Industry Watch: A DePIN Empire Is Quietly Emerging on Solana

Original Title: "Industry Insight: A DePIN Empire Is Quietly Emerging on Solana"

Original Source: DePINone Labs

Abstract

This month, Solana's DePIN ecosystem welcomed two new major players. ROAM, based on shared WiFi, went live on March 6 on mainstream exchanges such as Bybit and Kucoin, reaching the fourth position in the DePIN track with its hardware devices achieving a network-wide first. Former Strategic Lead at the Solana Foundation, Austin Federa, led a $28 million funding round joined by Solana's co-founders and A-list VCs like Dragonfly and Multicoin to launch the DoubleZero distributed bandwidth project. This project aims to create a communication highway based on web2 infrastructure for web3, potentially addressing the network latency issues currently faced by web3.

Furthermore, as of March 14, 2025, the Solana-based DePIN ecosystem has seen significant growth, with a total market cap of over $25 billion. There are approximately 78 DePIN projects covering various subfields such as wireless communication (e.g., Helium), computing resources (e.g., Render Network), geolocation (e.g., Hivemapper), and cloud storage (e.g., GenesysGo SHDWDrive).

Solana, with its high throughput, low transaction costs, mature developer ecosystem, and a large user base, has become the preferred platform for DePIN projects. We are witnessing the emergence of a DePIN empire ecosystem nurtured on Solana.

1. Key Analysis of DePIN Track Major Projects

1. DoubleZero—Building a High-speed Highway for web3 on Solana

On March 10, amidst a weak overall crypto market performance, another DePIN dark horse project, DoubleZero Foundation, secured a massive $28 million investment from A-list VCs.

Who exactly is the DoubleZero Foundation, and how were they able to secure such a substantial investment in the midst of a market downturn?

I have summarized the key points as follows:

(1) The founding team has rich experience in blockchain projects and has been successful in the past. Furthermore, the founder has abundant resources within the industry and possesses a luxurious ecosystem.

The founder of DoubleZero, Austin Federa, previously served as the Head of Strategy at the Solana Foundation and can be considered a key driver of Solana's early ecosystem growth. During his time at the Solana Foundation, he was not only responsible for global market strategy but also directly involved in the implementation of several key projects, such as driving the integration of USDC and USDT on Solana, and even deeply involved in ecosystem partnerships during the FTX era.

Simultaneously, Austin Federa has a deep relationship with the Solana core team (including Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal). It is this relationship that allowed DoubleZero to receive early support from the Solana ecosystem and market recognition.

(2) The investment team is high-profile, with Solana founders co-investing and explicitly supporting Solana's DePIN strategic layout.

The following image shows DoubleZero's investment team. If you are familiar with the investment landscape in the crypto community, you will know the significant influence of Dragonfly and Multicoin. They are not only long-term supporters of the Solana ecosystem but have also played crucial roles in several key projects (e.g., Multicoin's early bet on Solana and Dragonfly's involvement in Serum).

Furthermore, in addition to top-tier VCs, the financial power within the Solana ecosystem also played a core role in this funding round. Solana Ventures and the co-founders of Solana Labs, Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal, also participated as angel investors.

From a somewhat irrational perspective, this is almost equivalent to declaring to others, "This is my own flesh and blood."

It is worth noting that DoubleZero's investment came just after the Solana Foundation announced its DePIN ecosystem strategy, being the first project to receive explicit investment support.

So we believe that, with Solana's official on-site support, Austin is not acting alone, but is entering the field with the entire Solana resource pool, a comprehensive tilt of funds, technology, and market resources. For the entire DeFi PIN track, this is undoubtedly an important signal: the Solana ecosystem is actively laying out the physical infrastructure network, and Double Zero may be the "vanguard" leading the charge.

(3) Leading Technical Solution, building a web3 track highway to make web3 projects run as smoothly as web2;

We know that the Web3 track is currently facing many issues, among which, at the infrastructure layer, due to public internet bandwidth limitations and issues such as non-deterministic routing, Web3 projects often cannot run as smoothly as Web2; and even if public bandwidth restrictions and non-deterministic routing issues are addressed, if the delay issue between validators is not resolved, then Web3 projects still cannot run as smoothly as Web2.

Double Zero was created to address these infrastructure layer issues in Web3.

