The Decentralized Map Paying for Data That Google Uses for Free

OpenLedger, a blockchain infrastructure agency constructing out AI techniques for clear information attribution, is increasing its ecosystem with the addition of SenseMap, a brand new decentralized mapping community.

The platform allows customers to contribute real-time info similar to security, crowd ranges, and noise, all of that are verified on-chain and used to construct an open, community-owned map.

“In locations conventional maps overlook, native contributors can fill the gaps by sharing real-time context—roads, crowd density, security, or accessibility particulars,” Ram Kumar, core contributor at OpenLedger, informed Decrypt.



Every submission is tied to a verified on-chain identification and reviewed by neighborhood validators who earn status over time. Dependable contributors acquire extra affect within the system, whereas inaccurate or spam entries are flagged and penalized to keep up the trustworthiness of the information.

Requested whether or not the open mannequin dangers low-quality information, Kumar mentioned accuracy is maintained by means of on-chain status, staking, and validator evaluation. “Spamming isn’t simply discouraged, it’s economically unsustainable,” he mentioned.

Alphabet, the guardian firm of Google, reported $82.5 billion in Google Companies income for Q2 2025, up from $73.9 billion a yr earlier, in accordance with its newest earnings launch. The companies income phase contains Maps, Search, and Google Play.

Whereas the corporate doesn’t get away Maps income, analysts have famous its business potential way back to 2019, when Morgan Stanley’s Brian Nowak projected that Google Maps may generate roughly $4.8 billion yearly. Later studies indicated that the platform’s advert income was on monitor to achieve $11 billion by 2023.

Decrypt reached out to Google to verify this determine and ask what they consider decentralized alternate options to their product.

OpenLedger claims that as SenseMap expands, its accuracy improves reasonably than declines, pushed by a reputation-based validation system that rewards constant contributors and verifies each information level by means of its on-chain Proof of Attribution protocol.

The protocol works by linking every information contribution to a verifiable on-chain document displaying who created it, when, and the way it’s utilized in downstream AI fashions, guaranteeing that “each new information level strengthens the community’s accuracy as a substitute of diluting it,” Kumar mentioned.

“Because the community scales, belief is maintained by means of a reputation-based validation system,” Kumar defined. “The extra constant and dependable a contributor’s information, the upper their validator weight.”

Different observers notice that sustaining accuracy in decentralized mapping relies upon much less on central coordination and extra on verifiable information between unbiased nodes.

“Belief comes from reproducibility,” Arie Trouw, co-founder and CEO of decentralized bodily infrastructure community XYO, informed Decrypt. When a number of nodes attain the identical outcome by means of cryptographic proofs, accuracy is established by consensus reasonably than management, Trouw defined.

He added that decentralized mapping works greatest the place centralized information assortment falls quick, similar to in “creating areas, catastrophe zones, or quickly altering city areas,” the place real-time, verifiable updates are most wanted.