DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure)
Token incentives applied to real-world hardware — crowd-built wireless, mapping, storage and compute networks.
DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) uses token rewards to bootstrap real-world hardware networks: individuals deploy hotspots, dashcams, storage drives or GPUs, and earn tokens for the coverage or capacity they contribute. Instead of one company raising capital to build infrastructure, the network pays its own builders.
Flagship examples include wireless (Helium), mapping (Hivemapper) and decentralized compute/storage (Filecoin, Render). The model’s test is always the same: does real, paying demand eventually replace token subsidies? Networks that never cross that bridge are emission schedules wearing a business model.