A New Trend in the Crypto Bull Market - Depin| CryptoSnap - Dr. DODO is Researching

In this bull market, you've definitely heard the term "DePIN" countless times. Even Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin asked on Warpcast, "What are the "DePIN" projects that people think are most likely to actually work? "

DePIN stands for Decentralized Physical Infrastructure, referring to projects that require hardware devices to deploy their decentralized networks. The GPU rental projects introduced in the previous CryptoSnap are also broadly considered a type of DePIN. In this week's CryptoSnap, Dr. DODO will introduce more DePIN projects to help you understand this concept better.

DePIN Surf Accelerator

Before diving into the projects, let's first introduce the accelerator program specifically designed for DePIN projects, jointly created by IoTex, Foresight Venture, and FutureMoney Group. The program offers financial assistance, media exposure, and mentorship to help DePIN projects succeed. IoTex has been dedicated to this field since the last bull market. The first batch of the DePINSurf program has closed applications, with four projects selected: Ator Network, inferix GPU, Wayru Network, and PowerPod. We will discuss each project in detail below. Applications for the second batch are currently in full swing.

Ator Network

Before introducing ATOR, let's first understand what TOR is. TOR stands for "The Onion Router." Users can access a network of over 7,500 relays provided by global volunteers through Tor to hide their real location, avoid network surveillance, and prevent traffic analysis.

ATOR was initially created to incentivize more relays to contribute to the Tor network by providing $ATOR token rewards, increasing the number of relay nodes and achieving higher privacy levels. However, due to ATOR's high proportion of relay nodes, it faced resistance from other Tor node groups and was eventually kicked out of the Tor network. As a result, the ATOR team decided to start from scratch and build their own ATOR network.

Overall, ATOR aims to become a vast decentralized anonymous service ecosystem, allowing users to regain control over their privacy and data while rewarding relay nodes through a token system to attract more participants and achieve higher privacy levels. To lower the difficulty of operating relay nodes, the ATOR team is launching dedicated hardware relays for the ATOR network. Users can become part of the relay nodes by simply plugging in the hardware and connecting it to the network.

Source: https://medium.com/@atorprotocol/february-development-review-08676a4fb1c5

inferix GPU

As the name suggests, inferix GPU is also a DePIN project focusing on GPU computing power rental. It aims to connect GPU computing resource demanders (such as developers and enterprises) with GPU providers, achieving efficient utilization and allocation of GPU computing power. Through blockchain and Web3 technologies, InferiX provides users with on-demand GPU resource services, lowering the entry barrier and cost.

InferiX has launched a GPU Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) model, providing acceleration for compute-intensive tasks such as 3D rendering, AI training, and inference. With InferiX, developers no longer need to spend large amounts of money on expensive GPU devices. Instead, they can obtain the required computing power on-demand from a decentralized infrastructure, significantly improving rendering speed and optimizing real-time collaboration for complex projects.

Currently, InferiX is developing a plugin for Blender and plans to support various design software such as SketchUp, 3Ds Max, and game engines like Unity and Unreal Engine in the future.

Source: https://inferix.io/

Wayru Network

Wayru Network is a decentralized wireless network that aims to provide affordable and reliable internet access to everyone worldwide. By leveraging blockchain technology, it shifts the power of internet access from a few large companies to ordinary people, allowing anyone to become a network operator and build a massive network of interconnected data transmission points by sharing Wi-Fi connections. Simply put, Wayru Network incentivizes people to share their mobile network resources through token rewards, bringing the internet to previously unreachable areas and breaking the hardware limitations of traditional centralized companies to create a fair and beneficial environment.

Not only does it provide cheaper and faster internet access, but it also allows people to participate in this transparent network driven by $Wayru tokens. Currently, the Wayru mobile application is available for download, but token incentives have not yet been enabled. In the future, besides enabling incentives, Wayru plans to collaborate with government and enterprise Wi-Fi hotspots to achieve greater network coverage.

Source: https://twitter.com/wayrunetwork

PowerPod

PowerPod focuses on the importance of charging infrastructure networks as the electric vehicle market expands. It is committed to building a decentralized electric vehicle charging network by combining blockchain technology with electric vehicle charging, redefining the charging experience.

Through community ownership and incentive mechanisms, PowerPod is deploying convenient and efficient charging stations to fill charging gaps and alleviate range anxiety for electric vehicle users. Users can easily charge their electric vehicles and share their charging stations with others, earning extra income when their vehicles are idle.

PowerPod plans to launch its own hardware devices in the future, allowing users with electric vehicle charging stations to install the devices and connect to the PowerPod network to earn token rewards. Electric vehicle drivers can download the PowerPod mobile app to view the status of all charging stations in the network, making it more time-efficient to determine which charging stations can provide service.

In early January 2024, PowerPod announced the completion of a $1 million seed round led by Waterdrip Capital, with Iotex participating.

Source: https://www.powerpod.pro/

Author's Perspective

DePIN projects are very different from DeFi projects. They often focus more on expanding the user base and are more directly related to offline life scenarios. Leveraging the advantage of token incentives in Web3 projects, they attract more users. However, the first challenge is how to promote the project to non-crypto communities, which requires a significant advertising budget to raise awareness. The second challenge is finding a balance between token subsidies and the project's long-term sustainability.

On paper, DePIN projects have great potential in terms of narrative and market growth. However, in practice, there are hardly any successful projects that have seamlessly attracted ordinary people to use Web3 applications, let alone become data providers as nodes. Nevertheless, the potential of this track remains enormous. Just as Axie broke through and led crypto gaming projects to surpass valuation ceilings in the last bull market, it will be fascinating to see which project can break through and lead the entire DePIN track in this bull market!