DePIN may bring web3 its 'AWS moment,' POKT Network director says

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DePIN is ready for an “explosion of growth”

There’s been a number of narratives built around decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) in attempt to gain traction. While web2 businesses like Uber and Airbnb have shown how centralized physical infrastructure networks succeed, the demand for decentralized ones has been relatively hushed.

That may be due to years of R&D and other factors, but the DePIN sector is ready for an “explosion of growth,” Dermot O’Riordan, director at the POKT Network Foundation, said on the Talking Tokens podcast. (Listen to it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube.) 

POKT Network is a DePIN that aims to help developers build blockchain-based applications with data. It also has a decentralized infrastructure layer that allows for interaction between apps and multiple blockchains. 

POKT relays API requests and supports over 60 blockchains including Ethereum, Solana and Polygon. It has had 754 billion relays since its mainnet launch in 2020. This week, it saw 3.9 billion relays and in the past 24-hours it had over 712.875 million relays, according to POKTscan data.

DePIN can largely help B2B operations and compress costs by up to 90% for entrepreneurs, O’Riordan said. “We had the AWS moment for startups…I think [DePIN] can have that in its own moment in web3.” 

Even with those stats, O’Riordan estimates the timeline for major adoption is still a couple of years away, but that doesn’t mean the party isn’t already getting started. “We will start to see exciting growth in six to 12 months across the space,” he added. “Everyone [in DePIN] is more sophisticated in thinking about onboarding partners, demand and making it user friendly.”

Check out the next section for more details and the full episode.

The latest Talking Tokens podcast 🎙️

For this week’s Thursday episode, I sat down with Dermot O’Riordan, director at the POKT Network Foundation.

We talk about the evolution of DePIN technology and its use cases, decentralized vs centralized infrastructure, what’s needed to expand the sector in web3 and build demand for DePIN protocols, as well as POKT Network’s roadmap.

Talking Tokens episodes are released on Spotify and Apple Podcasts at 6AM EST or YouTube at 10AM EST every Tuesday and Thursday. Listen in!

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Monitoring blockchains

Looking at some of the biggest developments onchain.

• Sei Network’s v2 launched on Wednesday, marking an upgrade of an highly performant parallelized EVM to the blockchain

• Optimism’s Superchain saw its DeFi total value locked increase 11.8% on the week to $3.31 billion, with assets onchain up 10.6% to $15.5B

• Polygon introduced its “Pessimistic Proofs” on its AggLayer to support cross-chain interoperability on both zero-knowledge and non-zero-knowledge blockchains

Taking on the tokens 

The total crypto market cap decreased less than 1% in the past 24-hours to $2.53 trillion. It is down 3.07% over a 7-day period.

As for the largest cryptocurrencies by market cap…

These metrics were taken at 7:30 AM EST on Thursday.

Other numbers we’re eyeing…

• $20 billion — that’s how big BlackRock’s spot bitcoin ETF is in total assets since it was listed at the beginning of this year, making it the world’s largest bitcoin fund, surpassing Grayscale’s

Money and people moves

Latest updates on crypto startups that secured funding and industry players who are starting something new.

1. Web3 gaming studio Supervillian Labs raised $4.5M in seed round

2. Former Blockworks research analysts launched Entropy Advisors

3. Polygon Labs’ executive chairman Sandeep Nailwal moves to chief business officer role (The Block)

4. Ex-Fidelity digital assets chief joins Bullish exchange (DL News)

5. Shameless Plug: Token Relations brought on a new communications lead and research analyst, Gabriel Marino-Ribotsky, follow him here!

   1. And…Shameless Plug Part 2: Token Relations is hiring a lead software engineer— if you’re a developer or know a good one, send ‘em our way

Talking points for the road 

Here’s some headlines and topics that you can talk about at your next dinner party, crypto event or on a first date to look smart (results may vary.) 

1. Ryan Salame, part of the ‘inner circle’ at collapsed crypto exchange FTX, sentenced to prison (Associated Press)

2. Publicly traded medtech buys $40M bitcoin in nod to MicroStrategy (Blockworks)

3. Ethereum ETFs were approved — so why isn’t Ether’s price soaring? (DL News)

4. Ripple Donates Another $25M to Crypto Super PAC Fairshake (CoinDesk)

5. PayPal USD Stablecoin Now Available on Solana Blockchain (PayPal blog)

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Please note that this content is for informational and entertainment purposes only. Any views shared should not be considered financial advice, nor should it be used to make investment decisions. Cryptocurrencies are high risk and you should consult a financial professional before making any financial decisions. Make sure you do your own research. We may have a direct or indirect financial interest in content mentioned in this newsletter.