“DePIN Will Grow 100-1,000x Over the Next Decade” - Researchers Bullish on Solana DePIN

Messari, one of crypto’s leading research firms, remains a staunch advocate of the DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network) sector. 

Envisioning a triumphant future for DePIN projects, Messari’s State of DePIN report highlights the sector’s successes in 2024, highlighting Solana’s role in a field the firm expects will dominate in 2025.

What are the biggest takeaways from Messari’s report, and how can investors and enthusiasts position themselves moving forward?

Solana Leads DePIN Infrastructure

Consistently proven as crypto’s most performant Layer-1 blockchain, Solana has long been considered the network of choice for emerging DePIN projects. Solana boasts one of the industry’s most diverse and expansive collections of DePINs, including heavyweights like Render, Helium, and Hivemapper.

Messari credits Solana’s ‘latency-focused culture’ and hyper-performant infrastructure as key principles driving DePIN growth on the network. But despite Solana’s dominance, Messari concedes that Base, an Ethereum Layer-2, is a popular choice among ‘consumer-focused founders’ seeking to leverage Coinbase’s brand distribution.

Solana projects boast some of the biggest device distributions among top DePINs. Protocols like Grass, a Solana-based AI data layer, and DAWN, a distributed internet provider, both claim to have over 2M nodes in operation. Solana DePIN stalwarts like Uprock and Helium also rank in the top 7, with roughly 900k and 800k active nodes.

Demonstrating the transformative power of DePINs, Messari estimates that distributed internet providers like Helium and DAWN could save Americans around $200B a year by switching away from centralized providers who’ve monopolized the industry.

DePIN x AI Synergy Key to Sector Growth

From onchain agents to data layers and hardware, AI is arguably the biggest narrative in crypto moving into 2025. AI’s continued expansion is expected to reinvent a multitude of industries, potentially pricing out smaller players from accessing essential infrastructure.

Messari researchers argue that advanced AIs will demand digital commodities like bandwidth, compute, and electricity at an unprecedented scale. Tech giants like Google, Nvidia, and OpenAI are currently in an arms race to secure control over crucial resources, imposing centralization risks into these emerging fields.

DePINs offer ordinary people a way of gaining exposure to these exclusive markets, providing a means for the average investor to sit at the table with Big Tech. For example, Solana DePIN protocols like Grass enable users to resell unused internet to assist with AI training.

Helium Highlighted as Prime Disruptor

Amongst several case studies, Helium stood out as one of 2024’s biggest DePIN success stories. Helium enjoyed prolific growth throughout the year, attracting over 100k new subscribers and supporting over 300k indirect users via carrier offloading to traditional telecom companies.

Messari researchers claim that if Helium continues its frenetic growth, the DePIN provider could eclipse legacy operators in the coming years. Championing the DePIN’s community-based node deployment model, Helium bulls argue that the network is capable of maintaining its growth rate for decades.

However, it’s important to recognize the cyclical nature of the blockchain industry. Projecting future valuations based on annualized growth statistics during a crypto bull market is arguably an unsustainable forecasting method.

While DePIN enjoyed considerable growth throughout 2024, rampant growth across most sectors indicates that DePIN’s success was not isolated. Spurred on by Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF approvals, almost all blockchain markets enjoyed prolific growth, suggesting that DePIN’s newfound adoption and popularity has not decoupled from wider crypto usage.

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