Onchain geospatial ✨ At Astral we develop open source tools and infrastructure for decentralized geospatial technologies.

Our mission is to make it possible to build location-based apps on the decentralized web. We're doing this by researching and developing a set of open source standards and software tools that help Web3 developers work with geospatial data.

Updates / Milestones: The next phase:

Launch the Astral Logbook, add features - Q3'24

Develop the first location proof strategies + recipes - Q3'24

Deploy ZK Location Proofs - Q3’24

Progress with Spatial.sol research - Q4'24

Strengthen partnership with EASIER Data Initiative-Q3'24

Since GG20

Create the docs site: docs.astral.global

Deploy EAS Location Proofs on Sepolia and Celo mainnet - Q2’24

Complete and pitch at Ethereum Attestation Service Demo Day - Q2’24

Integrate Location Proof Protocol with IPFS - Q3’24

Develop the Astral Logbook - Q3’24

Since GG19

Deployed Spatial Registry Contract - April’24

Gained pilot users’ confirmation - Jan-April’24

Hosted and Presented Decentralized Spatial Web Workshop for Web3 Projects - April’24

Accepted to Ethereum Attestation Services Fellowship - March’24

Attended & presented at ETHDenver - Feb’24

Defined product and growth strategy - Feb’24

Develop technical architecture- Jan’24

Architecture The Astral Protocol has three components:

Spatial Registries — smart contract-based registries of spatial features like points, lines, polygons and raster images;

Location Proof Protocol, to serve as presence claims in the Astral ecosystem, and

Web3-native geospatial data technologies so the data backing these systems is user-controlled, cryptographically verifiable, uncensorable and permanent.

Since the project was founded, we have focused on building open source standards and tools, and have been fully funded through public goods funding and grants.

Our Work We've developed and led several projects, including:

Kolektivo GeoNFTs, which serve as an on-chain spatial data registry

Hyperaware, a spatial governance protocol for connected devices targeted at transport and mobility applications

Sprout, a proof-of-concept sustainability-linked bond in Solidity that aligns loan terms to environmental metrics — one of the first ReFi smart contracts

Spatial.sol, a library of geometric and topological functions in Solidity

Geolocker, a prototype verifiable spatial data registry built on Ethereum and 3Box

Our work is primarily focused on building core infrastructure and open source standards to enable and empower Web3 builders to work with spatial and location data.

Astral tools and standards will be useful in a range of different use cases including:

Regenerative project development and dMRV

DAOs / digital governance: geofenced local and regional DAOs, local currencies, spatial demurrage

Mobility: defining policy areas like congestion zones, capturing the position of connected devices like IoT and smartphones

Natural capital currencies: defining ecological zones, storing physical measurements of ecosystem conditions

Metaverse / gaming: virtual land registries like Decentraland and Cryptovoxels, and AR games like Pokemon Go

Funding Grant contributions will fund the development team building these public goods.

Specifically, funds will support the development of:

a Solidity library of topological and geometric functions

Web3 GIS tools

Location Proof Protocol standards, examples and software tools

coordination across decentralized geospatial working groups, co-led with the EASIER Data Initiative

Team Ron E: Tech Lead

Danny G: Organization + Operations Lead

John X: Architect + Project Lead

Accomplishments (so far) KERNEL Genesis Block final presentation

Kolektivo project partner, developing GeoNFTs

Filecoin Development Grant for storing satellite imagery on IPFS using decentralized identifiers

Presenting to the Open Geospatial Consortium

Winner, Arweave Prize, Future of Blockchain 2020

Speaker, European Space Agency's Living Planet Symposium 2022

Grant recipient, dClimate

Coordinated the forming of the GeoSpatial Decentralized Collaboration Group 2023

Presented Astral’s work at Decentralized Geospatial Web Working Group

Member, Climate Collective

Co-lead, Regeneration Guild, KERNEL

Funded:

zkMaps, finalist at ETHDenver 2022 building zero-knowledge location proofs Challenges Scaling of verifiable spatial data registries due to technical limitations.

Coordination across various working groups; while we’ve helped organize and herd cats, there is still the challenge in coordinating across stakeholder groups to establish geospatial standards for Web3.

Navigating a bear market with various partners and builders in this space losing funding and interest due to macroeconomic conditions.