2025 DePIN Annual Review: From Concept Validation to Scalable Breakthrough

Article by: JDI Global

Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) represent an innovative network architecture that combines blockchain technology with physical infrastructure. By leveraging blockchain’s token incentive mechanisms, DePIN attracts individuals and enterprises to contribute physical resources such as storage space, computing power, and network bandwidth, building a distributed shared infrastructure network. Its application scenarios broadly cover areas like distributed storage, wireless networks, and AI computing support. Unlike traditional centralized infrastructure models, DePIN offers low-cost, scalable advantages, breaking the monopoly of tech giants over core physical resources and forming a unique “co-construction and shared” industry ecosystem.

The concept of DePIN has gradually taken shape alongside the penetration of blockchain technology into the real economy. Its early milestone was the Helium project in 2013, which gradually launched a distributed wireless network. This project incentivized users to deploy hotspot devices to build low-power IoT networks, providing the first practical example of DePIN. In its initial development phase (2019–2020), DePIN remained in concept exploration and small-scale validation, focusing mainly on technical feasibility tests. The ecosystem had few devices and limited application scenarios, and it did not attract widespread attention in the cryptocurrency industry.

2021 marked a turning point for DePIN, as the Web3 industry’s demand for real-world applications increased, coupled with the synergistic development of AI and IoT technologies. Capital began to flow rapidly into the sector, with projects focusing on computing power, data collection and transmission, wireless communication, and sensor networks emerging one after another, leading to initial sector expansion. By 2024–2025, the industry completed a critical leap from concept validation to revenue-driven growth. Despite market value fluctuations, high-quality projects achieved breakthroughs through sustainable revenue, and regulatory breakthroughs further cleared obstacles, pushing DePIN from niche technology concepts toward large-scale industrial applications.

Since its inception, the DePIN sector has experienced significant fluctuations in its landscape and scale. Early on, due to immature technology, vague business models, and lack of demand-side motivation, the sector’s size remained stagnant. From 2023 to early 2024, driven by the crypto market’s enthusiasm, the total market cap surged again, with project numbers increasing sharply. However, most projects relied on fundraising rather than actual revenue, showing bubble characteristics. In 2025, the market experienced a deep correction, with market cap shrinking significantly. Meanwhile, projects lacking real application value were淘汰, while those with genuine scenario needs stood out. The sector’s pattern shifted from “wild growth” to “quality and refinement,” forming an industry landscape centered on leading projects with multi-field collaborative development.

（一）Industry Overview

1.1 2025: The Turning Point from Concept Validation to Revenue Reality

Between 2024 and 2025, the DePIN industry officially moved beyond the concept validation stage into a new period of scaled, revenue-driven development. Although the market experienced intense valuation adjustments, with total market cap falling from around $30 billion at the start of 2025 to about $12 billion at year-end, this “wave of淘沙” volatility fostered healthy iteration—many projects with sustainable revenue capabilities not only survived but also achieved steady growth. During this period, the number of active projects increased from 295 to 433, network devices grew from 1.9 million to over 42 million, and the annualized revenue of top DePIN projects exceeded $57 million, confirming the sector’s commercialization feasibility.

In terms of blockchain deployment, projects on Ethereum ranked first, followed by Solana, demonstrating strong ecological appeal. Polygon and peaq ranked third and fourth. Notably, peaq, as an emerging force in the sector, expanded its ecosystem continuously over the past year and has become an important player; Solana’s DePIN projects have maintained a leading position, with core competitiveness far surpassing industry averages in both network coverage and revenue performance.

On the capital side, DePIN saw sustained investment enthusiasm in 2025, with over 40 funding rounds throughout the year. Projects like Wingbits, Beamable, Geodnet, DoubleZero, Sparkchain, GAIA, Hivemapper, 375ai, Daylight, Nubila, Metya, DePINSIM, Space Computer, Gonka, Grass, Fuse network, DAWN, and others each raised over $5 million. Well-known institutions such as Multicoin Capital, Framework Ventures, a16z Crypto, Borderless Capital, EV3, and JDI Ventures remained active, reflecting strong market recognition of DePIN’s value and injecting momentum into technological iteration and large-scale expansion.

