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By Boboye Adeyemi
Blockchain events are a great way to stay updated about what's happening in the ecosystem. While some events are nothing to write home about, Ethcc has always lived up to expectations.
This year, Brussels was home to various Blockchain heads, and many main and side events took place, which shows that despite the present market state, interest in blockchain is still high, and the ecosystem is just scratching the surface.
One of the narratives gathering momentum in 2024 is DePIN, and the various events dedicated to it make this clear to the blind. For the first time in Ethcc, the DePIN association held a Depin inaugural conference, which Acurast and the Peaqnetwork co-hosted.
What Does the Future Look Like for DePIN?
DePIN growth is Massive
According to CoinGecko, the DePIN market cap is $18.7 billion today and still has not reached its peak despite emerging during the bear market. Even NFTs had $17 billion in trading volume at their peak in January 2022, yet DePIN offers a more substantial use case.
It’s also great to see the various DePIN projects forming an association to strengthen DePIN's future. Something is always said: “Unity is strength; when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved.” This has been missing from other sub-niches in the blockchain industry.
It Preaches True Decentralization and Democratization
Two core principles of Web3 are decentralization and democracy. However, many projects in the space need to catch up, operating as semi-decentralized entities. In contrast, DePIN projects have been a breath of fresh air, lowering barriers to entry. Acurast, for instance, enables mobile phone use, and Grass allows you to mine with your PC.
In their work, Lin et al. discuss the 'Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network (DePIN): Challenges and Opportunities,' highlighting this emerging technology's potential hurdles and benefits. They explain that DePIN encourages network participants to actively deploy physical devices to infrastructure networks through a token incentives mechanism, establishing a bottom-up, self-organizing model. This approach ensures the widespread distribution of network ownership, preventing monopolization by a few shareholders or centralized entities.
Low Barrier to Entry
With a low barrier to entry and excellent earning potential for DePIN enthusiasts, the future of DePIN is sustainable. DePIN projects use physical devices like PCs and Mobile phones, lowering entry barriers and making it easier for individuals and small organizations to participate and contribute to the network. Furthermore, the transparent and democratic governance system further reduces unnecessary operating expenses caused by corruption in centralized systems.
5 Projects That Showed Great Potential at Ethcc
Acurast
Acurast is disrupting the cloud monopoly with mobile hardware, democratizing and decentralizing the cloud. Where everyone can become part of the decentralized Cloud with their mobile phone. Giving developers complete permisionless access to trustless, affordable, and confidential compute. Using mobile phone chips, Acurast provides better performance and convenience in cloud services while ensuring complete data confidentiality at about 50% reduced cost compared to traditional cloud services.
Impossible Cloud Network
Impossible Cloud represents the spirit of innovation and determination. Every challenge can be overcome, and every goal can be achieved. ICN's cutting-edge cloud solutions empower customers to push the boundaries of what is possible and achieve the impossible. Impossible Cloud's decentralized architecture, based on web3 technology and built on a global network of enterprise-grade data centers, offers industry-leading performance and latency. Impossible Cloud Storage is perfect for organizations that require performant and secure storage for big data, backups, and archives at a fraction of the cost of hyperscalers.
Peaq Network
peaq is a Layer 1 blockchain purposely built and optimized for DePINs (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) and Machine RWAs (Real World Assets). Leveraging parallelized block production, asynchronous backing, and agile core time, the network can scale to 10,000 TPS (transactions per second). It can scale beyond 100,000 TPS post upgrade while maintaining a minimum transaction cost of approximately $0.00025. peaq leverages the most environmentally friendly blockchain architecture and the largest (Ethereum) and second-largest (Substrate) developer ecosystems in Web3.
Geodnet
DePIN is a new class of web3 projects building networks to solve real-world problems. One such real-world problem is GPS accuracy and reliability. What is the DePIN project GEODNET all about? GEODNET is an acronym for Global Earth Observation Decentralized Network, and veterans run the project in the GPS industry. GEODNET uses token incentives to build the largest Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) reference station network. RTK is an advanced form of GPS that combines normal GPS satellite data with local reference station data to instantly achieve up to 200x improvement in GPS accuracy.
Iotex
IoTeX is an open-source platform at the intersection of blockchain and the Internet of Things. It is on a mission to enable a decentralized machine economy in the future. It seeks to build a connected world where machines, humans, businesses, and decentralized applications (DApps) can interact with trust and privacy. Backed by a global team of 40+ research scientists and engineers, IoTeX combines blockchain, off-chain compute, and open hardware to connect billions of devices and DApps across the physical and digital world.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that Ethcc was a success, and the presence of various DePIN events makes it a win for the emerging blockchain narrative; it’s expected that the next ETHcc in Cannes will feature a lot of growth for DePIN and also looking forward to seeing the growth of the five projects listed here then.
As DePIN continues to mature, it will likely unlock new opportunities for innovation, participation, and economic empowerment. The future of DePIN looks promising, with the potential to drive widespread adoption and deliver tangible benefits across various sectors, solidifying its place as a cornerstone of the decentralized web.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Bitcoin Insider. Every investment and trading move involves risk - this is especially true for cryptocurrencies given their volatility. We strongly advise our readers to conduct their own research when making a decision.