Author: flowie, ChainCather
The popularity of the DePIN track continues to rise. The popular concept coin MOBILE in the DePIN sector once reached $0.0077, a record high, and has risen by nearly 800% in the past 7 days.
In addition to MOBILE, among the DePIN concept coins, DIMO, NODL, WiFi, HOPR, STORJ, IOTX, HNT, etc. have all increased by more than 60% in the past 7 days. In the past week, DePIN can be said to be the only hot narrative that can rival Inscription.
Currently on CoinGecko, the DePIN section includes a total of 52 projects that have issued coins, with a total market value of US$12.2 billion, ranking 22nd among all sections, surpassing P2E, oracle, storage, AMM, AI and other sections. The encrypted data platform RootData includes nearly 60 key projects that have issued coins and those that have not yet issued coins.
Why is DePIN suddenly so popular? In addition to MOBILE, which has the fastest growth and the highest popularity, what other concept projects are worth paying attention to?
Why is DePIN popular again?
First of all, DePIN is not a new narrative. DePIN (Decentralized physical infrastructure) is a bit similar to this year's popular RWA. Similar concept discussions and concept projects appeared a few years ago, but they were not summarized into a clearer narrative and promoted as a hot narrative.
If we trace the formation of the DePIN concept, perhaps it can be attributed to a survey released by Messari at the end of 2022. At that time, Messari solicited an official title for "Web3 Physical Infrastructure". DePIN was selected in the competition among Physical Proof of Work (PoPw), Token Incentivized Physical Network (TIPIN), EdgeFi and decentralized physical infrastructure network.
In January 2023, Messari also released a research report on the DePIN track. Messari stated that the DePIN network is a blockchain technology that uses token incentives to coordinate the physical hardware facilities of multiple individual units in a permissionless, trustless and programmable form.
In addition, Messari believes that the total market value of DePIN is estimated to exceed 2.2 trillion US dollars in the future, and is expected to reach 3.5 trillion US dollars by 2028. The concept of DePIN covers a very wide range. Messari divides DePIN into four major categories: server (cloud) network; wireless network; sensor network and energy network. Some of the subdivided tracks such as decentralized storage, decentralized computing power, decentralized Internet of Things, decentralized geographic information collection, decentralized communication network, etc. are included. The decentralized storage platforms such as Filecoin and Arweave that we are familiar with, and the decentralized unlimited hotspot network Helium all belong to this track.
Looking back at the discussion about DePIN this year, in addition to the promotion of the crypto research platform Messari, crypto institutions represented by Wanxiang Blockchain, Multicoin, and HashKey Capital, including Solana Hackathon in the middle of the year, also mentioned the attention and layout of DePIN. But they all focused on memes and Bitcoin inscriptions, and the attention to DePIN was not focused enough, or it was mostly questioned that it was "old wine in a new bottle". But at the Hong Kong Fintech Week in November, the attention to DePIN increased.
With a series of preparations, why did DePIN concept coins enter a general rise recently? Simply put, it is mainly because the DePIN concept item on Solana has brought the entire DePIN track into the spotlight. According to a recent analysis by CoinEx, in the popular Solana ecosystem, the focus is mainly on DeFi, Memecoin and DePIN.
It can also be said that the earliest leading and most popular concept projects in this round of DePIN are mainly concentrated in the Solana ecosystem. Currently, the three most popular DePIN projects on Coingecko are all Solana ecosystem projects. For example, Helium and its sub-projects Helium Mobile and Helium HOT have seen significant increases, especially yesterday, when Helium Mobile's increase in the past 7 days once reached 1000%.
Furthermore, the hot market requires suitable hype targets. DePIN has undergone more than half a year of market education and is gradually moving towards implementation. It also has a relatively rich range of investment targets, and its narrative prospects are broader than concepts such as derivatives and NFTs.
