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DRONE ON explores how drones are reshaping the world. Hosted by Bryce Bladon, the podcast documents the tech, economics and people piloting the world's largest standardized drone imagery network.
EDIT_DO003 - The Blockchain Drone App of Today_2025-10-31 10_54_37
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Bryce Bladon: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to DRONE ON, the only podcast in the air and on the airwaves. I am your host, Bryce Bladon, and today I am joined by Rowan. Rowan, why don't you introduce yourself to, uh, the audience and let 'em know why I'm talking to you.
Rowan Weismiller: Hey, I'm Rowan. I work at Spexi. I've been part of the project since March 2023, so I've been around for a little while and I work predominantly on the LayerDrone protocol, decentralizing parts of the image collection network by a drone, and thinking about the long term utility of a token backing network and how to make it transparent, trustworthy, reliable, broadly useful, not just Spexific to Spexi's needs, but something that would be a remarkable example of a data network owned by pilots.
Bryce Bladon: Fantastic. Alright. There are nine immediate questions I have, but maybe we should start with you and I would love to know either how you got into drones or how you got into this crypto stuff.
Rowan Weismiller: Uh, didn't have any background in drones or crypto before I [00:01:00] joined Spexi. I joined coming from a background in general cloud software engineering, and I joined Spexi because they needed someone with my skill and my background, but were pulling me towards hardware dependencies, like building for drones and blockchain portions of this. So thinking about decentralized software and protocol. Um, and those are things that I hadn't really done in my career. So I was curious to dabble.
Yeah. It's been one of the more, uh, dense like parts of my career. There's just so much to solve. It's a very broad kind of, it's, it's a broad and dense, it's, wow.
How a drone app uses blockchain tech
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Bryce Bladon: So to be clear, uh, the Spexi product does use blockchain. Do you know how long that's been the case?
Rowan Weismiller: The original design of Spexi as a platform did write things on smart contracts and the launch that we did on March. April 8th, 2024. We were having trouble keeping up with some of the changes that we were trying to make leading up to that launch. Simply put the pressure on rapid iteration was higher than the rate of change we were able to do with smart contracts.
Smart contracts are not the [00:02:00] easiest things to redeploy and change without incurring. Been migrating data from one contract to a new contract. And that's something that we learned early on in the project. And so we compromised and we decided to keep things centralized. No one was holding our foot to the fire in terms of like decentralizing things all at once.
So we just kept it all off chain. But we kept one contract lingering for flight receipts that acknowledged that people have done something that is either approved or rejected. And you know, you can go look at the the Explorer on Lia Testnet and you can go and see. Each pilot and their wallet and how many flight, how many flights they've done on chain.
So there is that component on chain, which is just more so a kind of symbolic piece to show everybody that we have intent to put like an immutable record on chain for all of these activities that are being done in this, what we intend to be a marketplace. And yeah, I think it's been helpful for communicating with investors and advisors and lawyers.
All the different people that are involved in building a crypto enabled [00:03:00] company that are beyond like engineers.
Bryce Bladon: Absolutely. You hit on a few things there that, uh, may require a little definition for some listeners. So just to be clear, blockchain, to put it simply, a way for people to transfer value with no one in the middle and smart contracts would be a way to effectively automate things on a blockchain, whether that's payments, usage, rights, uploads, things of that effect and what Ron was talking about with the challenges there are.
I mean, those have always been challenges in blockchain. To put it simply, it is basically a database that works slower among other things. It's more secure as a result of that, but as a result of being slower, if you are working on an instantaneous network. A change I made one second ago, ten second ago, 30 seconds ago, if anyone else was uploading in tandem.
There are just all sorts of ways, and this is one of the key challenges in crypto for those things to start to create conflicts within themselves. I actually have quite a bit of experience with overwhelming a crypto network and thus as a result, making everything on it not work anymore, which to my mind, Rowan is roughly a, a, I guess the amateur version of which you were describing.
Whereas when your smart contracts weren't working, maybe the [00:04:00] product wasn't working great, but when my product was working in the theory and blockchain, I think I effectively blocked out, uh, everyone else for a good month. And this was back in 2017, by the way. So. The blockchain has, uh, evolved quite a bit since then.
But Rowan, you, you hit on some fantastic points there. The one thing I wanted to follow up on to see if it's really perhaps a little bit more the symbolic was the note that there is a smart contract still active, and if I heard you correctly, it is what is tracking reputation points correct. So like, no, no, no.
Okay. What is it?
Rowan Weismiller: Literally just an NFT representing a flight that says it's either approved or or not. It's all we've been tracking, so whenever your data gets reviewed, we mint that NFT and we stamp it approved or not. And it just represents the output of our system though, that they're the paper trail, but it doesn't represent rps.
