Introduction

Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) incentivize people to do verifiable work that builds real-world infrastructure. Relative to traditional forms of capital formation for building physical infrastructure, these protocols:

  1. Build infrastructure ~100x faster.
  2. Are more attuned to hyper-local market needs.
  3. Are far more cost-effective.

👉 SkyTrade - The Tokenized Air Rights Marketplace.

Air rights are the legal right to use and control the (3D) airspace above physical land and infrastructure. These are Real World Assets (RWAs). Air rights owners are uniquely positioned with $30 trillion in locked assets. Air rights are needed to allow physical structures, cell towers and solar infrastructure to develop from existing buildings and land into the 3D airspace.

Air rights can be transferred from one location to another to encourage utility. Air rights can protect views by preventing structures from developing in the airspace above buildings and land. Cities are actively promoting the utility of air rights from New York and Nevada to London, Singapore, Sydney, India, Australia, Canada and beyond.

Air Rights Transfer

Using time as an integral component, air rights owners can permit drones, air taxis, and human transit through the airspace. We can trade the air rights as assets. Using market forces and crypto rails to enable these use cases and others increases the size of the market and its liquidity and allows quick settlement of trades.

Air rights are used globally in the telecoms market. These assets are traded with strong cash flows paid by telecom companies, allowing them high levels of coverage and density. Yields on these assets can range from 6% to 15% (unlevered). This part of the air rights market doubles every 24 months by some measurements, and the demand for data from AI and crypto keeps increasing the need for telecom infrastructure.

SkyTrade Finance

State-level transportation departments understand air rights are highly valuable assets to be used over highways and, with permission above private land and buildings, to grow the low-altitude economy, which is set to be worth $450 billion. China has already started to develop this low-altitude economy, and the US, UK, and other jurisdictions, with SkyTrade's help, are catching up.

The air rights market is enormous and motivated by returns from their underutilized assets. These rights are powerful and are rooted in strong legal statutes, constitutional rights, and individual liberty. The multiple use cases available using the SkyTrade protocol open this opaque market to generate value by utilizing the air rights assets through its trading engines.

Aerial Transit Through Air Rights

👉 DePIN Direction Of Travel

SkyTrade was founded by Jonathan and Marcin in 2023 when they met at Y Combinator's start-up school. After extensive experience in traditional marketplaces, aviation, DeFi, CeFi, NFT, and prediction markets, they found a significant advantage in using blockchain technology to open and monetize the highly valuable and opaque air rights assets market.

Building began using ImmutableX technology (ZK-rollup equivalent). Subsequently, a grant was given by Emergent Ventures on the basis that SkyTrade could "meaningfully impact society". Emergent Ventures is a Tyler Cowen-led program initially funded by Peter Thiel and was established to give quick grants to zero-to-one projects.

To give a voice to our thesis and connect with like-minded people, we started a substack called Where is my flying car? on the topic. The substack grew to a 17K subscriber base. Development moved to Solana, as the ability to tokenize hundreds of millions of air rights was required (using Metaplex Bubblegum NFT Standard).

SkyTrade received grant funding from the Solana Foundation and launched an MVP. Real estate owners began onboarding using Web3Auth technology to enable users to obtain a Solana wallet quickly. The team participated in the NEAR HZN accelerator program.

Pre-seed funding was secured in 2024, led by Modular Capital and Portal Ventures, with prominent industry angel investors supporting the project.

👉 Links

Website: SkyTrade

X: @SkyTradeNetwork

Discord: SkyTradeNetwork

Substack: Where Is My Flying Car?

Telegram: @SkyTradeNetwork

Jonathan (CEO): jonathan (AT) sky.trade

Marcin (CTO): marcin (AT) sky.trade

👉 Product

👉 Valuation

SkyTrade currently has ~14K air rights parcels on its platform, conservatively worth ~$38M. There is a pipeline of air rights worth $120M, which we will grow exponentially through the growing network of participants and contributors. Telecom assets being listed on the platform are currently valued at $8M with 10% gross yields. Air rights as an asset class are worth over $30T, and we will capture over $2B. The market is very opaque - we're changing that.

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