📝 From the Editorial Team:

DePIN, short for Decentralized Physical Infrastructure, is one of the most captivating corners of crypto. At the highest level, the core hypothesis behind all of the enthusiasm is that peer-to-peer models, upon reaching a certain scale, can start to compete with, and even out-compete, traditional companies. 

The category ranges a virtually limitless array of real world services like mapping, data storage, cellphone coverage and more. Right now we are only in the bootstrapping phase, but the early results appear increasingly promising. 

One note as well — this will be OurNetwork's last issue in 2024 as the team —and contributors— are taking a much deserved break for the holidays. We'll be back on Jan. 7 to kick off the year covering Layer 1s.

Until then, be well, both onchain and off. Let's dig into DePIN.

Glow | DIMO | Livepeer | Arweave & AO | Silencio Network | Hivemapper

• DePIN, decentralized physical infrastructure networks, continued their rapid pace of growth, as protocols continue to make good on promises to displace capex-heavy industries like telecom and energy. Of the >400 live DePin tokens, 62% of them focus on virtual services (AI + Compute) & 38% focus on physical services (Wireless + Energy + Sensors + Human Capital).

• Several DePiN projects graduated into 8 figures of ARR in the last quarter of the year, and many others turned on the fee switch to get serious about revenue growth. There are promising signs that certain protocols are starting to find real product market fit.

• Several DePIN protocols had noisy token generation events, most with significant success. The token listing market seems wide open for DePIN again as the top 3 launched tokens by market cap saw average gains of ~283% led by PEAQ which 5x’d on listing.

• Glow is a protocol which rewards solar farms when they produce carbon credits. Glow is designed to solve an incentive problem between the carbon credit industry and the solar industry. The protocol's innovative token design ensures that previously unprofitable solar can be built. Glow is the No.1 revenue generating DePIN protocol.

• Glow has created >1,000 carbon credits with exponential growth and produced 2.26 GWh of clean energy. It has also onboarded 40,000+ solar panels on the way to capturing the CO2 equivalent of 1.3M trees.

• Glow started out by onboarding residential solar across most states in the US. Glow has recently onboarded 21.3 MW of utility scale solar in India which has a lot of sun, a large population and strong government support for solar. Look out for Glow entering new markets in 2025.

• DIMO is an open connected vehicle platform that gives drivers insight into car health & driving habits, while rewarding users with $DIMO tokens. Rewards are used on auto services like insurance, maintenance, or repairs. This week saw the network’s second birthday. 120K+ vehicles have connected with 42K+ unique drivers, averaging 2.9 cars connected per user. 80% of cars are paired using software, with the other 20% using DIMO hardware devices, like the new LTE R1, connected to a car's OBD2 port.

• In June, DIMO launched a Dev License that can be obtained self-service & onchain. It gives builders access to APIs for querying car data from the network and using it in auto apps. To date, 70 licenses have been issued to independent developers, demonstrating a growing dev ecosystem.

• Users earn rewards by using service providers available in the DIMO Marketplace. These platforms offer services like repairs, insurance, financing, EV charging, carbon credits, etc. Since the launch of the Marketplace, partners have issued 162,211+ $DIMO in rewards totaling $33,269 in value.

• Livepeer is a video infrastructure network for live and on-demand streaming. It has integrated AI video compute capabilities and launched Cascade, a new phase that enables real-time AI video pipelines for creators and developers. In this pre-product launch phase, Livepeer AI node operators have already seen the fees paid to them increase significantly. In particular, from Sept. 15, ETH fees have grown by 205% (3x) reflecting the growing use of the network’s AI compute capabilities.

• The treasury's LPT balance has been growing steadily in the last year while also funding 11 proposals and 7 Special Purpose Entities. On Dec. 17, it hit an all-time high accumulating 584,427 LPT, enabling Livepeer to expand future public goods funding towards the Livepeer Network’s expansion.

• Livepeer’s global network of orchestrators currently has a strong presence in the US and Europe, with opportunities to establish high-performance nodes in Asia. This expansion can drive decentralization and attract stake, powering the future of decentralized video.

• Arweave is the only crypto-native permanent data storage solution. AO is a general purpose decentralized computer built atop Arweave. AO enables decentralized GPU compute, and is tailored for execution of Autonomous agents. Wide distribution is a key metric in token economies, benefiting all stakeholders. AO, through a 100% fair-launch to the community composing of nearly 3K bridge depositors in addition to the 40k existing AR holders, will likely become the most widely distributed AI infra.

• AO passed 1B messages since the launch of it's testnet earlier this year. AO is built as a message-passing network, relying upon a decentralized network of communication rather than a centralized database to share state, enabling massive parallel compute and scalability beyond monolithic databases.

• Average monthly data uploaded to Arweave is up 2x year-over-year. The AO testnet is already a large driver of data onto the Arweave network, which remains the only crypto-native contender for decentralized data storage, guaranteeing permissionless, open access to the service for all.

• Silencio Network’s sensor deployment has soared to 420,000 devices, with consistent daily onboarding averaging 1,100+ sensors. On Dec. 19, a record-breaking 3,615 sensors were added in just 24 hours, showcasing the rapid scaling achieved through Silencio’s seamless, app-driven onboarding. As the first DePIN fully on-chain on Peaq, Silencio continues to set benchmarks in decentralized noise intelligence.

• Silencio, the first fully onchain project on peaq, has migrated 18,517 devices since Dec. 9, initiating a broader transition from app users to onchain integration. This milestone underscores Silencio’s leadership in scaling DePIN applications and advancing peaq’s decentralized ecosystem.

• Since launching on peaq on Dec. 9, 2024, Silencio has recorded 278,253 transactions, driving the majority of the network’s onchain activity. With 199,487 street noise measurements and 43,927 venue contributions, Silencio leads in scaling decentralized environmental data.

• On Dec. 9, 2024, Silencio initiated the migration of 400,000+ users and app activity onchain via peaq, the leading layer-1 for the machine economy. This milestone highlights the power of DePINs, enabling Silencio to scale real-world data collection at zero hardware cost. Beyond operational success, the move builds user trust, setting a new standard for ethical data practices and sustainable monetization in environmental intelligence.

• Hivemapper is a decentralized mapping platform which rewards users for their contribution to the network. The network's token, HONEY, is also burned when enterprises and developers consume Hivemapper's data — over 890,000 HONEY has been burned for map data usage this week, which is equivalent to $4.3M ARR.

• There's been a 1,000% year-over-year increase in HONEY burned indicating a significant upward trend in people using and paying for the map.

• Hivemapper has mapped 404M kilometers of roads in less than two years.