Lyft has partnered with Bee Maps, a decentralized mapping platform built on Hivemapper infrastructure, to support its internal mapping efforts, the company has confirmed to Decrypt. The rideshare firm began working with Bee Maps in 2024 and is using the platform’s street-level mapping data to help improve routing and navigation as it expands its autonomous vehicle strategy. Bee Maps publicly announced the relationship in a blog post on Wednesday, describing Lyft as a customer of its crypto-incentivized mapping network.
The consumer-facing mapping product is built on top of Hivemapper, a decentralized, crypto-incentivized map-building network that runs on Solana. The platform relies on a global network of contributors who upload street imagery via AI-powered dashcams, rewarding them with its native HONEY token. “Lyft recognized that old-school mapping couldn’t keep up with the real world,” Ariel Seidman, co-founder and CEO of Bee Maps, said in the post. “For mobility to work and for autonomy to become reality, maps can’t be an afterthought—they need to be crowdsourced, live, accurate, and open.”
While Bee Maps has promoted the use of crowdsourced data from drivers, Decrypt understands that Lyft’s partnership is limited to licensing mapping data and does not involve Lyft drivers or their vehicles contributing to the platform. Lyft has previously invested in open-source mapping through contributions to OpenStreetMap, and the Bee Maps partnership points to its continued push toward more flexible and real-time mapping systems, independent of legacy providers. Terms of the deal between the pair were not disclosed.
Some of the world's biggest AI platforms experienced overlapping service disruptions on Thursday, September 3,…
Official U.S. economic data is moving directly onto public blockchains. The U.S. Department of Commerce…
World is opening up the privacy technology behind World ID to everyone. The Sam Altman-backed…
Wyoming is adding another layer of blockchain infrastructure to its state-issued stablecoin. The Wyoming Stable…
Sports fan tokens may be about to get a major upgrade from voting on jerseys…
Shein's long-awaited public debut didn't stop at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Just hours after…