It doesn't represent anything really. It's a side effect of our system running. Centrally right now. But what is in development right now is a larger protocol. LayerDrone is a decentralized protocol that has multiple smart contracts working together that describe [00:05:00] missions and funds that are escrowed so that somebody can go and claim the rewards for mission by showing that they have a flight that they've done and that flight is approved or redacted. And if it's approved and there's a, you have at least one approved for a mission, then you're entitled to claim the rewards for that mission. Um, and this is done on chain. So there's basically a much better paper trail that shows the interactions, uh, between parties. So somebody can pay for a mission, which puts the money in a contract.
That somebody else can come along later and claim if they'd done the required work to get their flight NFT approved.
Bryce Bladon: Very fair, very fair. So here's the real question. How do I take those NFTs and make a bunch of money off of them?
Rowan Weismiller: Your NFTs are not--
Bryce Bladon: that's a joke, by the way. The, the look in your eyes was very like, ah, Jesus.
So just to clarify with, uh, for our audiences, uh, NFTs, non fungible tokens, you might have seen these in the news as a potential investment of sorts, uh, about five years ago. Not investment necessarily. Definitely a, for lack of a better way of putting it, [00:06:00] interesting file type with, uh, some very, very meaningful consequences in blockchain.
Blockchain prior to, well late 2017, primarily used to transfer fungible value money, things of that effect. At the end of 2017, uh, the NFT standard was effectively introduced to the Ethereum blockchain via ERC 7 21. It was very novel. As a result of that novelty, a lot of people treated it as a potential investment in some very interesting ways that I don't agree with.
So that was a long-winded joke I have now spent explaining and I'm, I'm hoping you heard some of my explanation between all your laughter, which I'm sure there was a lot of. But Rowan, what about crypto and what you are doing with Laird Drone either excites you or to be honest, worries you, like? The thing that I got really excited about was, despite that long-winded joke, knowing that.
Specs, E uses NFTs and has not in any way, shape, or form ever thought to themselves. How can we get our pilots to pay for these? Or like the, the team's approach to integrating crypto has been extremely thoughtful to me. There are a lot of [00:07:00] ways to incorporate the technology in a lot of ways to create a narrative around it.
For example, um. There's, I'll just leave it at that. What excites you? What worries you either side?
Rowan Weismiller: Um, there's like, it's a very ambitious project. Like it's exciting because it is truly like world scale in its ambition. Like it's trying to define a standard for image collection via a drone. So you want aerial imagery... we're trying to create the thing that let whatever drone hardware go and perform the missions and be able to collect that data. And then on the other side, we want to enable any interested party to be able to say, Hey, I want this data. Hey, I want these missions done in this area and I wanna be able to pay, I wanna pay this much for those.
And adding that flexibility so that people can describe what they want and different drone manufacturers may be able to satisfy those requirements. It's like a vessel for this network to grow from. And, uh, Spexi is the first participant, but it is not Spexi alone. We're [00:08:00] designing this in a way that... We can, we can use Spexi as inspiration for like a first representation of like how this could be done.
But for example, like we currently have like an app or two apps, one for DJI drone mini twos, and then one for three and four. And this is because DJI has two SDKs and this creates a lot of complication for us. We are maintaining an application in my mind, essentially for DJI, we are maintaining DJ's applications for them so that people with DJI drones can participate in this network.
But I'd like to imagine it being possible for other drone manufacturers to create their own app that lets people connect to this network and participate using their drones and their SDKs. It wouldn't have to be up to, you know, Spexi or even, or LayerDrone to maintain these connections. Any drone manufacturer, if they wanna sell drones and get people using their drones, they could create an app that participates in this decentralized network.
If they wanna, if they want to give pilots a good reason to buy their drone, they would create an app on this network and allow people to participate.
Bryce Bladon: [00:09:00] Fantastic. And to just get a little clarification around the opportunity, I think, uh, Rowan's hinting at there. Currently the LayerDrone network has, uh, a few hundred active pilots to a few thousand pilots on the network.
But as far as the actual supply of DJI minis alone within, uh, north America, there are hundreds of thousands of them that are sitting unused in garages of closets and things of that effect. To say nothing of just buying one new, and the ability to activate those pieces of hardware and to layer a service on top of that, it's a lot of potential for the manufacturers.
It's a lot of potential for the consumers. It's a lot of potential for companies like Spexi that want to try and find some overlap between the two and scale accordingly. Rowan, we've only got a few more minutes left, but I, I wanna keep digging into this with you. When it comes to crypto and, and what's going on here, are there any examples out there that you find inspirational, either for the right or wrong reasons?
Rowan Weismiller: Mm-hmm.
Bryce Bladon: I have some, uh, I have some on hand if you need 'em.
Rowan Weismiller: I'm not. Uh, super well versed, but I do look at other [00:10:00] DePIN projects to kind of get a sense of like, what are others doing in this space? Because that's what Spexi is helping to start with LayerDrone, it's a DePIN network, a decentralized physical infrastructure network, and that means that people are doing something real in the world that adds value and is worth paying for.
And by decentralizing, um, the, the unit of exchange, um, we can provide this common service across borders. And it's just a general standard for what the world needs. And so an example of that could be like internet access and there's like a helium network which describes like, you know, connection points that have some kind of signature in hardware that they sell.
