How do you build the world's largest drone imagery network from scratch? Graham Anderson, Operations Manager at Spexi Geospatial, reveals the untold story of LayerDrone's journey from 230 test missions in a single Canadian town to covering over 200 municipalities across North America. Discover how consumer drones, blockchain incentives, and a community of pioneering pilots transformed a vision into reality—starting with test flights off a garage’s roof in Vernon, BC.

• How the network started with 230 missions in Cochrane, Alberta with color-coded Google Maps
• Scaling from 4 pilots to 5,000+ across North America in 18 months
• Why standardization was the key to rapid growth

• (00:00) - The History of the World's First Autonomous Drone Network
• (00:53) - Meet Graham: Ops Manager for the World's Largest Drone Network
• (02:36) - Spexi seeds LayerDrone when Bill wants bite-sized pieces of the earth mapped
• (04:46) - The Trusted Alpha and First Flights on the Network
• (08:29) - Today's flights vs. the trusted alpha
• (09:10) - The Known User Alpha
• (15:55) - The network's private beta
• (19:31) - The network's public beta
• (21:03) - The network's testnet
• (22:02) - Launching LayerDrone in 2025
• (26:15) - The big unlock for drones: standardization
• (27:21) - How pilots built the network
• (29:04) - Innovation or Idiotic?

Hosted by Bryce Bladon | Edited by AJ Fillari | Sponsored by Spexi.com & LayerDrone.org

Alec Wilson, COO of Spexi, explains how LayerDrone became the world’s largest standardized drone imagery network, and why Spexi made the decision to spin LayerDrone out into a public-good, crypto-economic protocol. He goes on to share:

• his journey from helicopter pilot to building one of the most ambitious aerial data networks in the world,
• the regulatory evolution of drones in Canadian airspace,
• how LayerDrone standardizes imagery from thousands of pilots, and
• why spatial AI, world models, and next-gen robotics companies are hungry for ultra-high-resolution, frequently updated aerial data.

Discussed

• How to go from flying helicopters to co-founding a drone training company that certified 10,000+ pilots
• The founding vision behind LayerDrone as an open-source, crypto-economic protocol for standardized drone imagery
• Why Spexi spun out LayerDrone and their role as the founding core contributor
• How the network balances pilot agency with safety requirements and regulatory compliance
• The relationship between Spexi (demand) and LayerDrone (supply)

Timecodes

• (00:00) - LayerDrone: the World’s Largest Standardized Drone
• (00:20) - Alec Wilson: Helicopter Pilot to Drone COO
• (01:51) - Alec co-founds Coastal Drone
• (04:17) - LayerDrone's founding vision
• (06:37) - Spexi's relationship with LayerDrone
• (07:47) - LayerDrone standardizes and coordinates thousands of drones
• (09:57) - Why take the risk of creating LayerDrone?
• (16:32) - Innovation or Idiotic?

Hosted by Bryce Bladon | Edited by AJ Fillari | Sponsored by Spexi.com & LayerDrone.org

Bryce welcomes Mapster (Sony), LayerDrone's top community contributor and the DePIN ambassador for drones and spatial data. As someone uniquely positioned between the crypto and drone communities, Mapster shares his decade-long journey from recreational drone pilot to DePIN enthusiast, explaining how his passion for hardware engineering led him to discover the convergence of blockchain technology and physical infrastructure.

Discussed:

• What DePIN really means for drone pilots (and why understanding DePIN isn't necessarily required to benefit from it)
• How Spexi is the perfect way to start flying drones
• Building a DePIN-mobile with a Tesla, Hivemapper, DIMO, and GEODNET devices

• (00:00) - Today: Becoming a DePIN and Drone Ambassador
• (01:04) - Mapster, Drones, and DePIN
• (05:54) - Why we keep discussing DePIN
• (08:52) - ...but why DePIN?
• (13:39) - How to join the network
• (14:51) - Innovation or Idiotic?
• (18:14) - The Bryce is Wrong!?

Hosted by Bryce Bladon | Edited by AJ Fillari | Sponsored by Spexi.com & LayerDrone.org

Graham Anderson, Operations Manager at Spexi, explains how cryptocurrency and blockchain technology are solving the drone industry's scalability challenge. He discusses how DePINs (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) are revolutionizing drone operations, how standardized data products unlock global networks, and why tokens enable coordination at scale that traditional payment methods cannot match.

Discussed:

• The $50B DePIN market and its path to $3.5T by 2028
• Why traditional drone services can't scale across geographies
• What crypto actually does (and doesn’t do) for a drone network

• (00:00) - How Crypto Empowers Drone Ops with Graham from Spexi_2025-11-10 11_32_35
• (00:47) - Guest Introduction: Graham Anderson, Ops Manager @ Spexi
• (04:06) - Today's episode: why do drones benefit from the blockchain or crypto?
• (09:42) - What does crypto "do" for the network? For pilots?
• (12:06) - The DePIN challenge Spexi overcame: hardware makes things harder
• (15:24) - Technologies like drones and crypto go through waves
• (23:09) - "Fight or Flight" Segment
• (25:59) - Segment: The Bryce is Wrong

What if Uber paid their drivers with tokens? This episode explores how tokenization and decentralization are creating new economic models for drone-based businesses and the pilots who power them.

