👀 Eyes to the Sky

GM, happy Friday! Matt here, airdropping the latest Digest to your inbox.

Last week, we talked about ground-level communications infrastructure via Helium. This week, we’re taking to the skies. Drones, coordination, and the networks building the infrastructure of the future.

Let’s take a look. 👓

🛰️ On the Radar

We’ve got a great lineup this week, but if you’re strapped for time, here’s the takeaway:

• 🛸 The FAA mandated drone license plates — but forgot to build the receivers. FliteGrid is fixing that.

• 📍 LayerDrone goes on-chain March 17 — drone pilots get paid in USDC the moment their mission is verified.

• 🏠 GEODNET launched a home security drone on Kickstarter — and blew past its goal in days.

• 🧠 Niantic Spatial is building a shared 3D map of the world — the coordination layer every drone network eventually needs.

• 🤖 Tashi is hosting a $27k swarm robotics hackathon — and just spoke at an invite-only capital forum in Singapore.

Time to break it down. 🕺

📡 The Relay

This week on The Relay, we sat down with Grant Jordan from FliteGrid to chat about drones. He made the case that the current skyscape is missing two things: coordination and accountability.

He shared that the FAA, back in 2024, mandated drone manufacturers to comply with Remote ID Rules. One small problem – they still don’t have an effective means of enforcing it. Tracking drones is a granular problem, tougher than tracking planes, and nobody has built the receiver network to ensure drone manufacturers are living up to their end of the bargain.

SkySafe, the well-established, centralized foundation of the decentralized FliteGrid network, has been building out a nationwide network of drone sensors for over a decade to solve this. Grant recognized DePIN as the ideal way to grow SkySafe’s network into a national powerhouse that covers the US from sea to shining sea – and, with a pre-existing customer base, they’re looking to monetize the data quickly. 

Demand before supply. Something many DePIN companies could learn from.

Want in? FliteGrid is now accepting pre-orders for their drone sensor. Location-value map coming soon to their website. Deploy on a rooftop in a populated area with clear view of the sky, and let it track and earn.

Stay tuned for clips from the broadcast on X, featuring highlights from both FliteGrid and the Digest.

📍 Paid Per Pixel

But wait, there’s more!

Back in February, I had the chance to attend GeoWeek in Denver and met some of the Spexi team in person. Great people, great energy, and what they’re building is worth paying attention to.

Their partner LayerDrone’s mainnet launch hits Base on March 17th, which means drone pilots who complete their missions through Spexi’s platform will get paid in USDC the moment their imagery is verified – onchain payments with near-instant settlement. With over 180k missions completed, this is no longer a proof of concept, but a proof of scale, so grab your drone and get paid.

The network is flipping that mainnet switch, and it’s all hands on (or, since the flights are automatic, hands-off!) the flight deck.

🔊 Signal Boost

Boosting the signal on a few more stories from the week:

🏠 GEO-SWARM — GEODNET and HYFIX took the drone-in-a-box concept to Kickstarter: a home security drone that weighs under 250g (no FAA registration required), launches in under 30 seconds, and blew its fundraising goal out of the water, raising $89K against a $20K goal with nearly a month still on the clock. 

Turns out people want eyes in the sky at home, too. 

🧠 Niantic Spatial — The team behind Pokémon GO is building a Large Geospatial Model — a shared, persistent 3D map of the world that drones, robots, and AR devices query for real-time spatial context. The kind of model that needs exactly the data LayerDrone pilots are out there collecting.

This is why I’m hyperbullish on DePIN: The networks reinforce each other.

🤖 Tashi — Tashi is running the Vertex Swarm Challenge 2026, a $27K hackathon on DoraHacks focused on swarm robotics. Their CEO also just spoke at an invite-only capital forum in Singapore alongside the Nasdaq APAC chair. 

Smart money is starting to pay attention to the deeper value underneath humanoid robotics – coordination.

👋 Signing Off!

That’s a wrap on this week’s Digest. Keep your head up – there’s a lot more on the horizon.

If you enjoyed this issue, share it with someone who should be paying attention to distributed infra. And if you want more high-signal conversations, The Relay is where it’s at. Catch future broadcasts and past clips on X.

Also, be sure to follow Matt and Will on X. We’ll catch you next Friday!