Blockchain is Coming for the $2 Trillion Shipping Market

Blockchain infrastructure provider ADI Chain and maritime asset platform Shipfinex have entered an exclusive partnership to develop tokenized maritime assets, seeking to bring vessel-backed finance and other shipping-related investments onto blockchain infrastructure, the companies told Impact Newswire today.

The partnership will provide blockchain, distribution and settlement infrastructure for maritime assets, with Shipfinex initially bringing a pipeline of about 35 vessels valued at roughly $500 million, the companies said.

The initiative comes as tokenization of real-world assets expands beyond traditional financial instruments such as government debt and private credit.

RWA.xyz, a data platform tracking tokenized real-world assets, put the value of distributed tokenized assets at about $27.7 billion in April 2026, while represented assets stood at about $441.4 billion. The figures exclude the broader stablecoin market in the distributed-asset measure.

Maritime transport carries more than 80% of global merchandise trade by volume, according to the United Nations trade agency UNCTAD. The global shipping fleet stood at about 112,500 vessels with 2.44 billion deadweight tonnes in January 2025, it said.

Shipfinex and ADI Chain said their partnership targets a commercial fleet they estimate at about $2.17 trillion and global ship finance of about $680 billion.

Shipfinex will originate, structure and issue eligible maritime assets, while ADI Chain will provide blockchain, distribution and settlement infrastructure, the companies said.

The assets will be structured through legally separate special-purpose vehicles for individual vessels, allowing their value, liabilities, income and investor rights to be assessed separately.

Depending on the final structure, the digital instruments could represent vessel-backed credit, charter-linked income or economic interests in ships, the companies said.

Primary allocations and distributions are expected to settle through stablecoins denominated in UAE dirhams, U.S. dollars and other currencies.

“Maritime finance has the scale, real assets and commercial activity to become a major new real-world asset category,” said Ramana Kumar, President of Stablecoin Ecosystem, ADI Foundation. “The missing piece has been trusted infrastructure connecting individual vessels and its economic value with regulated issuance and onshore digital settlement. Through this partnership, ADI Chain is creating that foundation and giving maritime assets a clear route into digital markets through the UAE.”

The companies said the tokenization would not replace existing legal and operational frameworks governing commercial vessels, including ownership, flagging, insurance and maritime protections.

Each token would remain linked to an identifiable vessel with its own valuation, operating history, financial profile and legal structure.

On-chain records could provide a verifiable history of issuance, ownership and distributions while maintaining compliance requirements attached to the underlying financial instrument, the companies said.

“Ships keep global trade moving, but access to maritime investment remains narrow and fragmented,” said Capt. Vikas Pandey, Founder and CEO of Shipfinex. “Combining our maritime origination and asset structuring with ADI Chain’s infrastructure will allow us to create a regulated digital route into this market, with every instrument tied to a real vessel, its economics and its legal structure.”

Shipfinex holds an in-principle approval from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority for broker-dealer services and is working toward an operational launch, the companies said.

No Maritime Asset Tokens have yet been publicly issued, they said.

The first phase of the partnership will focus on finalising the regulatory issuance route, confirming the product structure and preparing vessels from Shipfinex’s pipeline for tokenization.

The companies said Maritime Asset Tokens developed under the partnership would be made available exclusively on ADI Chain.

Tokenization is gaining traction across financial markets, although the sector remains relatively small compared with traditional capital markets. RWA.xyz said its platform tracks more than 400 tokenized assets across multiple categories and blockchain networks.

The growth comes as shipping faces its own financing and investment pressures. UNCTAD said seaborne trade growth was expected to slow to 0.5% in 2025 after expanding 2.2% in 2024, while longer shipping routes caused by geopolitical disruptions increased ton-miles by 5.9% in 2024.

UNCTAD also said that more than 90% of the active shipping fleet still runs on conventional fuels, highlighting the scale of capital potentially required for fleet renewal and the transition to cleaner technologies.

ADI Chain is an institutional blockchain focused on stablecoins and real-world assets in the Middle East and North Africa, according to the ADI Foundation.

The foundation said ADI Chain provides settlement infrastructure for DDSC, a dirham-backed stablecoin initiated by International Holding Company and First Abu Dhabi Bank and licensed by the UAE Central Bank.

Shipfinex describes itself as a maritime asset tokenization and capital-markets platform. It said its in-principle approval from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority is not an operating licence.

The partnership and proposed products remain subject to definitive documentation, applicable law and regulatory permissions, the companies said.

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