DePINs: The Decentralized Future of IoT
I witnessed the rise of decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePINs) in 2024, followed by a sharp decline in 2025. But I believe next year will mark their moment of full potential release.
Projects like $HNT have proven that distributed connectivity can scale; Hivemapper has shown crowdsourced maps can compete with traditional giants; $RENDER has pushed decentralized computing into real demand cycles. Emerging networks like $GRASS are turning idle resources into measurable economic output.
More interestingly, venture capital firms (VCs) continue to invest heavily in this infrastructure, and some well-known projects have not only maintained usage but successfully turned it into revenue streams.
Once dismissed as “tokenized hardware narratives disguised as malware,” DePINs are now gradually transforming into networks with real users, actual use cases, and revenue. The industry is clearly shifting toward products with genuine utility and profitability—and this is where DePINs stand out.
