DePIN: Revolutionizing IoT and Redefining Crypto Investments
Most of the world’s infrastructure today is plagued by inefficient centralized models controlled by big corporations. There’s a widening infrastructure gap across geographies. By 2030, this gap will rise to the tune of $13.6 trillion.
The solution lies at the intersection of Web3 and the real world via connected decentralized physical infrastructure networks or DePINs.
DePINs connect physical infrastructures like IoT devices. They incentivize the use of blockchain and tokens to deploy and use value-generating physical infrastructure.
For instance, People can earn money by sharing their WiFi, by connecting their router to a DePIN network. These people are connected as nodes in a blockchain. Anyone can join this network through the ‘proof-of-stake’ (PoS) consensus and earn a passive income.
This is one of the biggest real-world use cases that can lead to Web3 mass adoption. Wicrypt is building one such network across 32 countries already and counting.
What is Wicrypt?
Wicrypt is building the biggest, farthest, and most expansive DePIN network of internet devices and hotspots. Anyone can join the network and sell their WiFi at the price they desire, and vice versa. Anyone who needs access to the internet can join the network and get instant access to the internet.
Wicrypt is making internet data more affordable and allowing people to earn income by sharing their wifi. Already, rewards worth $2 million have been distributed to Wicrypt device (node) owners.
A Little Background About DePINs.
DePIN brings together digital and physical resource networks to build powerful use cases that are permissionless, open, and scalable at a fraction of the cost of an equivalent centralized network. No centralized entities control the backend logic or transactions in a DePIN network. The transition of infrastructure from siloed architecture to a global network brings insane efficiency to IoT and other real-world use cases.
DePin was first mentioned as a concept in the Messari Crypto Report released on December 22, 2022. Decentralized wireless project Helium and the peer-to-peer storage network Filecoin can be called the earliest use cases of DePIN. However, even though they demonstrated the potential of DePIN as a technology, the projects couldn’t gain decent traction and adoption but it laid the foundation for other DePIN projects and was proof that a group of individuals can crowd-source a decentralized network. Some of the biggest use cases for DePIN lie in sectors like the Internet-of-Things (IoT), telecom, mobile, energy, mobility, storage, and others.
DePIN and IoT: The Perfect Crypto Investment
To date, IoT networks have wonderfully connected the world via physical devices. But there’s one big problem – the presence of a centralized entity and the lack of incentives for supply-side users to participate in the network.
As such, IoT networks remain highly restricted, private, and underutilized. Traditionally, IoT, telecom, data, and cloud service networks have been dominated by large corporations. The capital requirements to set up are enormous, and logistical challenges are huge.
These corporations have long enjoyed a near-monopoly on the pricing and services offered. Monopolization makes innovation redundant, and thus, the growth in the IoT sector has stagnated.
Enter DePINs
DePIN networks hold the key to the evolution of IoT networks.
DePINs have brought users, device owners, and businesses on the same pedestal by connecting physical infrastructures to a globally distributed network such as blockchain. With this, each stakeholder collectively builds, equally owns, and monetizes a DePIN network.
Any IoT network built on DePIN incentivizes the supply-side participants. These participants build the network by leveraging crypto-economic protocols, offering end-users more cost-effective and innovative services than the traditional models.
This blurs the line between the client and service providers. Anyone with the capacity to deploy and run the hardware can join the network and provide a service. Anyone needing the service and being able to pay for it can join the network and receive the service.
The distinction may not matter to many or any participant within or without the network. However, the value addition comes from device manufacturers who now have to start thinking about the output and the clients.
By removing redundancies and eliminating the need for capital, DePIN allows for the democratization of IoT networks and novel revenue streams for IoT manufacturers.
Think of it like this: your Wifi router is earning you regular income, the extra storage in your cloud is earning your income, and so on. There’s a world of opportunities that await DePINs.
How’s Wicrypt Bringing Internet Revolution via DePIN?
On one hand, one-third of the world’s population doesn’t have access to the Internet. On the other hand, the number of connected devices will likely outnumber people by three to one by 2030.
This imbalance of network distribution is more prominent in third-world countries and less-developed regions. The correlation between internet connectivity and financial freedom/prosperity is quite conspicuous.
Today Africa is facing the biggest internet outage, which may take months to fix. Millions of people remain at the mercy of the state and corporations to get online.
Wicrypt on the other hand, is building a decentralized network connecting wifi hotspots. Anyone who needs access to the internet can get on the network and buy internet access from the hotspot owner (host). Anyone who wants to earn by selling their wifi can set up a node and share data at their rates.
Wicrypt began its pilot phase in Africa and has expanded to 32 countries now. It has proven its capability by bringing down the cost of mobile internet in Africa by over 60%.
Wicrypt is a decentralized evolution of the sharing economy, bringing last-mile internet connectivity to the world. The next stop is China. Want to learn more? Read Wicrypt’s whitepaper here.
