Verify, Not Just Trust: How to Check Your Holdings On-Chain

You’ve completed your KYC, and as Shipfinex wallet activation and the first ship listings approach, users ask us frequently:

Once my holdings appear in the wallet, how do I independently verify them?

In traditional financial systems, ownership is something you’re told. You see a balance on a statement or a dashboard and accept it at face value. Blockchain-backed ownership works differently. It allows the underlying digital record to be independently verified, rather than relying solely on what an interface displays.

This week’s note explains how verification works on Shipfinex and polygon blockchain once Maritime Asset Tokens (MATs) are issued, what you will be able to confirm for yourself, and where the limits of blockchain transparency begin.

Important context: Independent verification does not imply unrestricted control or transferability. All MAT activity remains subject to smart contract rules and the offering documentation governing each asset.

What Verification Means in Practice

Once MATs are issued, on-chain verification allows you to confirm three specific things:1. your wallet address holds tokens,2. those tokens belong to the correct smart contract linked to a specific ship,3. the quantity of tokens matches your participation.

That’s the full scope of verification.

What you are not verifying is ship performance, future earnings, charter outcomes, or asset value. Those realities exist off-chain and are addressed through operational reporting and disclosures, not through a blockchain ledger.

A useful way to think about this is a registry or logbook. A registry confirms ownership and records changes. It doesn’t tell you how profitable the voyage will be. Blockchain plays a similar role for the digital representation of ownership.

How Verification Works on Shipfinex

Verification begins inside the Shipfinex platform.

As wallets and MATs become active, your dashboard will surface the key details required to verify ownership: your wallet address and your MAT balance linked to a specific ship. From there, the underlying public blockchain record is available as an independent reference.

The purpose of this design is simple. Shipfinex remains the primary interface, while the blockchain acts as the neutral record beneath it, which is accessible by you to independently verify.

What Should You Check

The practical verification step is consistency.

The balance shown in your dashboard, the balance recorded on-chain, and the total supply defined in the smart contract should all align. If a ship is tokenized into 100,000 units and you hold 1,000 MATs, that proportional ownership should read the same everywhere.

When tokens are allocated, that allocation is recorded. When distributions occur, those records appear as well. Instead of relying only on statements or notifications, you can confirm that something happened, when it happened, and in what amount.

This is where blockchain transparency adds value. Reported activity on the Shipfinex platform can be checked against a permanent, independent, and time-stamped record.

When Something Doesn’t Look Right

If the platform view and the underlying on-chain record don’t match, the blockchain record is the reference point for the digital token layer. Interface delays or display errors should be flagged to Shipfinex support for resolution.

If you ever see on-chain activity you don’t recognise, it’s a reminder that while wallets are self-custodial, token movements remain subject to smart contract rules that enforce eligibility and transfer restrictions. Wallet control authorises actions; the contract determines whether those actions can execute.

Over time, this kind of verification becomes routine. Not something you monitor constantly, but something you check periodically, the way records are reconciled in any asset-heavy business.

Understanding the Boundary

Blockchain provides transparency into ownership records. It does not provide insight into business performance.

It does not show whether a ship is chartered, what future charter rates may be, or how operating and maintenance costs are tracking. Past on-chain activity is not an indicator of future results.

What blockchain does offer (and what maritime finance has historically lacked) is the ability to independently verify recorded ownership positions without relying solely on intermediaries.

In Conclusion

Maritime professionals are used to working with records that matter: registries, logs, manifests, and reconciliations that stand up to scrutiny.

Blockchain doesn’t change that discipline. It extends it to digital ownership. It allows recorded ownership to be independently verified, without relying entirely on intermediaries or statements.

This is simply a clearer way to confirm what exists.