewarded in cryptocurrency according to the coverage they provide. This bottom up method removes the need for heavy central infrastructure, speeds up deployment, and brings the cost of data down to a level that established providers cannot match.

Co founder and CEO Owen Taylor said, “DePIN gives us a scaling curve that legacy networks have never been able to achieve. A lower cost base means we can make AIS data far more affordable, and that opens the door to new users, new regions, and a much stronger global picture.”

For more than twenty years the world has depended on hobbyists to run AIS receivers. That volunteer model has capped the number of active stations at around six thousand and left large regions with limited visibility and an overreliance on costly satellite feeds. MASTCHAIN’s model opens the door to a far larger and more diverse contributor base, allowing the network to grow well beyond one hundred thousand receivers and to reach places that have never had reliable coverage.

One of the defining moments of the summit came in the closing remarks. John Allen, a veteran of satellite AIS, singled out MASTCHAIN as one of the most interesting ideas presented, “as it was being described by Owen, the first thing that jumped to my mind was Spotify”. The analogy captured the sense that MASTCHAIN is poised to disrupt a sector that has operated in the same pattern for decades.

The Best New Startup award recognises the potential for global impact. MASTCHAIN offers a transparent, tamper resistant foundation for AIS data and a contributor network with no meaningful ceiling on scale.

About MASTCHAIN

MASTCHAIN is a decentralized maritime data project that uses a distributed network of AIS contributors, on chain verification, and open economic incentives to build a trusted global dataset of ship movements. Its DePIN model enables rapid network expansion and lower cost data supply. It forms part of the Worldwide AIS Network initiative.