Who is the leader of DePIN? Check out the most popular DePIN concept coins
The Messari report pointed out that the total potential market size of the DePIN sector is estimated to be around US$2.2 trillion and may reach US$3.5 trillion by 2028. However, the current total market value of DePIN is only US$12.2 billion, and there is still huge room for growth.
Judging from the current market value ranking, the top ten DePIN concept projects are Filecoin, Render, Helium, Theta Network, Arweave, Helium Mobile, Akash Network, IoTeX, Siacoin, and Holo. The market value of the top four projects alone exceeds 1 billion US dollars.
Among them, storage projects Filecoin, ArweaveEco, and Storj; computing power projects Akash Network and Render; and network projects Helium are all well-known old projects.
Top 10 DePIN concept projects with the largest increase in the past week
Judging from the growth rate in the past 7 days, among the DePIN concept projects with a market value of more than 10 million US dollars, the most popular ones are Helium Mobile, DIMO, Nodle Network, WiFi Map, HOPR, Helium IOT, Helium, IoTex, Storj, and Shadow Token. Among them, Helium Mobile's 7-day growth rate exceeded 1000%, and the other 7-day growth rates exceeded 40%.
Among the ten DePIN concept projects with the largest increase, Helium, Helium Mobile, Storj, IoTeX, and DIMO have a market value of over 100 million US dollars, and the rest are low-market value projects of several thousand US dollars.
Helium系：Helium（HNT）、Helium Mobile（MOBILE）、Helium IOT（IOT）
Helium tokens have led the rise in this round of DePIN craze. Among them, Helium is a decentralized wireless hotspot network that provides public, long-range wireless coverage for IoT devices that support LoRaWAN. In April this year, Helium completed the migration from the Solana network.
HNT is the native token of the Helium network, used for mining on the Helium blockchain and as a reward for transmitting data through the Helium network. There is no pre-mining, and the maximum supply is 223 million. Currently, according to CoinGecko data, HNT's total market value is $1.244 billion, and the token has risen by 66% in the past week.
MOBILE and IOT are two new tokens announced by Helium in June last year. MOBILE tokens are used to reward users who operate 5G nodes and contribute to Helium's latest network. And IOT tokens allow node operators to earn tokens for the LoRaWAN network originally designed for Internet of Things (IoT) devices such as sensors and trackers.
Last July, Helium developer Nova Labs announced that it had signed a five-year mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) agreement with telecom giant T-Mobile, and plans to launch commercial mobile smartphone services under the Helium Mobile brand in the first quarter of 2023. In August of this year, Helium Mobile launched a $5 data package with unlimited calls, text messages, and mobile traffic for the first time in Miami. Recently, on December 6, Helium Mobile officially launched the service across the United States, with a monthly fee of only $20.
The current market value of MOBILE is nearly $600 million, and the token price has increased by more than 2,800% in the past month. Compared with HNT and MOBILE, the market value of IOT, the reward token of the Helium IOT network, is only more than 59 million US dollars, but the token has increased by more than 69% in the past week.
DIMO (DIMO)
DIMO is an automotive Internet of Things (IoT) platform in the Polygon ecosystem. It focuses on the concept of Drive to Earn, allowing drivers to share vehicle data streams and earn DIMO tokens by contributing to the ecosystem.
In September 2022, DIMO received US$9 million in investment from CoinFund, Variant Fund, Slow Ventures and others, and launched its mainnet in December 2022.
The total market value of DIMO is currently $80 million, and the price of the futures token has increased by 85% in the past week. DIMO is now listed on Coinbase.
Recommended reading: "Interpreting DIMO: Targeting the trillion-dollar market, reshaping the automotive data monetization ecosystem with DePin"
Nodle Network（NODL）
Founded in 2017, Nodle Network is a decentralized wireless network in the Polkadot ecosystem that provides low-range wireless access to IoT devices. Through Nodle, network contributors can share their communication resources to achieve network connectivity. These contributors become part of a shared, interoperable "citizen network" and are incentivized to expand the network through a connectivity proof algorithm. Simply put, Nodle Network is a decentralized network consisting of millions of smartphones and other hardware devices. By downloading the app, you become a "node", participate in the network and earn rewards.
