01Reserve
No reserve, no sign-on.
Before anyone steps aboard, the shipowner locks four months of that berth's wages and the fare home in the wage chest. If it is not on board, the contract refuses the crew member. Nobody can skip this step.
NEAR HACKATHON · NFTs that do something
Four months of wages, already on board.
Each berth on a ship is a NEAR account that is also an NFT. The shipowner fills it before anyone signs on. Only the crew member can empty it.
Also on mainnet: a real voyage in USDCReading NEAR testnet...
Reading NEAR testnet...
Nº 01The moment
Day 74 at anchor off Khor Fakkan.
Arjun Nair (fictional), 31, able seaman from Kochi. It is 21:40 ship's time. His company has not paid wages for two months. Under the Maritime Labour Convention, two months unpaid already counts as abandonment.1
His sister's college fee is due on Friday. The ship's insurer is meant to cover up to four months of wages, but first he has to find out who the insurer is, file a claim from a ship with patchy internet, and wait. One insurer took 8 months to accept liability.2
Arjun is fictional. In 2025, 6,223 real seafarers were abandoned on 410 ships, owed US$25.8 million. Indian seafarers were the most abandoned group, 1,125 of them.3
“The insurance is supposed to pay, eventually.”
Berthright puts four months of his wages inside his berth before he ever signs on. His shipowner can fill it. His shipowner cannot empty it.
- abandoned, 2025
- 6,223
- wages owed
- $25.8M
- one insurer's wait
- 8 mo
- 1. MLC 2006 as amended, Standard A2.5.2 para 2(c).
- 2. ITF submission to IMO, LEG 105/4/3 (2018).
- 3. ITF, 2025 abandonment data.
Nº 02How it works
Four moves, each one enforced by code.
02Wages
Wages arrive every day, by themselves.
Pay accrues by the second, down to the last base unit, and anyone may settle it into the berth account. A scheduled job does it on its own. The crew member never chases a payslip.
03Allotment
The money home goes inside a fence.
Arjun grants the allotment one receiver, one token, a budget and an expiry, written into his berth's own wallet. House of Stake's audited code enforces the fence. Hand the berth over and the fence is gone.
04Release
If the owner stops paying, the flare goes up.
After 14 ship days of unpaid wages (the law allows two months), anyone can declare the ship abandoned and release each crew member's four months and fare home, straight to their own account. No claim. No insurer.
Nº 03NFTs as accounts
The berth is the account.
Berth plateSigned on
ab2-kestrel.crew.berthright.testnet
registrar
The name
ab2-kestrel.crew.berthright.testnet is a real NEAR account, created by the crew namespace's registrar. The wage chest pays this address; the family recognises it; the record attaches to it.
Nº 04Proof
Checked against real cases and the live chain.
Replay · 2023 to 2025
57.8%
of the wages owed in 138 real abandonment cases (1,632 seafarers) would already have been on board on the day abandonment began. Today that figure is 0%.
84 cases owed more than four months and are named as partial misses; 7 were excluded for missing data. Source: ITF abandonment list, retrieved 2026-11-13. Counted in crew-months.
Every case, by vesselReading the chain...
Nº 05Break it
Every refusal is a real transaction.
The owner takes the reserve back
E_RESERVE_LOCKED
Refused on testnetSign-on at a lower wage than the contract
E_WAGE_DIFFERS_FROM_YOUR_CONTRACT
Refused on testnetAbandonment declared early
E_NOT_YET_ABANDONED
Refused on testnetA stranger signs on to Arjun's berth
E_NOT_BERTH_HOLDER
Refused on testnetThe old holder's allotment after hand-over
E_BERTH_CHANGED_HANDS
Refused on testnetAn allotment past its budget
TOKEN_CAP_EXCEEDED
Refused on testnet
Nº 06For shipowners
Why an honest operator opts in.
Evidence that holds
The reserve is visible on chain to crew, port state inspectors and charterers, every hour, not a certificate in a drawer.
Crew that sign
Good seafarers choose ships where the money is already on board, and the berth keeps a sea-service record they own.
A portage bill that writes itself
The master's wage account, per berth, read from chain, as CSV and as a printable PDF.
Surplus stays yours
Anything above the reserves and earned wages can be withdrawn whenever wages are current.
Four minutes · no wallet
Sail the whole voyage yourself.
Your browser makes three keys. A real House of Stake berth is issued to your crew account. Watch a sign-on refused, wages land, the allotment go home, and the guarantee released, all on NEAR testnet.