Matt Chwierut brings over a decade of experience to break down complex concepts like tokens, token-powered networks, and how they differ from traditional platform models. He explains why LayerDrone chose to build on blockchain, what it means for drone pilots to be paid in tokens rather than cash, and how this approach creates a fundamentally different relationship between contributors and the networks they help build.

From the evolution of open-source protocols to the limitations of platform-based models like Uber, Matt explains how tokens offer a third path—one that combines the openness of protocols with aligned financial incentives for all participants.

Guest: Matt Chwierut, Head of Crypto, Spexi Geospatial, Inc.

Discussed:

• What is a token? Understanding provably scarce digital assets and how they differ from traditional digital currencies
• Token-powered networks: The third way between open-source protocols and centralized platforms
• Why LayerDrone chose blockchain: Moving beyond the "Uber for drones" model to give pilots a stake in the network
• DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks): How physical infrastructure meets blockchain incentives
• Pilot empowerment: Why paying pilots in tokens creates fundamentally different economics than cash-based platforms
• The future of decentralized work: Coordinating skilled human contributors in non-fungible work through tokenization

Timestamps:

• [00:00] Introduction to DRONE ON
• [01:00] Guest introduction: Matt Chwierut's decade in Web3
• [03:00] What is a token? Breaking down the basics
• [05:00] Token-powered networks: A third path for digital infrastructure
• [08:00] The problems with traditional platform models
• [11:00] What is DePIN and why it matters for drones
• [15:00] Why LayerDrone chose to build on blockchain
• [18:00] How paying pilots in tokens is different from paying in cash
• [23:00] Where to learn more about LayerDrone
• [23:30] "Bryce is Wrong" segment: Blockchain stories from 2018

Hosted by Bryce Bladon (brycebladon.com) | Edited by AJ Fillari (ajfillari.online) | Sponsored by Spexi.com & LayerDrone.org

Daniel shares his journey from building DIY drones in 2014 to becoming a professional Drone First Responder. With roughly 1,000 missions flown with Spexi for the LayerDrone network, Daniel discusses the competitive nature of drone work, the importance of staying calm under pressure, and how fly-to-earn opportunities reignited his passion for aviation.

00:38 Introduction to Daniel Whitfield, Drone First Responder
05:27 A DFR's Work Week
09:49 Special Segment: The Bryce is Wrong

Discussed:

• Breaking into professional drone work through Spexi
• Life as a Drone First Responder (DFR) supporting police and emergency services
• Optimizing flight strategies for maximum efficiency on the Spexi app
• Balancing emergency response work with mapping missions

Highlights

• "Spexi motivated me to get my Part 107, which eventually elevated me to this job where I get to be on top of the world."
• "You gotta have kind of a spirit of wonder. You wanna just push for what hasn't been done before."

Connect with Daniel

• YouTube: Aerial Cinema
• The rest of the internet: CloudyConnex

Hosted by Bryce Bladon (brycebladon.com) | Edited by AJ Fillari (ajfillari.online)
Sponsored by Spexi.com | LayerDrone.org

Rowan Weismiller discusses how the Spexi app uses blockchain technology, and what that means for LayerDrone, a decentralized protocol for drone imagery collection. Learn about NFT flight receipts, smart contracts, and building a pilot-owned data network that sets world-scale standards for aerial imagery.

Key Topics:

• How Spexi integrates blockchain technology into drone imagery collection
• The transition from centralized to decentralized systems and smart contract challenges
• NFTs as flight receipts and mission verification tools
• Creating a world-scale standard for aerial imagery collection
• The LayerDrone Foundation's approach to decentralizing the tech stack

Highlights:

• Spexi maintains flight receipt NFTs as an immutable record of pilot activities
• “If drone manufacturers want to give pilots a good reason to buy their drone, they would create an app on this network and allow people to participate.”

0:00 - Meet Rowan Weismiller

1:45 - How Spexi Uses Blockchain Technology

8:00 - Building a World-Scale Standard for Aerial Imagery

13:00 - Innovation or Idiotic? Game Segment

Hosted by Bryce Bladon (brycebladon.com) | Edited by AJ Fillari (ajfillari.online) |

Sponsored by Spexi.com | LayerDrone.org

Just as the internet evolved from Web1 to Web2 to Web3, mapping technology is experiencing its own paradigm shift. This episode explores how we've progressed from static maps to real-time navigation to contextual spatial understanding—and why this convergence of technologies represents a foundational shift that most people haven't recognized yet.

Mapping 1.0 (3000 BCE - 1990s): Locate

• Fixed coordinates, static maps, survey-based
• Key milestone: GPS consumer access (1995)

Mapping 2.0 (1996 - 2010s): Navigate

• Interactive wayfinding, real-time updates, universal smartphone access
• Key examples: MapQuest (1996), Google Maps (2005), Waze (2013)

Mapping 3.0 (2010s - Present): Understand

• Temporal intelligence, predictive insights, contextual interpretation
• Multidimensional data layers (environmental, social, economic)
• Key capabilities: ML traffic prediction, AR overlay, computer vision

Highlights:

• Just as internet evolved from Read (Web1) → Read/Write (Web2) → Read/Write/Own (Web3), maps evolved from Locate → Navigate → Understand
• Mapping 1.0 lasted millennia, 2.0 lasted ~20 years, 3.0 is evolving rapidly as a foundational layer rather than distinct domain

Host: Bryce Bladon | Editor: AJ Fillari | Sponsors: Spexi.com / LayerDrone.org