Dubai-based Shipfinex has partnered with ADI Chain to tokenize about 35 vessels valued at roughly $500 million, with the planned structure designed to give shipowners access to blockchain-based financing and investment channels.
Summary
- Shipfinex has partnered with ADI Chain to tokenize about 35 vessels valued at roughly $500 million through separate special purpose vehicles.
- The planned tokens could represent vessel backed credit, charter linked income or other economic interests, with ADI Chain providing distribution and settlement infrastructure.
- Stablecoins denominated in UAE dirhams, U.S. dollars and other currencies are expected to support primary allocations and distributions.
- The project remains in the pilot and operational readiness stage, with no Maritime Asset Tokens publicly issued and the regulated issuance route still being finalized.
- Tokenized real world assets totaled about $38.1 billion as of Aug. 9, while Standard Chartered expects the market to reach $4 trillion by the end of 2028.
According to Shipfinex, each vessel in the planned pipeline will be placed inside a separate special-purpose vehicle, creating a legal structure through which tokens can represent economic interests tied to individual ships.
Shipfinex plans $500 million vessel tokenization pipeline
Depending on how each transaction is structured, the tokens could represent vessel-backed credit, income linked to charter agreements, or other economic interests connected to a specific ship. Separating the vessels into individual SPVs would also allow the economic rights associated with one ship to be structured independently from the rest of the portfolio.
ADI Chain will provide the blockchain infrastructure for distribution and settlement under the partnership. Primary allocations and subsequent distributions are expected to use stablecoins denominated in UAE dirhams, U.S. dollars and potentially other currencies.
The companies have not yet moved the planned assets into public issuance. Shipfinex said the partnership remains in its pilot and operational-readiness phase, while the regulated route required to issue the Maritime Asset Tokens is still being finalized.
As a result, none of the planned Maritime Asset Tokens have been publicly issued so far, despite the companies identifying a pipeline of about 35 vessels.
The $500 million portfolio would represent only a fraction of the value held in the global maritime industry. Clarksons Research valued the world fleet and ship orderbook at approximately $2.1 trillion at the beginning of 2026.
Shipfinex’s planned structure would bring vessels, an asset class traditionally financed through bank loans, leasing arrangements and private capital, into a tokenization model where defined economic rights can be represented and settled through blockchain infrastructure.
A similar model has already emerged elsewhere in the maritime sector. In June, crypto.news reported on Ethra Ship’s launch of a blockchain protocol for investments linked to operating maritime assets.
Ethra’s structure separated its SHIP governance token from a regulated real-world asset investment layer backed by vessel-owning SPVs. The platform was supported by Ethra Invest, which had been acquiring, managing and commercially operating vessels since 2021.
Ethra also said individual ships in the market can cost between $30 million and $120 million, illustrating the amount of capital that can be required to gain direct exposure to maritime assets. Its model used operating vessels and charter revenue as the economic base for its tokenized investment structure.
ADI Chain provides stablecoin settlement infrastructure
For Shipfinex, ADI Chain’s role extends beyond recording the planned vessel-linked tokens. The network is expected to support their distribution and settlement, including transactions involving currency-denominated stablecoins.
ADI Chain has already been involved in digital asset infrastructure projects in Abu Dhabi. In May, a previous report covered BNY’s launch of institutional Bitcoin and Ether custody services in Abu Dhabi Global Market through a collaboration involving Finstreet Limited and the ADI Foundation.
BNY, which had $59.4 trillion in assets under custody and administration at the time, initially offered custody for Bitcoin and Ether to regional institutional clients. The platform was also intended to support stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets as its services expanded.
ADI Chain has separately been used for dirham-denominated stablecoin infrastructure. DDSC, a stablecoin backed one-to-one by UAE dirham reserves, launched on ADI Chain in February after receiving approval from the UAE Central Bank.
The stablecoin was initiated by International Holding Company and First Abu Dhabi Bank, according to the announcement at the time. Its presence on ADI Chain provides existing dirham-based settlement infrastructure as Shipfinex prepares a model that could use UAE dirham-denominated stablecoins for vessel token allocations and distributions.
Tokenized real-world assets reach $38.1 billion
Shipfinex is preparing the vessel program while the value of tokenized real-world assets continues to increase across government debt, commodities, private credit and other asset classes.
Data from RWA.xyz showed approximately $38.1 billion in tokenized real-world assets as of Aug. 9. U.S. Treasury debt accounted for about $16.2 billion of the total, while tokenized commodities represented another $4.9 billion.
The market had already expanded sharply earlier in the year. By May, RWA.xyz and other market data placed tokenized real-world assets at roughly $31 billion to $34 billion, compared with around $5.4 billion at the start of 2025. Ethereum hosted about 60% of the value at the time, while tokenized U.S. Treasuries accounted for roughly $15 billion.
Growth has also extended into assets that have historically been difficult to divide or distribute to investors. Vessel tokenization falls into that category because ownership, financing and income rights can be tied to individual physical ships through legal entities rather than existing natively on a blockchain.
Under Shipfinex’s proposed setup, the SPVs would provide that off-chain legal structure, while ADI Chain would handle the blockchain-based distribution and settlement layer. The exact rights attached to each token would depend on whether a transaction represents credit, charter-linked income or another economic interest.
Standard Chartered sees tokenized assets reaching $4 trillion
Institutional forecasts have put the potential tokenization market far above its current size. In a report released Monday, Standard Chartered forecast that tokenized real-world assets could reach $4 trillion by the end of 2028, according to Geoff Kendrick, the bank’s global head of digital asset research.
An earlier Standard Chartered forecast covered in May projected $4 trillion of tokenized assets on-chain by the end of 2028, split evenly between stablecoins and real-world assets.
Kendrick said at the time that established decentralized finance protocols with strong risk controls could capture much of the activity as traditional financial assets move on-chain. He cited BlackRock’s BUIDL tokenized Treasury fund as an example of an institutional asset that can generate Treasury yield while also being used within blockchain-based financial products.
The bank’s projection included a $2 trillion target for stablecoins and another $2 trillion for tokenized RWAs by the end of 2028. Standard Chartered also estimated that roughly 1,000 times more assets remained off-chain than on-chain when it published the earlier forecast.
Shipfinex, meanwhile, has yet to publicly issue any of the Maritime Asset Tokens in its proposed $500 million vessel pipeline, with the company still working through pilot preparations, operational readiness and the regulated issuance route for the planned tokens.