1.2 Revenue Inflection Point

2025 marks a key revenue inflection point for DePIN, with leading protocols showing clear, sustainable growth in revenue, driving the entire sector’s annualized revenue to over $57 million, and ending reliance on “blood transfusion” style fundraising. Specifically, top projects performed well: Helium Network’s Q4 2024 revenue reached $3.33 million, a 255% YoY increase, with annualized revenue of $13.32 million; Grass demonstrated explosive growth potential, with Q2 2025 revenue at $2.75 million, Q3 rising to $4.3 million, and Q4 expected to soar to $12.8 million; Render Network’s Q3 revenue was $1.7 million, up 144% QoQ, with annualized revenue of $6.8 million.

Additionally, Geodnet’s Q3 revenue was $1.23 million, a 216% YoY increase, with annualized revenue of $5.28 million; Akash maintained steady growth, with Q3 revenue at $860,000, up 4% QoQ, annualized at $3.44 million; Hivemapper and Livepeer’s Q4 revenues were also notable, at $138,000 and $134,000 respectively, corresponding to annualized revenues of $552,000 and $536,000, with Livepeer’s YoY growth reaching 83.6%.

Behind this revenue growth, a multi-faceted momentum matrix is forming. On one hand, the AI industry’s rigid demand for computing power and data has become a core driver, rapidly boosting protocol revenues focused on computing support like Grass and Render Network. On the other hand, Helium Mobile’s mobile services have experienced explosive user growth, with registered users surpassing 2 million, contributing significant revenue increments. Notably, the energy and mapping sectors are accelerating, with related DePIN projects advancing their technical deployment, potentially becoming the third major revenue engine after “AI infrastructure” and “mobile services.”

1.3 Regulatory Breakthroughs

In 2025, DePIN projects achieved breakthrough progress in US regulation, laying a solid foundation for compliant development. On April 10, the SEC dismissed lawsuits against Helium Network, ruling that its tokens HNT, MOBILE, and IOT, as well as connected hotspot devices, do not constitute securities. This ruling not only cleared obstacles for Helium but also effectively curbed similar lawsuits targeting DePIN projects, providing a key regulatory reference for the industry.

On July 7, Helium’s team held a special meeting with the SEC’s cryptocurrency working group, promoting clarity that digital asset issuance, trading, and consumer product sales within the DePIN ecosystem are not subject to federal securities laws. They submitted a joint written opinion signed by multiple DePIN organizations, fostering industry consensus to refine regulatory rules.

Subsequent positive signals continued: on September 29 and November 24, the SEC issued no-action letters to DoubleZero’s $OO token and Fuse Energy’s $ENERGY token, confirming that under specific issuance conditions, they do not qualify as securities.

These regulatory developments mark a critical shift from “regulatory ambiguity” to “regulatory clarity” in the DePIN sector. By emphasizing practical utility-driven development, DePIN has shed the common speculative label in crypto, achieving positive interaction with regulators. This not only reduces enforcement risks but also accelerates institutional capital entry, establishing a solid compliance foundation for large-scale sector growth.

1.4 DePIN Hardware

According to DePINScan data, the total number of DePIN devices worldwide has surpassed 42 million. Hardware, as the core infrastructure supporting sector operation, directly impacts network stability and expansion efficiency. Focusing on the hardware mining segment, comparative analysis of hardware costs, daily revenue, and payback periods reveals differentiated competitive advantages among various categories.

From the perspective of payback period, sensor and wireless hardware mining projects perform particularly well, thanks to moderate device costs and quick revenue realization, making them mainstream advantages. Server-based mining projects show distinct characteristics: longer payback periods but lower technical barriers and flexible deployment.

