New Trends in the DePIN Track: Integration with AI

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, the market's focus has gradually shifted to the AI field. However, the DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network) sector has not stagnated; instead, it is seeking new development directions. Currently, the integration of DePIN and AI has become an emerging trend, with Roam being the most representative project.

DePIN Overview

DePIN is the abbreviation for Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network. It encourages users to share personal resources to build the infrastructure network through a token incentive mechanism, covering various fields such as storage space, communication bandwidth, cloud computing, and energy. The core of DePIN lies in resource integration, efficiently directing resources to demand side through token incentives.

Mainly divided into three categories:

1. Storage Type: Provides cloud storage services
2. Computing Power: Decentralized GPU Rendering Platform
3. Network category: Forming a global WIFI network through token incentives.

DePIN is similar to Bitcoin in that it requires an initial investment to purchase physical equipment, followed by continuous mining. Because it connects to the physical world, it is not a closed system and brings positive externalities to the entire industry.

Current Market Landscape

According to statistics from data platforms, DePIN has nearly 4.56 million devices across approximately 196 countries or regions, with a market value of 7.1 billion USD. Among them, a certain project has the highest number of devices, reaching 1.18 million.

From a geographical distribution perspective, DePIN hardware devices are mainly concentrated in the United States, Europe, and Southeast Asia. The concentration in Southeast Asia is particularly high, including countries like India, Vietnam, the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan. South Korea stands out among these countries, showcasing a strong atmosphere for the cryptocurrency industry.

Overall, DePIN has brought a new round of wealth effects, and the Southeast Asia region is leveraging its manufacturing and human resource advantages to fully invest in this field.

Exploration of Emerging Projects

A certain emerging project belongs to the network segment of DePIN and can be defined as a combination of Web3 and WIFI, representing decentralized wireless networks and decentralized telecom operators. This project ranks first in node data rankings and has become a leader in the DePIN sector.

The project offers various types of products, initially focusing on WIFI hardware, which users can purchase to mine; it later expanded to eSIM cards, allowing users to apply for eSIM cards and earn free data by completing tasks.

The APP for this project allows you to connect to nearby WiFi networks for free, and adding WiFi or checking in at WiFi can also earn you points or eSIM rewards.

In its technical architecture, the telecom data layer is a key concept that achieves functionality through four main ecological modules:

1. Network Module - Focus on the construction of physical and digital infrastructure for the network
2. Growth Module - Encouraging users to participate in network construction through incentive mechanisms.
3. Discovery Module - Supporting and Incubating New Projects or Applications
4. Community Module - Focus on Community Building and Governance

This architecture provides a new paradigm for the DePIN track. Its future plans mainly have two directions: accelerating the implementation of the telecommunications data layer, and deep integration with AI.

The Integration of AI and DePIN

The project is integrating with AI, leveraging its own advantage of communication data to provide high-quality usable data for AI projects. In the era of AI, the data monopoly of traditional giants hinders comprehensive model training and global data integration. The innovation of this project lies in addressing one of the most pressing data challenges for AI: the unavailability of carrier-grade data.

Users who participate in the construction can receive free eSIM data rewards. In any country, the eSIM Top Up product allows data to automatically convert into local data. This project opens a way to provide carrier services through WEB3 means. In return, the data generated during this process can become a data source for all AI companies under privacy protection.

It is worth noting that the project adopts Decentralized Identity (DID) and Verifiable Credential (VC) technology, and integrates ZK (Zero-Knowledge Proof) to ensure that user privacy is not exposed.

The project is actively expanding its service boundaries and ecosystem scope by integrating multiple DePIN ecosystem partners to jointly build a diverse AI training data set ecosystem. This multi-party cooperation model not only broadens the sources of data but also enhances the depth of data quality.

How Regular Users Can Participate

For ordinary users, the threshold for participating in DePIN projects is relatively low. Taking a leading project as an example, its core strategy is "free + airdrop".

The project directly provides users with free traffic, which can be obtained by completing tasks. In addition, while purchasing dedicated hardware can accelerate mining, users can still participate in the project without buying hardware. By sharing their own WIFI, they can also earn points, thus having the opportunity to participate in future airdrops.

This "free + airdrop" model is a powerful weapon for Web3 projects, attracting users through direct incentives and maximizing the subsidy strategies of the Web2 industry. It also provides ordinary users with opportunities to participate.

Overall, AI+DePIN is building decentralized infrastructure for the AI era, providing users with diverse participation avenues and potential profit opportunities.