At long last, Web3 makes a push to fight Google Maps

techcrunch.com

5 points·mariakarpenko··4 comments

Hivemapper is building the world's first blockchain-based mapping network and crypto miner dashcam for decentralized mapping.

We're excited to announce our $18 million Series A round led by Multicoin Capital with participation from Craft Ventures, Solana Capital, Shine Capital, and Spencer Rascoff’s 75 and Sunny Ventures. Joining previous investors Spark Capital, Founder Collective, and Homebrew, they bring the company’s total financing to $23 million to date. As part of this financing Amir Haleem, CEO and Founder of Helium, will be joining the board.

This round also includes support from notable angels, including Anatoly Yakovenko, CEO and Co-Founder of Solana, Raj Gokal, COO and Co-Founder of Solana, David Rogier, CEO and Founder of Masterclass, Elie Seidman, former CEO of Tinder, Jaron Waldman, former Apple Maps executive, and many others.

We’re hiring! Would you like to join our growing team? Check out career opportunities at Hivemapper: https://hivemapper.com/about#careers

Is the maps data gathered verified by you? If not, how do you stop people from gaming the system? If there’s money in it, people will hack your cams and figure it out.

If so, why does a centralized service need a blockchain/crypto at all? At this point you’re basically just paying people to walk around with your camera.

Interesting, looks like it’s using a combination of hardware, vehicle checks, LoRa (Helium?), ML, and good old fashioned Humans for verification.

If they can scale it globally and at high frequency for imagery, that’s a very novel justification of crypto IMO. Looks like the Costco version of https://www.mapillary.com/

If there’s a central entity that verifies, why use the blockchain at all?

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