Pantera Partners: Which DePIN projects have real revenue?

Some DEP projects have achieved sustainable profitability by solving existing problems, without even relying on the flywheel effect of the Token economy.

Author: Paul Veradittakit

Compiled by Luffy, Foresight News

The Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network (DePIN) is the integration of blockchain and infrastructure networks. Currently, DePIN exists in industries such as energy, telecommunications, storage, artificial intelligence, and data collection.

In the last crypto cycle, many projects took advantage of the DePIN craze to target the direction with huge market opportunities, but when the core product failed to gain enough attraction at both ends of supply and demand, they turned to the economics of cryptocurrency Token.

However, among those surviving projects, many companies have spent time building infrastructure. They have achieved sustainable profits by solving existing problems, even without relying on the token economy’s flywheel effect. Let’s take a look at some of these cases.

Geodnet

The core problem to be solved

Traditional Global Positioning Systems (GPS) often lack the precision required for advanced applications, which require centimeter-level accuracy rather than meter-level accuracy. Geodnet’s solution improves positioning accuracy by 100 times compared to traditional GPS technology.

Target Customer

Geodnet network serves industries that rely on high-precision geospatial data, including:

• Autonomous Driving Cars
• Agriculture
• Smart City
• National Defense and Security
• Space Exploration

Profit Model

• Data authorization: Selling geospatial data to commercial clients.
• Node participation fee: Costs associated with the installation and use of mining machines.
• Partnership: Collaborating with industries such as agriculture and autonomous driving systems to integrate Geodnet network services into existing workflows.

In 2024, the Geodnet network reported a revenue growth of over 500% year-on-year, reaching 1.7 million dollars.

Token Economics

Geodnet network uses native Token GEOD to incentivize participants:

• Miners earn tokens based on data contribution and normal network operation time.
• Destruction mechanism: Destroy Token during the data trading process, introducing deflation mechanism.
• Daily Earnings: The average daily earnings for each miner is approximately $4.30, with an estimated return on investment period of 3-4 months.
• Circulation: The allocation of Tokens ensures liquidity while incentivizing early adopters.
• Token Usage: Used for payments, staking, and governance within the network.

Ways to Participate and Contribute

1. Become a miner:

• Purchase mining equipment (cost between $500 - $700).
• Set up and connect the mining machine to the network, uploading 20-40GB of data per month.

2. Use the network:

• Access real-time kinematic (RTK) correction data through subscription or direct purchase.

3. Application Development:

• Software developed for specific industries based on the Geodnet network.

4、Governance:

• Staking GEOD Token and voting on proposals to participate in protocol governance.

Helium

The core problem to be solved

Traditional mobile network operators (such as T-Mobile) require massive capital expenditure to build base stations, maintain infrastructure, and expand coverage. Helium addresses this issue by creating a decentralized wireless network, leveraging community-owned hotspots to provide affordable, scalable, and resilient network connectivity for mobile and IoT devices.

Target Customer

• Consumers: Pay $20 per month to access unlimited data provided by the Helium decentralized network.
• Telecom providers: Implement WiFi offloading for major carriers to reduce their infrastructure costs.
• IoT Device Manufacturer: Provides connectivity for low-power IoT devices through the LoRaWAN protocol.
• Enterprises and institutions: help organizations deploy dedicated wireless networks for asset tracking, sensors, and environmental monitoring.

Profit Model

The Helium network generates revenue through two main avenues:

1. Mobile plans directly for consumers:

• Offer a $20 unlimited data plan per month, allowing users to simultaneously use the Helium Network Hotspot and partner networks (such as T-Mobile).

2. Operator WiFi offloading fee:

• Charge the telecommunications provider $0.50 per GB to route data through Helium’s decentralized hotspots instead of traditional base stations.

Financial Performance

• Subscribed users: over 100,000 direct subscribed users and over 300,000 indirect WiFi sharing users.
• Revenue: Generated a seven-figure annualized revenue from mobile subscriptions and operator diversion fees.
• Prediction: With the expansion of operator partnerships, the potential annual revenue from WiFi offloading business alone is expected to exceed $50 million.