Regarding the shortest payback period, leading projects include:

For the lowest average mining cost (prioritizing ease of use), top projects are:

1.5 Industry Risk Management Tips

In risk management, DePIN projects must beware of uncertainties caused by founder changes and business model adjustments. For example, DIMO’s founder Andy Chatham left in April 2024, after which DIMO shifted to a subscription model, requiring users to pay for vehicle data services. While this increased revenue stability, it also raised user churn risks, requiring attention to subsequent product iterations.

io.net also faced controversy due to team changes and opaque disclosure of fundamental data, such as community trust issues regarding CEO Ahmad Shadid’s potential past. Centralization of GPU count records was questioned, with claims of exaggeration; actual usable capacity and utilization rates were limited. Despite rapid narrative expansion and publicity, disclosures on real computing demand, stable customers, and ongoing protocol revenues remain limited, and heavy reliance on token incentives has raised concerns about network sustainability after subsidy reductions.

Additionally, regulatory risks in DePIN cannot be ignored. For example, Hivemapper, which collects map data via vehicle-mounted cameras, caused controversy over illegal mapping in China. In October 2024, China’s Ministry of State Security reported illegal mapping activities by a foreign company. Some users operating Hivemapper devices were detained, involving cross-border data transfer and national security issues. This highlights the need for DePIN projects to strictly comply with regional regulations, especially in sensitive data areas, to avoid operational disruptions due to regulatory blind spots.

（二）JDI’s Key Project Layout

Based on our assessment of the current stage of DePIN, we believe it has entered a phase driven by demand and actual revenue for large-scale breakthroughs. Our evaluation criteria for DePIN protocols have shifted from “how many hotspots” or “nodes in the tens of thousands” to “how much actual share of traditional infrastructure has been replaced.” Over the past two years, we have systematically participated in and promoted nine main paths for sector substitution, focusing on:

2.1 Mobile Networks: Helium Mobile

Helium Mobile is currently the only DePIN project outperforming traditional operators in real paid scenarios. Q3 2025 data shows 540,000 paying users, a peak of 1.2 million daily active users, and 115,000 hotspots (including 33,700 5G hotspots). The average monthly data consumption per user exceeds traditional operator plans.

More importantly, the displacement ratio: in 20 core US cities, Helium’s network has handled over 60% of community traffic, with some areas exceeding 75%.

This indicates that the incremental market for mobile networks is now being significantly captured by community networks.

The traditional telecom moat built over the past 30 years—“must build base stations, huge capital expenditure”—is being dismantled by a new model: “anyone can deploy hotspots, anyone can earn money.”

In 2025, Helium Mobile’s expansion outside the US is accelerating, with pilot cities in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa showing hotspots density surpassing local third-largest operators. The sector’s substitution logic has shifted from “feasible” to “happening.”

Meanwhile, Helium is building a value loop at the token level: since October, Helium has initiated regular buybacks, repurchasing about $30,000 worth of HNT daily; over the past five months, nearly 1.5% of total supply has been burned. The current monthly burn rate remains stable at 0.75%. Additionally, Helium is exploring HNT DAT business, planning to buy HNT through both public and OTC markets, further supporting HNT’s value through network-related revenue activities.

2.2 Centimeter-Level Positioning: GEODNET

GEODNET is the world’s largest decentralized RTK network, with 21,000 active stations in 145 countries in 2025. Q3 revenue was $1.2 million (up 27.9% QoQ), with 6 million tokens burned.

Traditional RTK costs $2,000–$8,000 annually; GEODNET reduces this to less than $100 for the same accuracy, making it a formal choice for major agricultural and surveying equipment manufacturers like John Deere, DJI, Topcon.

In major agricultural countries like India, Brazil, and Indonesia, GEODNET is becoming the default option for centimeter-level positioning of new machinery; in Europe and North America, autonomous vehicle testing fleets are beginning to adopt it as a low-cost redundant solution.

This shift from “professional equipment” to “public infrastructure” means that the billions of dollars in annual RTK market will increasingly flow directly to community networks rather than traditional suppliers.