Nodle Network has a circulating market value of only about 15.7 million US dollars. It is a DePIN concept project with a relatively low market value but a large increase in token price. Its token NODL has increased by more than 40% in the past 24 hours.
WiFi Map（WIFI）
WiFi Map is a WiFi network application that allows users to connect to millions of WiFi hotspots in more than 200 countries, as well as access eSIM data, offline maps, and VPN protection in more than 70 countries to ensure a safe and reliable online experience. Users who contribute valuable WiFi hotspots to the platform can be rewarded with $WIFI tokens.
DWF Labs participated in the investment in WiFi Map in February 2023. WiFi Map's circulating market value has just exceeded US$10 million, with an increase of 78% in the past week.
Recommended reading: "Understanding WiFi Map in One Article"
HOPR（HOPR ）
Founded in 2019, HOPR is a protocol that allows users to run peer-to-peer privacy network nodes, which can send data over the network without exposing metadata (metadata can describe the object of sending and receiving data, the time of sending data, the amount of data sent, the address of sending data, etc.). HOPR can ensure the privacy of the identity of the sender and receiver while ensuring the encryption of the information content.
Although HOPR’s price has increased by 90% in the past 7 days, it has fallen by 30% in the past 24 hours. HOPR’s current circulating market value is nearly 36 million US dollars, which is also a target with a lower market value in DePIN, but with a prominent increase.
IoTeX（ IOTX ）
Founded in 2017, IoTeX is an EVM-compatible Layer1 blockchain that focuses on providing secure interactions between humans and machines and aims to support the Internet of Trusted Things. By creating a trusted IoT platform, IoTeX powers a decentralized network of dapps (Cyclone, Mimo), smart devices (UCam, Pebble), services (ioay, ioTube), and digital assets. IoTeX was launched on the mainnet in 2020. The number of real-time activated devices on the IoTeX chain reached 22,846, distributed in more than 70 countries around the world.
The IoTeX team comes from Internet giants such as Uber and Facebook. Its co-founder and CEO Raullen Chai was previously the head of encryption research and development at Uber and the director of security engineering at Google. IoTeX co-founder Qevan Guo was previously a research scientist and engineering manager at Facebook. Another co-founder, Jing Sun, has an investment background and was previously a partner at Star Capital.
In terms of financing, IoTeX has announced that it has completed four rounds of financing, with a total financing of over US$35 million. Many well-known investment institutions such as Samsung Next, Jump Capital, Draper Dragon, HashKey Capital, and IOSG Ventures have participated in IoTeX's investment.
Judging from the discussion in the IoTeX community, the community is quite active and keeps up with hot topics such as inscriptions. Currently, the circulating market value of IoTeX is around US$400 million, and the price of its token has increased by 42% in the past week.
Storj（STORJ）
Founded in 2017, Storj is a distributed cloud storage protocol based on Ethereum. Storj aims to build a decentralized cloud storage platform that is censorship-free, monitoring-free, and non-stop. By utilizing idle hard disks and bandwidth, any node on the P2P network can negotiate, transfer data, verify data integrity and availability, retrieve data, and store it.
Storj's current market capitalization is $150 million, and its token price has risen by 60% in the past seven days.
Recommended reading: "Decentralized Storage Report: What pain points do Filecoin, Arweave, Storj and other projects solve?"
Shadow Token（SHDW）
Shadow is a stable, high-performance cloud platform developed by GenesysGo, powered by a decentralized network of operators. Shadow Drive is a decentralized, high-performance, and scalable object storage designed for Web3 builders. Shadow's Solana RPC is built on a network of independent operators, truly decentralizing backend APIs by paying computational fees directly to ecosystem operators.
Currently, Shadow’s market value is close to $200 million, and its token price has increased by more than 80% in the past week. However, the price has fallen slightly in the past 24 hours, down 11%.
