{"id":92829,"date":"2025-12-31T16:03:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T13:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=92829"},"modified":"2026-01-08T08:55:31","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T05:55:31","slug":"depin-after-the-boom-revenue-is-king-as-energy-and-ai-set-the-pace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/depin-after-the-boom-revenue-is-king-as-energy-and-ai-set-the-pace\/","title":{"rendered":"DePIN’s New Phase: From Speculation to Sustainable Business Models"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a blowout 2024, the decentralised physical infrastructure (DePIN) sector failed to replicate<\/a> its success. Stagnation deepened from the second half of 2025, in step with the broader industry.<\/p>\n

Despite a pullback in market capitalisation, notable structural shifts unfolded within the sector. Investors began favouring more mature teams capable of scaling products and generating revenue. The niche also drew impetus from more frequent outages at centralised providers such as Cloudflare, demand for training AI models and robots, and greater regulatory clarity.<\/p>\n

In a new report, ForkLog examined how companies are reshaping to lift profits and which DePIN lines could strengthen in 2026.<\/p>\n

Revenue is king<\/h2>\n

In 2024 the frenzy around DePIN stemmed from early successes, user-base growth and rising project-token prices. The sector also owed its popularity to AI, for which DePIN became an alternative source of capacity, offering GPU<\/span> compute and data generation. However, according to a report<\/a> by Messari, in 2025 the segment lost about 56% of its value.<\/p>\n

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Top-10 DePIN tokens by market capitalisation (24.12.2025). Source: CoinGecko<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The correction exposed weak spots in infrastructure firms and the shortcomings of valuing the industry using technical analysis and market capitalisation alone.<\/p>\n

Analytics anchored in speculative assets obscured fundamental changes in the sector. At the end of a good run, analysts boldly projected growth to $150m in 2025. In their words, \u201cso, probably, it did\u201d, but verifying the outcome is nearly impossible given business specifics and accounting sleights. Much of the revenue is tallied off-chain and bundled with services only tangentially related to DePIN.<\/p>\n

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Source: Messari.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The downturn forced a more professional approach to valuing the niche, cutting through noise around token prices and teams\u2019 grand claims. On-chain revenue has become one of the cornerstones of DePIN\u2019s transformation in 2025.<\/p>\n

Even as tokens of stronger projects such as cloud-compute platform Akash, mobile operator Helium and geodetic sensor network Geodnet fell over the year, their teams delivered robust revenue growth. Such conditions create a more attractive entry point for investors, with scope to improve 2026 outcomes, Messari reckons.<\/p>\n

According to DePIN Pulse<\/a>, from August to November 2025 the ARR<\/span> of Hivemapper, a decentralised analogue to Google Maps, rose from $500,000 to about $3m. On 29 December the project\u2019s 30-day ARR exceeded $1.3m.<\/p>\n

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Source: DePIN Pulse.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hivemapper\u2019s active reorganisation, begun in 2024, allowed it to adopt<\/a> the Map Improvement Proposal<\/span> (MIP). It introduced a customer-centric approach to meeting demand for mapping data and increased map-refresh speeds required by some buyer categories.<\/p>\n

The startup also lowered the entry barrier for data suppliers\u2014drivers who film roads using Bee devices. Renting the required hardware, software and membership cost $19 per month.<\/p>\n

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Source: Bee Maps<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Investors backed the changes. In the same month Bee Maps raised<\/a> $32m in a funding round led by Pantera Capital, LDA Capital, Borderless Capital and Ajna Capital.<\/p>\n

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Messari estimates DePIN\u2019s projected annual revenue could double in 2026, topping $100m.<\/p>\n

Main drivers:<\/p>\n