2.3 AI Data Collection: Grass

Grass builds verifiable, timestamped public web datasets using users’ idle bandwidth. In 2025, MAU reaches 8.5 million, covering 190 countries, with daily data collection exceeding 100TB.

Currently, Grass accounts for 18%-22% of the incremental data in major open-source datasets globally. Top AI labs have incorporated it as a regular supplement for training.

More importantly, it redistributes the right to scrape public web data from giants like Google, Meta, and Amazon to end users worldwide.

In Q4 2025, Grass will launch a native iOS app and real-time retrieval interface, with APY stabilized at 45%-55%, providing the most direct way for ordinary people to participate in AI infrastructure.

Data collection rights redistribution has begun.

2.4 Distributed Energy Resources Network: Fuse Energy

Fuse Energy, based in London, is building a decentralized renewable energy network. Using the DePIN model, it integrates various distributed energy resources, including solar PV panels, battery storage, EV charging stations, and smart meters, offering energy device installation, power trading, and retail services. Currently, Fuse Energy operates 18MW of renewable assets, with over 300MW in development. It has over 150,000 paying users, with annual revenue reaching $300 million, and holds an energy supplier license to directly provide demand response services to the UK grid.

To incentivize user participation in grid optimization, Fuse Energy launched $ENERGY token rewards, encouraging users to adjust consumption during green energy peaks. This converts actual grid dispatch needs into on-chain verifiable, incentivized tasks, effectively combining energy behavior with token rewards.

Fuse Energy demonstrates the feasibility of large-scale operation and commercial deployment of distributed energy networks, representing a future-oriented energy collaboration paradigm. Its operational assets, growing user base, and solid financials validate the potential of decentralized energy systems to enhance grid resilience, promote renewable energy absorption, and incentivize user participation. Its practice reveals an important direction for DePIN: beyond building infrastructure from scratch, it can also achieve efficient coordination of existing facilities through “soft methods.” DePIN is not only cutting-edge technology but also a systemic engineering involving incentives and collaboration. The success of Fuse Energy offers a replicable technical and commercial path for global energy transition.

In the energy sector, Starpower’s development is also noteworthy but exposes some potential risks. Focused on building virtual power plants (VPPs) by connecting smart plugs, EV chargers, and batteries for distributed energy management, Starpower launched its mainnet in 2025, expanding to thousands of sites with $4.5 million in funding (including $2.5 million led by Framework Ventures). However, its model has sparked controversy: it reminds us that DePIN is not simply “plugging in devices”—the real value lies in transforming these devices into tradable energy assets and ensuring dispatch efficiency and carbon credit transparency via blockchain. In practice, after switching to a subscription model, user churn increased, partly due to device compatibility issues and higher-than-expected maintenance costs, leading to lower dispatch efficiency than promoted.

2.5 Green Energy Data Protocol: Arkreen

Arkreen, a leading green energy data protocol, is transforming from “connecting data” to “creating assets.” Over the past year, Arkreen achieved multiple breakthroughs: over 300,000 energy data nodes globally, 140 GWh of green energy tokenized and absorbed, forming a multi-million-dollar on-chain green asset circulation, and a protocol fee-driven destruction of 45 million AKRE tokens, creating a complete cycle from data connection to asset monetization.

Looking ahead, Arkreen plans to advance three major pilot projects, launching intensively in Q1 2026: a 300KW solar PV RWA project in Southeast Asia to connect Web3 funding with real green assets; an African community shared solar station project using on-chain payments to solve off-grid power issues; and an Australian “residential PV + Bitcoin mining” pilot to convert surplus electricity into on-chain hard currency.

Three milestones in 2025 will lay the foundation for Arkreen’s long-term development: strategic investment from Dubai Nasdaq-listed Robo.ai to accelerate exploration of intelligent open machine economy; Dr. Lin Jiali, former chairman of Hong Kong Cyberport, as strategic advisor to support globalization and ESG mainstreaming; and promotion of community core builder Merlin to co-founder, emphasizing community-centric values.

