2025 DePIN’s Breakout Year

The DePIN industry emerged over 10 years ago, but only now, in 2025, the conditions align for a breakout. As crypto and broader tech narratives converge, DePIN is positioned to transition from a niche experiment to a sector with tangible demand.

Apart from the market changes, the shift in political stance creates a more favorable environment for Web3. The US is emerging as a global crypto hub. The regulatory momentum and increasing institutional involvement in decentralized projects create a favorable place for DePINs. With these factors in place, 2025 could accelerate DePIN’s adoption and revenue growth.

Let’s explore the key catalysts driving this shift, and why 2025 will be the year of DePIN.

The DePIN industry has significantly transformed over the past 2 years. Hundreds of new projects have emerged across different DePIN sectors, and over 100 of them have secured VC funding. Throughout 2023 and 2024, DePIN has been one of the key crypto narratives. According to @dylangbane’s State of DePIN 2024, the DePIN market cap reached $50 billion in 2024, a 10x increase since 2022. Similar traction could be observed in a @gmci_DePIN index, which saw over 200% growth during the past 2 years. That’s are some crazy numbers.

This phase reflected a supply-side market when DePIN projects were focused on infrastructure development. Airdrops played a key role in this process, which allowed DePIN projects to bootstrap infrastructure and onboard users before shifting toward monetization. As a result, in 2024, we saw the launch of several large-cap DePIN projects, including @ionet and @getgrass_io, signaling the sector’s readiness for broader adoption.

Beyond airdrop campaigns, we have seen a rise of another approach to building decentralized infrastructure, node sales. This method has proven effective in raising capital for network expansion. Aethir, for example, secured over $130 million to cover infrastructure costs and now operates more than 30,000 active nodes (according to @DepinNinja).

With infrastructure scaling becoming more accessible, the next big challenge for DePINs is proving long-term economic viability. Monetization becomes the core focus, as projects must now support infrastructure suppliers through actual revenue sharing rather than pure token incentives.

This stage marks a demand-driven market where revenue generation becomes the primary focus. With infrastructure in place, projects must now prioritize servicing real-world customers: from AI firms that need decentralized compute power to individuals, who seek cost-effective home energy solutions.

Both offchain and onchain data show that DePIN is evolving into a revenue-generating industry, with projects like @AethirCloud and @Virtuals_io already reporting millions in monthly revenue. The key to success for these projects is that they capitalize on the AI trend, which allows them to generate revenue from both enterprise clients and individuals.

While revenue figures are growing, its sustainability remains a challenge. Many projects depend on short-term trends, such as AI agents' popularity, which drove Virtual’s revenue to millions. Another example is Glow, the protocol that rewards solar energy suppliers, which has generated nearly $20M ARR in 2024, while over the past 30 days, it has only generated $75K. The same could be said about other major DePINs.

DePIN protocols founders' vision should focus on adopting long-term enterprise contracts and building stable recurring revenue models. The industry faces the critical test of converting early adoption into long-lasting business models before it achieves the profitability point.

While DePIN is experiencing organic growth across various sectors, artificial intelligence is now a primary driver due to its increasing demand for computing power, storage, and energy (according to @DAnconia_Crypto for @MessariCrypto, @EV3Ventures). As AI adoption accelerates, DePIN is emerging as a high-potential infrastructure layer for AI, which will bridge the gap between Web3 efficiency and real-world computational needs.

DePINs become even more attractive in these sections as tech giants like AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, which dominate the AI computing market, are becoming more costly and restrictive. DePINs can provide almost the same quality resources at a fraction of the cost. For example, @Filecoin’s, DePIN OGs, storage is nearly 4 times cheaper than the closest Web2 service, Google Cloud (@solosbrqt for @coingecko).

Lately, the popularity of AI agents has significantly impacted Crypto & AI development. Web3 AI agents are essentially apps that rely on cheap and scalable infrastructure. Since they operate in the Web3 space, DePINs are an organic fit to meet their needs. While the AI agents market has shown signs of decline recently, the long-term potential is obvious.

Holoworld AI founder, @tong0x, shares his vision that the AI agents sector in crypto will be a dominant narrative in the space. The success of meme coins craze on Solana has just kicked off this growth. And DePIN will fuel it.

The topic of regulation has recently become increasingly relevant in the crypto space. During the last market cycle, regulation was viewed mainly as a barrier, forcing many companies to relocate from the tech startup hub, the US, to safer harbors. However, the second half of 2024 marked a shift, bringing several positive changes, particularly for the DePIN sector.

A regulatory framework for crypto is inevitable, and current trends suggest it will be very favorable. As one of the most directly connected Web3 sectors to real-world applications, DePIN stands to benefit significantly. Regulatory clarity, including the approval of a stablecoin bill, could streamline the crypto payments, which are necessary for DePINs. Additionally, broader crypto adoption would help DePIN projects build decentralized infrastructure and distribute rewards to users more efficiently.