From the architecture diagram above, we can see Double Zero's unique Two-Ring Architecture, where the Outer Ring connects to the public internet, using hardware (such as FPGA) for attack protection, signature verification, and transaction filtering; the Inner Ring then handles this filtered traffic through a dedicated bandwidth line and performs consensus building.

Firstly, the Outer Ring connects to the public internet, using hardware (such as FPGA) for attack protection, signature verification, and transaction filtering;

The benefit of this is that by pre-filtering incoming spam and duplicate transactions with dedicated hardware, the burden on validators is reduced, allowing the blockchain to share filtering resources without each validator needing to provide them separately.

Secondly, the Inner Ring processes this filtered traffic through a dedicated bandwidth line and performs consensus building. This can improve communication efficiency through explicit message routing, tracking, and priority management.

Regarding the specific technical processing flow, the information disclosed by the official is as follows:

(1) The Outer Ring, as the first line of defense, is mainly responsible for filtering out spam transactions, DDoS attacks, malicious contract invocations, and other invalid traffic. It uses an adaptive traffic filtering mechanism to real-time analyze transaction patterns using machine learning and heuristic rules, precisely identify and intercept malicious traffic, ensuring that only valid transactions can enter the blockchain mainnet.

At the same time, Outer Ring also relies on decentralized zero-permission fiber contributions, where independent contributors from the network provide physical infrastructure, further ensuring the authenticity and priority of data packets. All transactions must undergo basic validity checks in Outer Ring before entering the Inner Ring, reducing the entry of invalid transactions into the core network and improving overall processing efficiency.

(2) Transactions entering the Inner Ring have undergone strict screening, allowing it to focus on efficient transaction processing. The Inner Ring adopts a high-performance architecture similar to Solana, supporting ultra-high TPS (transactions per second), ensuring extremely short transaction confirmation times to meet the demand for a large number of transactions.

To further enhance network fluidity, Double Zero also adopts a stateless verification model. This lightweight transaction processing method, compared to the traditional state storage model of blockchain, makes the entire network run more smoothly and efficiently.

2. Roam - Web3 Version of Starchain Built on Solana

On March 6, Roam, another decentralized wireless network project built on the Solana public chain, was listed on Kucoin and Bybit, with a circulating market value of over $60 million. In the DePIN track, Solana has gained another strong contender.

(1) What is the Roam project?

ROAM is a decentralized wireless network project based on the Solana blockchain, aiming to provide seamless and secure global WiFi and eSIM connections, with the goal of building a global open wireless network. It achieves automatic network switching and secure connections through blockchain technology, supporting individuals, smart devices, and AI agents.

Currently, with over 2.3 million users and 2 million WiFi nodes covering 190+ countries, it ranks high in the DePIN field.

The $ROAM token has a total supply of 1 billion, with 600 million allocated for mining and community activities. Users can earn tokens by providing WiFi or validating the network.

According to the 2024 Messari report, ROAM ranks fourth in DePIN projects with over 1 million active nodes and first in hardware node count. Competitors include Helium and DIMO, but ROAM's global coverage and user base provide it with a competitive advantage.

If we say Musk's Starlink has built a space-based communication system, I would like to refer to Roam as the ground-based communication network's web3 version of the Starlink system.

(2) Technological Advantages

ROAM utilizes OpenRoaming™ WiFi and eSIM technology, allowing users to provide WiFi access or share network performance data. Meanwhile, ROAM employs decentralized identities (DID) and verifiable credentials (VC) to ensure that users do not risk data leakage while sharing WiFi or using WiFi, ensuring privacy and security.

The specific architecture and functions of the technology are as follows:

· OpenRoaming™ Wi-Fi: Following the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) standard, it supports users in seamless switching between different WiFi networks, ensuring continuous connectivity.

· eSIM Service: Providing smart eSIM services in over 160 countries, allowing users to access data networks without a traditional SIM card.

· Blockchain Incentive Mechanism: Utilizing the Proof-of-Service mining algorithm, users earn ROAM tokens by providing WiFi services or validating network performance.

· Decentralized Identity (DID) and Verifiable Credentials (VC): Using blockchain technology to protect user privacy, eliminate reliance on centralized validators, and enhance security and decentralization.

In this system design, OpenRoaming™ Wi-Fi addresses the linking protocol issue of communication systems in different countries and regions, eSIM addresses the lack of SIM services in many regions, particularly helping create communication conditions in some impoverished areas, while DID and VC technologies solve data security and privacy issues during communication. By introducing a web3 economic system, it can quickly stimulate early network deployment challenges.