Regarding token value, besides ongoing deflationary burns, Arkreen is preparing large-scale incentive activities, exploring mechanisms like RWA yield sharing and DeFi integration to restore token value. Compared to projects like Daylight and Fuse Energy, Arkreen builds a Web3 energy network through global, permissionless pathways, off-grid systems, and surplus power utilization, effectively “decoupling the grid.”

For the energy DePIN sector, Arkreen believes that integrating computing power and electricity is a core trend to address global energy imbalance. In 2026, Arkreen aims to focus on existing strategies, successfully run three major pilots, and achieve large-scale replication—targeting direct monetization of “trading electricity, generating Bitcoin, serving AI models.” This will promote evolution from green certificates to real power asset monetization. However, Arkreen’s global expansion faces challenges, such as project delays in some African regions due to data privacy regulations, reflecting regulatory uncertainties in emerging markets that could constrain DePIN. We look forward to pioneers like Arkreen paving smoother, more compliant paths for global DePIN deployment.

2.6 Real-Time Communication Protocol Layer: Datagram

Datagram offers a decentralized real-time communication foundation capable of supporting high-bandwidth, low-latency scenarios like voice/video calls, gaming, and AI inference streams.

By 2025, it will have over 150,000 nodes across 120 countries, with an average available bandwidth per node of 80–120 Mbps. Over 200 enterprises have completed commercial deployment, with costs 60–80% lower than traditional solutions like AWS IVS, Agora, Twilio.

Its core substitution logic: transforming real-time communication from “centralized cloud services” into “public protocols over global idle networks.”

Currently, Datagram accounts for 68% of Web3-native real-time communication traffic and is beginning to penetrate traditional gaming and video conferencing scenarios.

When latency-sensitive applications no longer need to pay premiums for bandwidth to cloud providers, the pricing power of communication infrastructure will fundamentally shift.

2.7 Regional DePIN Operating System: U2U Network

U2U has achieved a foundational breakthrough in Southeast Asia: turning DePIN subnets into modular products.

Any team can deploy a dedicated wireless, computing, or storage network within days, compared to months or a year previously.

By 2025, user growth is projected at 150%, TVL exceeds $150 million, and over 40 dedicated resource networks are operational, becoming the actual underlying infrastructure for new DePIN projects in Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

Its emergence lowers the barrier to “building a DePIN project” from “requiring a core development team” to “only needing business logic.”

This effectively decentralizes the role of Cosmos SDK, transitioning from the era of public chains to the DePIN era.

In traditional financial cooperation, U2U has deep collaborations with SSID (SSI Digital Ventures, the tech arm of Vietnam’s largest financial institution SSI Securities). SSID led a $13.8 million Series A funding round, jointly developing Vietnam’s first crypto exchange, expected to launch in Q1 2026. This exchange will integrate U2U subnets, support DePIN asset trading, and connect with partners like Tether and AWS, bridging traditional finance and DePIN ecosystems.

Southeast Asia is becoming one of the highest-density regions for DePIN projects, with U2U being a direct driver of this phenomenon.

2.8 Aviation Data: Wingbits

Wingbits has invaded a traditionally monopolized industry with minimal hardware costs: real-time global flight tracking.

By 2025, it will have over 5,000 sites, processing 13.1 billion data points daily, covering over 90 countries, with data cooperation agreements signed with multiple airlines and regulators.

The core barriers of traditional players like FlightAware and Flightradar24—hardware deployment rights and data credibility—are thoroughly broken by community networks.

In Q4 2025, Wingbits will achieve satellite verification via SpaceX Starlink, eliminating spoofing risks.

The redistribution of flight tracking market share is shifting from “theoretical possibility” to “happening.”

