You just finished charging at a shared charging station, and your phone pops up a message: According to blockchain records, the charging amount has been converted into tokens and deposited into your wallet. But you have a nagging feeling that something is off—the amount displayed on the charging station screen seems to be more than what you actually charged. This suspicion is not unfounded: when billions of physical devices start generating value through blockchain, how can we trust that the data uploaded by sensors is not a carefully crafted lie?
In 2025, DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network) is reshaping the way people access resources. From shared charging networks to distributed computing markets, physical devices are becoming the new mining machines in the blockchain world. However, the core challenge that the industry must face is: how to prove the real work done in the physical world?
The gray industrial chain of fabricated data
In some early DePIN projects, individuals simulated sensor signals through software, fabricating non-existent 'workload'; more sophisticated fraud teams can even tamper with hardware chips, allowing a device to virtually generate operation data for hundreds of nodes. Once these fabricated data are recorded on the blockchain, they will trigger the issuance of token rewards, similar to counterfeit money entering the financial system.
Proof of physical workload: outfitting data with a 'fingerprint lock'
In the face of a trust crisis, the PoPW (Proof of Physical Work) protocol launched by APRO Oracle is becoming the industry standard. Its core is to embed a cryptographic module in the hardware manufacturing process, giving each IoT device a unique digital identity. For example, in a decentralized weather station: the temperature and humidity data uploaded by each sensor will carry a hardware signature, and APRO's validation nodes will verify the signature against the device's GPS location; only data that matches successfully will be accepted by the blockchain.
The 'triple verification' mechanism of energy trading
In the field of home solar power generation, APRO's verification is even more precise. When a rooftop solar panel claims to supply 100 kWh of electricity to the grid, the system will simultaneously retrieve:
- Real-time readings from smart meters
- Local sunlight intensity from satellite weather data
- Hardware device operational status signature
These three sets of data must form a logical closed loop to trigger on-chain settlement. This design makes the cost of forgery far exceed the benefits, fundamentally curbing cheating motives.
Challenges in explosive growth
As the physical devices connecting to Web3 break through the hundred million mark, APRO needs to handle billions of verification requests from around the world every day. Its collaborative ecosystem has expanded to leading DePIN projects on public chains such as Solana and IoTeX, with validation scenarios extending from energy trading to more fields such as the Internet of Vehicles and agricultural sensors.
When the physical world deeply integrates with the digital world, the establishment of trust no longer relies on the endorsement of centralized institutions, but rather achieves decentralized verification through technical protocols. This may be the most revolutionary characteristic of Web3 — building trust with code, allowing value to flow freely in the real world.
