Key Takeaways:
Dubai's Shipfinex and Abu Dhabi's ADI Chain are moving about 35 commercial vessels worth roughly $500 million onto a blockchain, in one of the largest attempts yet to tokenize maritime assets.
Shipfinex and ADI Chain signed an exclusive partnership to tokenize about 35 vessels valued at roughly $500 million, with each ship held inside its own special-purpose vehicle so its value, liabilities and income can be assessed independently. The resulting Maritime Asset Tokens will represent vessel-backed credit, charter-linked income or other economic interests tied to individual ships, rather than direct legal ownership.
"Maritime finance has the scale, real assets and commercial activity to become a major new real-world asset category," Ramana Kumar, president of stablecoin ecosystem at ADI Foundation, said. "The missing piece has been trusted infrastructure connecting individual vessels and its economic value with regulated issuance and onshore digital settlement."
ADI Chain, the Abu Dhabi Layer-2 platform backed by Sirius International Holding, will provide the blockchain, distribution and settlement rails. Primary allocations and distributions are expected to settle through stablecoins denominated in UAE dirhams, U.S. dollars and other currencies, giving institutional buyers an onshore digital route into a globally traded asset class.
No Maritime Asset Tokens have been publicly issued. Shipfinex, which holds an In-Principle Approval from Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority for broker-dealer services, said the project remains in its pilot and operational-readiness phase while the regulated issuance route is finalized.
The pipeline is a fraction of the broader market. Clarksons Research valued the world fleet and ship orderbook at roughly $2.1 trillion at the start of 2026, while total global ship finance — bank lending, leasing, export credit and alternative providers — stood at about $680 billion. Maritime transport carries over 80% of international trade by volume, yet ownership is fragmented across thousands of small and mid-sized operators with limited access to new capital.
Ship financing has traditionally relied on syndicated loans, private equity and bilateral deals with a handful of specialized banks. Shipfinex's structure aims to open that market to digital-asset investors, with each token tied to a vessel's operating history, valuation and legal structure.
The model echoes Ethra Ship, which in June launched a blockchain protocol for maritime investments backed by vessel-owning SPVs. Ethra said individual ships can cost between $30 million and $120 million, underscoring the capital required for direct exposure.
ADI Chain already hosts DDSC, a dirham-backed stablecoin initiated by International Holding Company and First Abu Dhabi Bank and licensed by the UAE Central Bank in February. The network has also facilitated a $30 million transaction involving IHC, one of Abu Dhabi's largest conglomerates.
The vessel program arrives as tokenized real-world assets keep climbing. RWA.xyz data showed roughly $38.1 billion in tokenized RWAs as of Aug. 9, with U.S. Treasury debt at $16.2 billion and commodities at $4.9 billion. The total has expanded from about $5.4 billion at the start of 2025, with Ethereum hosting roughly 60% of the value.
Standard Chartered forecast Monday that tokenized real-world assets could reach $4 trillion by the end of 2028, split evenly between stablecoins and RWAs, according to Geoff Kendrick, the bank's global head of digital asset research.
Earlier attempts to digitize shipping at scale have stalled. TradeLens, the Maersk and IBM platform launched in 2018 to digitize supply-chain documentation, was discontinued in late 2022 and ceased operations in the first quarter of 2023 after failing to reach industry-wide adoption.
Shipfinex and ADI Chain have yet to set a date for the first public issuance, saying the initial phase will focus on finalizing the regulated route and confirming the product structure. The $500 million figure represents a target pipeline rather than capital already deployed on-chain.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
