Since the Filecoin miners sparked the 'selling mining machines' craze in the previous bull market, the Web3 world has been repeatedly following the old routine of 'economic incentives + scenario packaging.' The last round saw the hype of GameFi, where 'playing games earns tokens' and 'running earns tokens' once became the main narrative for going viral. However, while these projects were once extremely popular, they failed to carve out a truly sustainable commercialization path. GameFi ultimately did not become a long-term track, with token prices soaring and plummeting, user loss, and ecological collapse.
In this round, the concept of DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) has emerged, once again igniting the narrative peak in the Web3 circle. It's not just about 'mining by using'; it’s 'everything can be DePIN': earn tokens for charging, earn tokens for calling, earn tokens for installing sockets, earn tokens for driving, earn tokens for watching ads, and even 'drinking water' can earn tokens.
This seems to be more imaginative than GameFi—after all, compared to games in virtual worlds, electricity, communication, transportation, and energy in real life seem to have more 'real value.' However, upon closer inspection of the actual implementation and economic models of these projects, we find that over 60% of device suppliers in the current DePIN market come from Huaqiangbei, Shenzhen, and the prices of these devices are often 30-50 times their wholesale prices in Huaqiangbei, with almost all hardware investors losing everything. The DePIN Tokens purchased show little rebound potential, leaving investors helplessly watching their wallets shrink while waiting for the elusive 'ecological landing' and 'next round of airdrops.' This is not infrastructure innovation; it resembles a rampant hardware scam of 'borrowing a corpse to revive the soul.'
Project Review: The blood and tears lessons of those who stumbled.
Helium: From being hard to obtain to being overlooked today.
Helium was once a star project in the DePIN field, its flagship Helium Hotspot device built a decentralized LoRaWAN network. Later, it partnered with T-Mobile and Telefónica to launch mobile communication services, featuring low-cost packages—such as a $20 monthly package that attracted 93,000 subscribers in just five months.
At first glance, it seems to have unlimited potential, but the story of Helium devices is a classic case of 'harvesting leeks': once priced at dozens of dollars, hotspot miners have skyrocketed to $2,500 each (claiming to break even in three days), but the reality is: due to domestic nodes being blacklisted by authorities, the entire Chinese market has collapsed, leaving miners with unusable equipment and the coin price plummeting, resulting in total loss for miners. The once-dreamed 'mining equals financial freedom' is now long gone.
Hivemapper: Buy a camera to 'mine'? The payback period is far away.
Hivemapper sells a $549 dashcam, allowing users to upload geographic data during driving to earn token rewards. At first glance, this 'driving earns tokens' model seems easier to grasp than mining. However, the issue lies in:
Behind the high hardware prices, there is no strong token support. The price of the HONEY token has been sluggish for a long time, with a long payback period.
The quality and frequency of map data are concerning, and it remains unverified whether a network comparable to Google Maps can truly be built.
Its map network mainly covers developed countries in Europe and America, with almost no landing scenarios for sellers in Huaqiangbei and Asian markets.
Furthermore, Hivemapper has generated over $60 million in revenue from hardware sales, but this is more 'revenue from selling devices' rather than a healthy performance of the DePIN economic model.
Jambo: The African myth of Web3 phones, another trip to Huaqiangbei for memory.
Jambo combines 'DePIN + Web3 wallet' to achieve great sales in the African market; the Jambo phone, priced at only $99, has sold over 400,000 units and activated more than 1.23 million wallet addresses. Of course, this is not due to investors' faith in this phone and project, but rather a blatant 'scam' taking advantage of the soaring APT token and rapid ecological development, with dApps pre-installed on the phone, allowing users to earn JAMBO tokens. However, the liquidity and value of the tokens remain a mystery, and can the data sales close the loop? There are no real large data buyers; the phone's ecology cannot support the long-term usage demands of a Web3 user.
Ordz Game: A Web3 modified version of retro handheld consoles.
Ordz Game focuses on 'Play to Earn' + hardware handheld console BitBoy, which sold out immediately upon the launch of its pre-sale device priced at 0.01 BTC; the regular version has also sold over 2,000 units.
But essentially:
The gaming experience is almost at the retro handheld ROM level, with little innovation;
After the Token ORDG transitioned to the GAMES token, it still lacks liquidity and real value;
Essentially, it replicates the GameFi mining model, only this time using 'handheld consoles' as a facade.
The possibility of truly achieving long-term retention and revenue returns for players is minimal. The promised airdrops are fake, but the huge profits taken from you are real!
Ton Phone: Did you buy an Android 'senior phone'?
During the explosive period of Telegram and TON, the TON phone was released at a price close to $500, with decent sales, but was rated by users as having a 'senior phone feel' and 'not as good as Xiaomi,' featuring only 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and Android 14 system. Despite coming with a phone case and claiming to have 'airdrop expectations,' the reality is:
The quality of airdrops is far inferior to that of Solana phones;
UI/UX lacks differentiation, and the phone itself has no innovation;
The payback period is long, and ecological construction remains on paper.
What was bought is 'the hope of future airdrops,' but there is no visible fulcrum for hope to land.
Starpower: A $100 plug, an incomprehensible scam.
Starpower claims to be a smart power DePIN project under the Solana ecosystem, selling smart plugs, car chargers, batteries, and other hardware, supported by Alliance, Iota, and others. It is said that tokens will be issued in Q2, with each plug priced at $100, while the same model on Pinduoduo only costs $91.
Moreover, the project companies are newly established, the technology is opaque, ecological incentives have yet to be clarified, and they purely rely on 'telling stories' to sell devices.
Looking back at the history of Filecoin and Helium's 'mining machine futures scam,' and examining Starpower's roadmap, it cannot be said to have no relation; rather, it is identical.
Projects like Glow and PowerLedger, which are 'energy-related DePINs,' stray from market logic, ultimately leaving investors to foot the bill.
These projects focus on highly idealized models like carbon credit trading and P2P energy distributed trading. Glow awards green power generation behaviors of solar power plants through a dual-token mechanism (GLW + GCC), but in practice:
Who will buy carbon credits?
How to verify the actual electricity generation of power stations?
What tokens will drive the devices to pay back?
PowerLedger attempts to create a P2P trading platform for the electricity market, but its platform token POW has nearly reached zero, and its core business model has yet to be verified. Although the ideals are beautiful, the gap between regulation and commercial landing has not yet been crossed.
DePIN is essentially an extension attempt of the Web3 'economic incentive model' into the real physical world. Theoretically, it possesses infinite possibilities:
It can decentralize real infrastructure (communication, electricity, maps, devices), build large-scale user network effects, and achieve fair incentives and transparent governance through token design.
However, at this stage, 99% of the real DePIN projects rely on 'selling hardware' to harvest retail investors: token models with hardware attributes are generally a combination of 'air and bubbles,' and so-called 'ecological empowerment' often relies on KOL packaging, narrative design, and airdrop expectations to deceive new users, with most project teams coming from Huaqiangbei, earning revenue from 'supply chain + exorbitant pricing' rather than genuinely building a network.
Truly successful DePIN requires a strong supply-demand model design, transparent and continuous incentive mechanisms, and in-depth understanding of hardware/infrastructure fields. The biggest bubble in the current DePIN market is that most projects are not solving real problems but packaging concepts to harvest users. When hardware becomes a speculative tool in the form of 'futures,' when device tokens turn into worthless 'digital coupons,' and when all narratives revolve around airdrop expectations, DePIN is merely another Ponzi cycle in Web3. We hope that in the near future, we can see some DePIN projects that do not rely on selling hardware or telling stories but thrive on real usage and real income.