Other hotly discussed DePIN concept projects
Hivemapper（HONEY）
Hivemapper is a decentralized map Internet of Things (IoT) platform for the Solana ecosystem, designed to use decentralized maps built by people using dashcams; dashcam users who provide driving data and road images can be rewarded with its native token HONEY. Hivemapper can also be said to be a Drive to Earn concept project.
At the same time, like Helium, Hivemapper is also the hottest DePIN concept project in Solana. The current circulating market value of Hivemapper is only more than 61 million US dollars. Its token price has increased by 1032.7% in the past month. However, the increase has slightly declined in the past 7 days.
Hivemappe completed US$18 million in financing led by Multicoin Capital in 2022.
Recommended reading: "Multicoin Capital: Why we invest in the decentralized map project Hivemapper from the theory of "physical proof of work""
Render Network (RNDR）
Founded in 2016, Render Network is a decentralized 3D rendering solution provider. Creators submit rendering tasks, and node operators provide idle GPU resources to perform these tasks. Render Network's parent company is OTOY, which has reached cooperation with giants such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, and HBO.
In November this year, Render Network announced the launch of Solana and the new SPL token RENDER. Render also provides a 1.14 million RNDR reward plan for io.net and new node operators who join through computing clients.
It is reported that Render Network received US$30 million in financing from Multicoin Capital, Alameda Research, Solana Ventures and others in December 2021. At present, the circulating market value of Render Network has reached US$1.485 billion, second only to Filecoin.
Render Network's growth in the past week was not outstanding, but it increased by 26% in a month.
Recommended reading: "Multicoin Capital: Why do we lead the investment in Render Network?"
Sentinel（ DVPN ）
Founded in 2017, Sentinel is a global network of autonomous dVPN applications in the Cosmos ecosystem that enable private and censorship-resistant Internet access. Sentinel's goal is to provide affordable privacy and free access to the Internet for everyone on the planet by creating a thriving ecosystem of autonomous dVPN organizations with zero barriers to entry for users and providers.
Sentinel received US$3.5 million in investment from Atka Capital, Exnetwork Capital, Woodstock and others in March 2021; and launched its mainnet in March 2021.
Currently, Sentinel’s circulating market value is nearly 14 million US dollars, and its token price has increased by 46% in the past week, but the price has fallen back in the past 24 hours, down 20%.
In addition, according to TrendX Research Institute, there are also DePIN concept projects such as Meson Network, Thala, Zephyr Protocol, TurtSat, MultiBit, and Liquidium that are worth paying attention to.
Recommended reading: TrendX Research Institute Project Selection | DePIN Narrative Worth Paying Attention to
DePIN primary market is also booming
The hotness of DePIN secondary market is also boosting DePIN primary market. On December 14, decentralized physical network Hivello announced the completion of $1 million in Pre-seed round of financing, with participation from NGC Ventures, Blockchain Founders Fund and others. It is reported that Hivello aims to enable users to install applications on physical devices such as computers, routers, modems and storage nodes.
On November 30, decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN) provider Grove (formerly Pocket Network) announced that it had raised $7.9 million from Fidelity’s Avon Ventures, Placeholder Capital, and Druid Ventures.
In addition, venture capital firm Future Money Group recently launched a $5 million DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network) accelerator program with the IoTeX Foundation, which aims to cultivate innovative Web3 startups in the fields of DePIN, artificial intelligence, and unlocking real-world value. The IoTeX Foundation has previously provided nearly $1 million in development funding to 15 DePIN-related projects.
Before the DePIN secondary market became popular, Future3 Campus, a Web3.0 innovation incubation platform jointly launched by Wanxiang Blockchain and Hashkey, launched the first phase of a $50 million seed fund for Web3.0 project incubation, which also focused on DePIN. In September this year, the Solana Hyperdrive hackathon covered the DePIN track.
At present, DePIN is trying to connect the digital world and the real world. The narrative of building a new infrastructure is very large. Many projects have released application products, but there is still a long way to go before large-scale adoption.