Token Economics

The HNT Token of the Helium network is at the core of its incentive and payment structure:

• Earn Rewards: Hotspot operators earn HNT by providing coverage and transmitting data.
• Purpose: Token is used for network transactions, payment network services, and governance proposals.
• Destruction Mechanism: When HNT Token is used to pay for network services, it is destroyed, reducing the supply.

Ways to Participate and Contribute

1. Hotspot Deployment:

• Purchase and set up a hotspot compatible with the Helium network to provide network coverage and earn HNT rewards.
• Choose from 16 approved hardware types designed for IoT or mobile offloading.

2、Consumer Package:

• Subscribe to the Helium network’s $20 monthly mobile plan for affordable mobile data coverage.

3、Operator partnership relationship:

• Telecom providers can integrate with the Helium network to offload data traffic and reduce operating costs.

4. Governance and Staking:

• Staking HNT Token to participate in network governance, propose suggestions, and vote on key upgrades.

Akash

The core problem to be solved

The Akash network aims to address the high costs, scalability limitations, and centralization issues of traditional cloud computing providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, etc. It solves these problems by providing a decentralized cloud computing marketplace that allows users to profit from idle machines while reducing costs.

Target Customer

• AI developers: need high-performance GPU for training and deploying machine learning models.
• Startups and enterprises: need economical and scalable cloud computing to support data processing, storage, and AI-driven applications.

Profit Model

Akash Network generates revenue through the following means:

• Market trading fees: Transaction fees charged for calculating leases and processing payments through the network.
• Computing resource rental: a share of the revenue generated from the rental of GPU and CPU for artificial intelligence training and workloads.
• Developer Tools: Charge developers who use their computing infrastructure for API integration and SDK licensing fees.
• Enterprise partnership: Collaborate with AI labs and decentralized platforms to expand computing power.

Financial Performance

• Annual Revenue: The Akash network reported $2.5 million in revenue from compute leasing and fees in 2024.
• Growth rate: Due to the popularity of artificial intelligence, the demand for GPU computing resources has increased 33 times.
• Network Scale: Supports over 400 GPUs.

Token Economics

Akash Network uses AKT Token for payments, governance, and incentives.

1. Purpose:

• Payment: Buyers use AKT Tokens to purchase computing resources.
• Staking: Provide Token staking by the merchant to obtain job opportunities and enhance reputation.

2、Incentive:

• The provider earns AKT Token for supplying computing resources.
• Tokens are allocated based on normal operation time, performance, and task completion.

3. Governance:

• Token holders can propose upgrades and vote on protocol changes.

4、Destruction Mechanism:

• Network fees are destroyed, reducing Token supply.

Ways to Participate and Contribute

1. As a provider:

• Set up GPU, CPU, or storage servers on the Akash network.
• List resources, set prices, and start earning AKT Tokens.

2. As a consumer:

• Rent computing resources using the web interface or command line interface (CLI) of the Akash network.
• Deploy artificial intelligence training workloads, web services, and decentralized applications.

3. As a developer:

• Access API and SDK to integrate Akash Network’s services into applications.
• Using GPU clusters for deep learning training or inference tasks.

4. Governance Participation:

• Staking AKT Token to vote on network upgrades and resource pricing policies.

Looking Forward to the Future

The above is only a small part of the effective and sustainable income-generating projects. In the next few months, the acceptance of DEP will undoubtedly increase again, and more sustainable, scalable and profitable companies will be created.

The above-mentioned companies are all consumer-facing, but another area that excites me is infrastructure. The underlying blockchain, oracle services, smart contract services, middleware, Token issuance services, and so on, the areas where these companies are located will benefit from the development of the DePIN project, some examples include Solana, Peaq, Base, Story, Arweave, Opacity Network and DeForm.