2.9 Space Mapping: ROVR

ROVR builds a decentralized high-precision mapping network using vehicle-mounted LiDAR sensors for autonomous driving and spatial AI. In 2025, the network will have over 5,000 sites across North America and Europe, with $2.6 million in funding (led by Borderless Capital, with GEODNET and others participating). Q3 revenue reached $800,000, up 45% QoQ, driven by AI-powered 3D data collection, providing real-time maps for autonomous vehicle companies and reducing traditional surveying costs by 30%. ROVR’s development proves that DePIN can transform vehicles from mere transportation tools into data collection nodes, though it faces challenges like data privacy and LiDAR hardware compatibility. Its datasets include several petabytes of 3D point cloud data for training autonomous driving models and AR/VR applications, accumulating over 10 PB of high-precision point clouds, updated in real-time via community contributions to reflect urban road and environment changes, supporting map optimization for Tesla, Waymo, and others.

（三）Our Outlook on DePIN

In the next 3–5 years, DePIN is expected to evolve from “scaling deployment” to “multi-field value release.” We believe its synergy with embodied intelligence, AI data collection, energy, and AI hardware presents significant opportunities to promote digital collaboration in the physical world.

3.1 DePIN and Embodied Intelligence

Embodied intelligence development is limited by insufficient real interaction data and high deployment costs. DePIN’s incentive and settlement mechanisms have the potential to enable robots to participate in real tasks at lower costs, generating environment and operation data during execution, which can feed back into model iteration. As robots gradually enter logistics, inspection, and home scenarios, a “task—reward—iteration” closed loop may form, enabling autonomous hardware to sustain operations. Various networks are exploring robot data crowdsourcing and distributed collaboration, or offering early investment opportunities via asset tokenization, such as BitRobot, OpenMind, Auki, Robostack, XMAQUINA. If technology and regulation permit, embodied intelligence could achieve faster real-world deployment.

3.2 DePIN’s Potential in AI Data Collection

High-quality, real-world data remains scarce. DePIN provides open incentive mechanisms for devices like cameras, vehicles, edge terminals, and wearables to continuously collect real-time data such as maps, videos, and multi-modal information, addressing the lag and coverage gaps of traditional training data. Blockchain’s trusted provenance and privacy protection capabilities can enhance data transparency and fairness in contribution-based value sharing. Large-scale aggregation of multi-dimensional, real-time physical data could become a crucial foundation for AI model evolution. Projects like Sapien, Vader, Rayvo are experimenting in this field.

3.3 Opportunities in Energy and Power

The growth of distributed energy resources enables households’ PV, storage, and charging devices to become network nodes. DePIN mechanisms can facilitate distributed resource coordination and peer-to-peer green energy trading, giving users more flexible options among generation, storage, and consumption. Meanwhile, with rising computing power consumption, integrating energy-side networks with AI demands on-chain could boost the utilization of green energy in digital infrastructure. Projects like Fuse Network, Arkreen, Daylight, Glow, and Sourceful Energy are actively building in this area.

3.4 AI Hardware’s Reverse Impact on DePIN

As GPU, NPU, and communication module costs decline, the entry barrier for DePIN participation will continue to lower. Consumers can contribute computing, storage, and network capacity via affordable hardware. The proliferation of lightweight AI chips will promote node intelligence, enabling self-adaptation and self-diagnosis, reducing manual maintenance costs. AI scheduling algorithms can dynamically allocate tasks, improving idle resource utilization, gradually evolving “point nodes” into sustainable network infrastructures. Additionally, the rapid development of AI smart hardware enriches DePIN hardware diversity, allowing it to generate revenue while maintaining practicality and entertainment value.

We anticipate that advances in technology, incentive mechanisms, and governance models will progress together, and the integration of DePIN with AI, energy, and hardware will reshape the way physical infrastructure collaborates, enabling devices in the real world to develop “self-organizing” capabilities and creating new value for the industry.

As a core participant in the DePIN sector and a long-term builder and industry leader in DePIN hardware, JDI will continue to focus on hardware innovation, enriching product forms, and expanding functional boundaries. In the future, we aim to build a more diverse and scalable hardware ecosystem, support the growth of the DePIN sector, and share our cutting-edge insights and core perspectives with industry partners to promote high-quality industry development.