DePIN – Overcoming the Challenges for a Decentralized Future

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The recent emergence of DePIN (decentralized physical infrastructure networks) offered a unique solution to the various limitations of centralization by presenting a distributed, incentivized system that integrates community-driven blockchain technology.

This decentralized route ensured individuals could participate in owning and managing physical infrastructure without having to rely on centralized providers.

In itself, DePIN’s potential applications cut across many sectors, including the IoT (Internet of Things), cloud computing, supply and logistics and more.

However, DePIN faces its own challenges and potential pitfalls that must be strategically addressed.

Otherwise, we might be looking at a repeat of what happened with Web 3.0 – massive traction but unsustainable adoption.

Let’s explore some of these challenges and see how they directly affect the use, performance and adoption of DePIN solutions.

The scalability bottleneck

DePIN is a strong contender in at least two fields of the blockchain trilemma – the very core of its identity is built on decentralization, and its architecture prioritizes security.

However, one of the biggest challenges that lurks in the shadow of DePIN is scalability.

As DePIN networks grow and expand, the volume of transactions across the blockchain network will also invariably increase.

Also, in sectors like IoT, where integration with the physical world is a fundamental necessity, data has to be constantly uploaded and transactions confirmed in real-time to allow users a smooth, seamless experience.

Unfortunately, the current blockchain infrastructure is simply not ready to handle the sheer scale and size of a fully matured DePIN ecosystem.

To circumvent this limitation, many DePIN projects like Render, Nosana, HiveMapper and Helium launched their networks on the Solana chain since it boasts high transaction speeds 10 times faster than Bitcoin – up to 65,000 transactions per second.

However, Solana is plagued with its problem of performance instability and outages, with more than six major crashes so far.

Limited interoperability

The operational basis of the DePIN remains its ability to integrate, share and exchange data with other applications and blockchain networks.

However, most of the cross-chain and interoperability solutions that exist at the moment (e.g., side chains and zero-knowledge proof cross chains) are limited to only specific blockchain…