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GOING DEEP IN ON DEPIN: Speeds are improving and fees are reducing across blockchains, but we’re 15 years into the crypto “revolution” and few use cases have caught on outside of the narrow realms of memecoins and finance. One of the major trends helping to expand the crypto conversation beyond DeFi and infrastructure is “decentralized physical infrastructure networks,” or DePIN, which meld the physical world with blockchains to accomplish everything from easing supply chain inefficiencies to deploying unused compute resources. Projects that bridge blockchains with physical goods are nothing new: Helium, one of the more (in)famous examples of a DePIN project, is trying to create a wireless network that rewards contributors for setting up WiFi hubs. Filecoin, a veteran data-storage blockchain, rewards people for lending their unused hard drive space and remains a go-to example of how blockchain tech can solve real-world problems. The DePIN moniker was on the tip of everyone’s tongue at last week’s ETHDenver conference, but one might be tempted to wave it away as yet another marketing term meant to entice investors and users to tired ideas. But things have changed recently in the DePIN space, with improved blockchain tech and AI hype – buoyed by a surge in investor dollars – fueling the rise of newer projects like the compute-focused Akash and Render networks. If nothing else, the DePIN space is one to keep an eye on because it could help present an answer to an age-old question that has plagued crypto since its inception: Where are the use cases?
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