DePIN Could Be the Next Trillion-Dollar Sector – Here’s What You Need To Know

HodlX Guest Post  Submit Your Post

What is DePIN

There’s been a lot of buzz lately about DePINs (decentralized physical infrastructure networks).

This sector is attracting a lot of attention because it has a massive potential user base and a unique way to expand infrastructure networks from the ground up – without needing a central authority.

As a report by Messari suggests, DePIN could add $10 trillion to the global GDP (gross domestic product) in the next decade and $100 trillion the decade after.

DePINs are seen by some as a game-changer for how we distribute resources around the world – not just physical things but digital ones too.

They also hold promise as a brand new way to build large-scale infrastructure projects.

Put simply, DePINs are the decentralized version of traditional infrastructure and services we humans use.

At the heart of each of these projects, there is an economy that guarantee the liveliness of its offerings.

This happens by incentivizing network participants – i.e. providers – to allocate their capital or unused resources like storage space.

We consider a project in the DePIN sector if it is a blockchain-based platform that incentivizes people to join a network and maintain physical – hardware or software – services.

Such services span across a vast landscape, including but not limited to IoT (internet of things) sensors, storage, weather stations, Wi-Fi, computational power, energy grids, mapping (navigation) and even food delivery.

The ultimate goal here is to create a distributed and transparent system, boosting the scalability and efficiency of today’s infrastructures.

These infrastructures are available in two major categories.

• Hardware-focused or PRNs (physical resource networks) – These resources are tied to a specific location. They provide services in a particular area and often can’t be easily moved elsewhere. Wireless, energy, and sensors (e.g. weather, mapping, noise pollution) networks all belong to this branch.
• Software-focused or DRNs (digital resource networks) like computing power, storage, retrieval, data / AI (e.g., wholesale data) and services marketplaces (e.g., talents, ride-sharing, food delivery, ad networks), that are all location-independent and fungible.

How does DePIN benefit us with real world advantages

Historically speaking, building a physical infrastructure has always demanded a huge amount of capital and operational expenses, making this industry dominated…