The United States is emerging as the most important market for the DePIN industry due to high infrastructure demand from US-based startups and a significant concentration of capital.

The US’s leading position in the AI race means there are dozens of computing power-demanding startups. Besides AI, it also has a strong presence in cloud computing and telecom industries. The US-based consumers provide the demand needed for DePIN adoption at scale. All these industries require scalable, cost-efficient computing power. This is exactly the area where DePIN protocols are positioned to compete with Web2 solutions. As AI workloads grow, US-based companies will actively seek decentralized alternatives to reduce costs and avoid reliance on centralized infrastructure.

The US has also become a DePIN hub due to the high concentration of builders, projects and capital. Venture capital firms in the US have significantly increased their exposure to DePIN projects. Over the past two years, DePIN startups have raised more than $500 million in funding, with major investors including leading US-based VC firms: a16z, Paradigm, and Multicoin Capital.

Currently, the US is the largest developed nation in terms of the number of DePIN devices of dozens of DePIN projects (shout out to cool guys from @DePINscan). While the dominant positions are held by developing nations, the huge population with the high economic potential of the United States makes it simpler to accelerate infrastructure resources growth.

President Trump’s return for a second term signaled a fundamental shift in US policy towards crypto. Even during his campaign, he pledged significant changes for the crypto market, particularly for Web3 companies.

One of his administration’s first executive orders, «Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology» outlined policies to accelerate the US crypto industry’s growth and provide greater regulatory clarity. We’re finally here!

The changes in administration signalize long-awaited crypto policy relaxation. The most important was the appointment of the pro-crypto chair of the SEC, Paul Atkins. Brian Quintenz, who previously led policy at @a16zcrypto, will become head of the CFTC. With this nomination, there’s a chance that the CFTC will replace the SEC as the main regulator for the crypto market.

Perhaps the most important development was the appointment of the, DePIN OG, David Sacks as the White House AI and Crypto Czar, who will lead the development of a legal framework for the crypto industry.

DePINs also receive recognition on a nationwide level. Recently, DePIN emerged as one of the key focus areas of the Washington @BlockchainAssn. The association established a DePIN Working Group to advance regulatory discussions, co-chaired by @LarryPang from @IoTeX and Jacob Hample from the @FilFoundation. Their role will be to drive policy initiatives that support DePIN development and integration within the broader blockchain industry.

With the rapid growth of AI usage and content stored on the web, the demand for bandwidth is rising quickly. AI models require huge amounts of data for training, real-time inference, and web crawling, while CDNs further drive network capacity needs.

However, the bandwidth market is dominated by the web2 cloud providers, such as AWS and Google Cloud. They are expensive, non-scalable, and offer weak geographical coverage. These flaws create a lot of challenges for bandwidth-heavy businesses.

At Ping, we are building the future of networking infrastructure. Our decentralized network taps into global bandwidth sources: data centers, user devices, and other bandwidth providers. This creates a scalable, cost-efficient, geo-distributed alternative to centralized cloud providers. With Ping, millions of underutilized connections come together to power VPNs, AI, and content platforms. It’s our time to conquer the $40B networking market.

The demand for computing power is here, and it is huge. Moreover, it will be even bigger in the coming years, driven by the fast scaling of AI and the emergence of new models. According to @MessariCrypto, GPU-focused DePINs are the main growth driver for this industry, attracting 2 times more capital than storage or full-stack networks.

While compute is the most mature DePIN sector, it can reward its users very well due to strong real-world demand. But what protocols are worth following? On our list, it’s definitely @ionet, @AethirCloud, @375ai_, @mawariXR and @rendernetwork. Who is on yours?

Energy is one of the most promising DePIN sectors, already generating substantial revenue. With projects like @GlowFDN disrupting the green energy landscape and securing millions in revenue, it’s clear that decentralized networks offer a more efficient, sustainable, and scalable alternative to traditional energy systems. By leveraging token incentives, DePIN energy protocols optimize distribution, reduce waste, and provide access to renewable power at lower costs.

Apart from Glow, we love teams from @daylightenergy_ and @fuseenergy.

Mapping DePINs may not be the most obvious sector to watch, but they hold significant potential. Navigation services are an integral part of daily life, and enterprises rely on them just as much as individuals. This widespread utility positions mapping DePINs favorably to both user adoption and revenue generation. Imagine Google Maps powered by DePIN data.

A few leaders have already emerged in this niche. @GEODNET_ stands out with one of the highest 30-day revenues among DePIN projects, generating $193K in a single month. @Hivemapper and @wifimapapp follow closely, both ranking among the top 20 DePINs by 30-day revenue, according to @DePINNinja.

The outlook for DePIN is overwhelmingly positive, but the potential may be even greater than most forecasts suggest. In 2025, the industry is on track to surpass $100 million in cumulative ARR. Given the fundamental role of utility-driven adoption, the market cap could realistically triple, reaching $150 billion. More importantly, there will be a lot of innovation and new developments that will push Web3 forward.

The future of DePIN is just beginning to unfold, and you’re a part of it.