The reason why ROAM has rapidly grown since its redesign 24 years ago, becoming a leading player in the DePIN track, is not only due to the synergetic effect of the Solana ecosystem but also its own technological and track accumulation.

(3) Operational Advantages

The project team has been deeply involved in the web3 field for many years, well-versed in web3 project strategies. Through web3 mechanisms such as staking and referral rewards, they quickly accumulated network effects and onboarded early users.

ROAM encourages users to participate in network building through a mobile app, such as adding WiFi nodes, daily check-ins, or inviting friends, to earn Roam Points. These points can be redeemed for ROAM tokens after the Token Generation Event (TGE).

Upon researching the project team's information, it is evident that although the ROAM project started on April 2, 2024, its previous name was MetaBlox. From the data, we discovered that MetaBlox was established as early as 2018 but remained dormant for several years until it rebranded to ROAM in 2024 and migrated to the Solana mainnet.

From this, it can be seen that the success of any project is the result of years of dedication to the field. Therefore, even in the current market downturn, a good project can still withstand the test of time and bloom when the time is right.

In summary, ROAM offers a compelling wireless network sharing project and has already established a strong network effect. With a current circulating market capitalization of only around $15 million, it is far behind Grass's $360 million. If we see more users join the ROAM network in the future, we may witness the project's takeoff and rise in the next bull market.

II. Ecosystem Observation

As of March 14, 2025, we have observed significant development in the DePIN ecosystem based on Solana, with a market valuation exceeding $25 billion. This surpasses the scale of other DePIN projects' ecosystems, indicating the emergence of a DePIN empire ecosystem on Solana.

According to public data, there are approximately 78 DePIN projects on Solana (data referenced from platforms such as Messari and DePIN Scan up to 2024), covering various subfields such as wireless communication (e.g., Helium), computing resources (e.g., Render Network), geolocation (e.g., Hivemapper), cloud storage (e.g., GenesysGo SHDWDrive), among others. Solana's high throughput (theoretically up to 50,000 TPS), low transaction costs (about $0.00025 per transaction), and mature developer ecosystem make it the preferred platform for DePIN projects.

Key DePIN projects currently on Solana include:

· Helium: The world's largest decentralized wireless network, which, after migrating to Solana, has deployed nearly 1 million hotspots covering 192 countries, providing IoT and 5G services.

· Render Network: A decentralized GPU computing platform that migrated from Ethereum to Solana, processing tens of millions of image frames to support AI and media rendering.

· Hivemapper: A decentralized digital mapping network challenging Google Maps using user-contributed dashcam data, with coverage in multiple cities.

· GenesysGo SHDWDrive: A decentralized cloud storage solution aiming to fill the storage gap in the Solana ecosystem.

· Dabba Network (Emerging Project): Focused on the Indian broadband market, aiming to increase network coverage in a decentralized manner.

The total market capitalization of Solana's DePIN projects reached approximately $25.6 billion in June 2024 (DePIN Scan data), which may vary in 2025 due to market fluctuations and project growth. Top projects such as Helium, Render, and Hivemapper have fully diluted valuations (FDV) exceeding $10 billion.

Comparison Summary of Solana's DePIN Ecosystem with Other Public Chains

From the table above, it is evident that Solana has a significant advantage in the DePIN track compared to other public chains in the DePIN track:

In terms of technical performance and cost advantage, Solana's high performance and low cost, especially its low Gas fees compared to chains like Ethereum, are particularly friendly to DePIN projects that require frequent transactions (such as micro-payment incentives); Proof of History (PoH) and parallel processing capabilities enable Solana to handle large amounts of real-time data for DePIN projects (such as IoT device communication, map data uploads), allowing DePIN projects to operate smoothly and provide a comfortable user experience similar to web2 projects.

In the public blockchain ecosystem, the Solana Foundation actively promotes the development of the DePIN project through funding and hackathons (such as collaboration with Multicoin Capital). Recently, the Solana DePIN Special Fund was established specifically to help Solana nurture more high-quality projects, with the first project on it, DoubleZero, being the most well-known one at present.