You can go buy hardware units to go and create an access point for the helium network, but then whoever goes to invest in that access point and install it by, you know, negotiating with a restaurant owner or something and being like, Hey, can I keep my access point in your restaurant? They make. Money token, they earn token for having it there and people using it to benefit and get internet access.
So whoever's, whoever's posting this or chose to invest in the hardware gets to benefit. And [00:11:00] similarly for, for us, like we are getting people who have their drones to invest into the network with their time and their hardware to. Go and get these images and yeah, so there's, there's definitely like, there's definitely interest in like other crypto projects and how they've chosen to model like deep defend network.
Yeah, that's been my interest. I'm not really like, interested in like the speculative, kind of like brazy, solana, like meme, coin frenzy. Like that kind of stuff has never appealed to me. I don't, I find it horrifying what like kids are doing of each other, like teenagers are getting into trading and scanning each other and it's like a game to them and it's just like.
Wild to me how people are using crypto to do like nefarious things because it's kind of obscure and like people can get away with it. But I, I think that there's much, much broader impacts of like deterministic public, like transparent computing.
Bryce Bladon: Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's extremely well said. I agree with your general perspective on crypto, by the way. I've heard it said that, uh, across all technologies, the innovation we keep [00:12:00] coming back to is some form of sports gambling. And uh, unfortunately, crypto has been a unfortunately fantastic technology for helping to catalyze that. Again, blockchain is really good for helping people transfer value with no one in the middle.
So basically anything where somebody's transferring value, that creates a new business opportunity. If you somehow incorporate blockchain technology. What interests me so much about what Spexi is doing and, and why I agreed to, uh, work with the team in the first place was the thoughtful approach here.
There are ways to do this wrong. There are ways to do this right, and there are ways to do this wrong, but still make a lot of money. And I am very pleased to, from my perspective, see the Spexi team take the right approach from, uh, creating the nonprofit LayerDrone foundation, uh, back in April, 2025 to effectively decentralize their tech stack and empower the pilot community as a, uh store a value for lack, a better way of putting it to, uh, all the work you're doing right now, Rowan. Now we've only got a couple minutes, but I, I'm wondering, do you have time for our hit segment innovation or idiotic?
Innovation or Idiotic?
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[00:13:00]
Bryce Bladon: So what I'm gonna do with you is I'm gonna share three true sounding tech related stories,
Rowan Weismiller: all right?
Bryce Bladon: And you're gonna tell me which one is the lie.
Rowan Weismiller: All right.
Bryce Bladon: We'll start with the city of Miami briefly experimented with paying parking tickets in Miami coin, but they had to abandon the program when the coin's volatility meant some people owed $5 in tickets that turned into $500 debts overnight.
Story two, CryptoKitties. The blockchain cat breeding game actually cost such severe network congestion on Ethereum in 2017 that it slowed down the entire blockchain and increased transaction fees across all Ethereum applications. Sometimes in the thousands of dollars, if not more. Topic three. New York City briefly had a coin called NYC coin, created on behalf of Mayor Eric Adams to fund public Works projects.
Two of these stories are true. One of them is a lie. Which one do you think it is Rowan?
Rowan Weismiller: Third one's a lie.
Bryce Bladon: Third one's the [00:14:00] lie. Guess who made NYC coin? My man.
Rowan Weismiller: Really?
Bryce Bladon: Me and Eric Adams. Not me, Eric Adams. But, uh, you know what, yeah, he was involved.
Rowan Weismiller: That one lack specifics.
Bryce Bladon: That's kinda why it didn't turn into it... shit. Uh, it kind of just cratered. No, actually the lie was the city of Miami and MiamiCoin. Both true. Technically I was involved, but you could never actually pay parking tickets with it. Um,
Rowan Weismiller: okay.
Bryce Bladon: The coin did have some volatility issues. Same issue as NYC coin and, and honestly, the same issue a lot of crypto projects have, which is maintaining their value.
When something is effectively decentralized, that means that anyone can access it, and unless there are guardrails or points of friction to prevent people from being a bad actor, people are gonna try and acquire your token and sell it as fast and as much as possible unless you put that thoughtfulness in.
Rowan, thank you for handling my little game I caught you with. If folks wanna learn more about you or uh, just keep abreast of what you're doing, how should they do so?
Rowan Weismiller: Uh, Spexi.com.
Bryce Bladon: Spexi.com. It is. All right. Give it up for the [00:15:00] sponsor, Rowan. Thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it and I wish you all the best.
Rowan Weismiller: Thanks Bryce. Thanks for the interview.
Bryce Bladon: Thanks for listening to DRONE ON. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Get a new episode every week and leave us a five star review on your podcast app of choice. You can learn more about our sponsors at Spexi.com. That's SPEXI.com and LayerDrone.org. Find out how you can contribute to the world's largest drone imagery network too.
Thanks again for listening.