How Hivemapper Became Solana’s DePIN Darling with Founder Ariel Seidman

How Hivemapper Became Solana’s DePIN Darling with Founder Ariel Seidman originally appeared on TheStreet.

In an industry too often defined by vaporware and hype, it’s rare to find a crypto project actually getting paid by billion-dollar public companies. But that’s exactly what Hivemapper is championing — and it might just be the best answer crypto has to the eternal skeptic’s favorite question: “But what does crypto actually do?”

“We've mapped now about 33 or 34% of the global road network in a little over two years,” said Hivemapper CEO and co-founder Ariel Seidman. “So one of the fastest growing map projects ever.”

That kind of scale and pace would be impressive for any mapping startup, but Hivemapper has achieved it by leveraging the network effects that exist in crypto. It’s a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) built on Solana, using token incentives to crowdsource a real-time, AI-powered global map from a network of dashcam-equipped drivers. That includes gig workers, fleet operators, and even the occasional college kid driving home for the holidays.

And now, that network is starting to pay off in a very real way.

“In just the last month, we've closed four deals,” Seidman said. “If you look at all of 2021, I think we did four deals in total. So just this month we've done as many as we did two years ago.”

Among those deals: Lyft, TomTom, and Trimble — real companies with real use cases paying real money for real data. Not bad for a crypto startup that once tried to pay mappers in cash. That didn’t go so great.

"People actually complained and they're like, 'Hey, can you just send me crypto instead?'" Seidman recalled. Switching to on-chain token rewards solved that problem. And not only did it make it easier to pay contributors in places like the Philippines, but it added something even more valuable: Trust.

“The community just started to trust the entire system as a whole,” Seidman said. “It wasn't like we were the bad guys. We were part of the community.”

That shift — from centralized cash disbursements to a community of people enojying crypto incentives and growing ownership over a network — is exactly what excites Cosmo Jiang, Pantera Managing Partner and one of Hivemapper’s backers.

"All of civilization and all of the fruits of labor that we enjoy today is built on capitalism, which is built on the coordination of incentives," Jiang said. “I think the magic sauce of what crypto really brings [is] ... the coordination of incentives in a really novel way."

Story ContinuesIt’s not just about building a better map. It’s about building it in a better way. And unlike many crypto projects still waiting for the killer app, Hivemapper is already monetizing — offering enterprise APIs to partners, and selling advanced fleet data to trucking and utility companies that are eager for real-world insights.

“They’re like, can you tell me the road width?” Seidman said. “We're like, yes, we can tell you the road width too. Just put this device on your vehicle, and boom — you've got all this data.”

The economic model blurs users, customers, ownership and fits perfectly into the shift toward gig economy work. Instead of giving your data away to Big Tech, you become the infrastructure — and you get paid for it.

"The human existence is still about providing, about having purpose and providing value," Jiang said. "And so as an independent contractor, you still can do that, provide value, provide a real service and get paid for that and that's really beautiful."

The next frontier? Consumer navigation. For the first time since Waze sold to Google in 2013, Seidman believes Hivemapper could spark real innovation in how everyday users experience mapping.

Truckers, for instance, don’t just want to know where the nearest station is. “They want to know whether or not it’s open and how many goddamn trucks are there,” he said.

That level of detail—and relevance—is what separates Hivemapper from legacy players. And with major customers already paying for that value, the company’s not just answering the question of whether crypto can work in the real world. It’s monetizing the answer.

How Hivemapper Became Solana’s DePIN Darling with Founder Ariel Seidman first appeared on TheStreet on Jun 12, 2025

This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Jun 12, 2025, where it first appeared.

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