Therefore, we optimistically believe that Solana is not merely a Memecoin public chain. Its journey to today is definitely not solely due to its MEME effect, but rather its strong ecosystem foundation, technical advocacy, and robust support for the community and projects. We optimistically anticipate that the next DePIN empire's ecosystem may emerge on Solana.

III. Other Recent Important Events in the DePIN Track

1. On February 1, IoTeX, a DePIN and AI fully chain-compatible modular infrastructure, announced its 2025 development roadmap focusing on the DePIN + AI ecosystem:

Physical Perception AI Empowered by DePIN

IoTeX has launched the open-source framework QuickSilver, which combines Large Language Models (LLMs) with DePIN network data to create advanced AI applications. In the first quarter, IoTeX plans to launch the QuickSilver testnet, enabling developers to utilize QuickSilver to bridge the existing DePIN world with the emerging AI world, creating a wave of new "perceptual AI applications."

Establishing a DePIN + AI Strategic Reserve

IoTeX will create an initial BTC-based DePIN + AI asset strategic reserve for IOTX holders. This reserve will serve as a "store of value" for long-term quality tokens and assets, safeguarding the interests of IOTX holders.

Community First

A comprehensive community empowerment plan, combined with a DAO-based governance model, allows the community to directly participate in IoTeX's development.

2. On March 3, during the ETHDenver 2025 event, the DePIN + AI R3al World Summit, Blockchain Association's Policy Director Salah and IoTeX's Ecosystem Lead Larry engaged in forward-looking discussions on cryptocurrency and DePIN + AI regulatory frameworks, sparking industry-wide contemplation on the fusion of technology and policy trends.

Salah emphasized: "The current US regulatory agencies are accelerating the exploration of how to incorporate innovative technologies that bridge the physical and digital worlds, such as DePIN, into the national strategic framework. The future regulatory framework must balance technological innovation with the public interest, and the transparency of DePIN and the explainability of AI may become key to solving regulatory challenges."

Larry shared IoTeX's practical experience: "From compliance collaborations with Grayscale and Coinbase to serving as Co-Chair of the Blockchain Association's DePIN Working Group, we have always been centered on 'verifiable physical data,' driving the alignment of DePIN + AI with real-world economic needs."

3. On March 6, the Solana Foundation and the Solana Chinese community Solar will hold a DePIN Day event on March 8 in Shenzhen, the hardware capital.

Solana's emerging DePIN projects such as Cudis, Starpower, Geodnet, Roam, Aethir, Gradient, and DeGlass will attend and conduct on-site showcases and sharing.

IV. Recent Industry Funding Events

1. On February 27, the Solana ecosystem DePIN project Shaga completed a $4 million seed round of financing, led by IOSG Ventures, with participation from Everyrealm, Amber Group, and multiple angel investors.

Shaga aims to reshape the gaming industry—break through hardware limitations, bring ultra-low latency, and make high-performance gaming accessible to all.

BlockBeats previously reported that on June 25, 2024, Shaga completed a $1 million angel round of financing, led by Arca, with participation from MARIN DIGITAL VENTURES, Skybridge20 Ventures, Aurory, Quotient Ventures, as well as angel investors such as Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko and Helium founder Amir Haleem.

2. On February 25, the DePIN project Geodnet completed an $8 million token financing, led by Multicoin.

Geodnet provides financial incentives for startups to encourage ordinary people to host physical infrastructure. Due to the strong demand for Geodnet's services, the project's token (and its incentive mechanism) has more than doubled in value in the past 12 months.

In April of last year, the GEODNET Foundation announced the completion of over $2 million in strategic funding, with participation from CoinFund, Pantera Capital, VanEck, and Santiago R. Santos. The additional funds raised will support the foundation in achieving its short-term goals, including decentralization and developer usability.

On February 5, DePIN Game Infrastructure Platform Beamable completed a $13.5 million Series A funding round, led by Bitkraft Ventures.

The Beamable Network aims to transform the way game backend infrastructure is built and operated.

The DoubleZero Foundation announced a $28 million investment led by Dragonfly and Multicoin Capital.

Double Zero is a project based on the DePIN track, allowing anyone to contribute independently provisioned fiber-optic links without permission. This is essentially laying the "information superhighway" for the Web3 world. The project's key feature lies in its hardware-driven nature, targeting the infrastructure layer directly. DoubleZero's goal is simple: to increase bandwidth and reduce latency for all high-performance blockchains.

Original Article Link