8 DePIN Coins to Invest in 2024 – DePIN Crypto List

Decentralized physical infrastructure networking (DePIN) is a novel approach in cryptocurrency that aims to bridge the gap between blockchain technology and real-world applications.

Although DePIN is a relatively new field, there are already dozens of DePIN crypto projects with massive growth potential.

In this guide, we’ll list the best DePIN crypto to buy today, discuss the importance of DePIN in the crypto universe, and evaluate whether DePIN coins are a worthy investment.

Top Depin Coins To Buy in 2024 – Reviews

We’ll explore the top DePIN crypto coins in more detail so you can decide which ones are right for your crypto portfolio.

1. eTukTuk – New DePIN Coin Developing EV Charging Stations in SE Asia

eTukTuk is an innovative new DePIN project that’s leveraging blockchain technology to speed up the green energy revolution. The project aims to build a network of EV charging stations in developing nations across Southeast Asia, starting in the developers’ home country of Sri Lanka.

According to the eTukTuk whitepaper, the project will establish territory partners to fund the construction of EV charging stations in cities and along heavily used roadways. These stations will eventually be powered by green energy, fully decoupling them from the fossil fuel-powered grid.

EV drivers can charge their vehicles at these stations and pay with the $TUK token. In addition, $TUK token holders can take part in power staking, allowing them to share in profits earned from the charging network.

Over the long term, eTukTuk also plans to build its own EV tuk-tuk. This new vehicle will be low-cost and compatible with all eTukTuk charging stations, driving up demand for the network.

eTukTuk’s $TUK token is available to buy on presale now and has raised over $2.1 million. Investors who buy and stake $TUK during the presale can earn up to 156% APY for a limited time.

2. Helium Network – Top DePIN Project Building Global Hotspot Network

Helium Network is an exciting DePIN crypto project that’s building a global decentralized network of WiFi hotspots. It already has more than 980,000 hotspots around the world.

The idea behind Helium Network is that anyone can join and become a hotspot provider. You can use a wide range of hotspot devices to join, and all you need to do is place it in your home or office window.

Helium Network incentivizes users to join and grow the coverage network by rewarding hotspot providers with $HNT tokens. The more data is transferred through a user’s hotspot, the more $NHT they earn.

The supply of $HNT is kept steady over time since users who want to connect to Helium Network and use data have to burn $HNT to get data credits. This creates consistent demand for $HNT and helps push up the price of the token as the network grows.

The price of $HNT has jumped 230% in the past year, and Helium Network now has a market cap of more than $1.1 billion. The project has seen increased interest from traditional telecom companies, and its hotspots are now being used in a major test run in Mexico City.

3. Filecoin – Decentralized Cloud Storage Solution

Filecoin is the largest of several DePIN projects deploying decentralized cloud storage solutions. The idea behind Filecoin is that users can store content redundantly on devices around the world, ensuring that files are fully backed up and fully censorship-resistant.

Filecoin relies on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), a protocol for decentralized information storage. Anyone can contribute computing resources to the Filecoin network to become a storage provider, and they’ll earn $FIL tokens according to the storage they provide.

Storage users must pay for their storage using $FIL, creating long-term demand for the token. The project now has a market cap of over $4.9 billion.

In addition, Filecoin recently integrated into Solana, making Filecoin’s data storage solution available for a greater number of projects. This demonstrates that the demand for Filecoin is growing steadily.

4. Theta Network – DePIN Video Streaming with Digital Rights Management

Theta Network is a decentralized network of computing resources built to deliver streaming video content. The goal is to make high-quality video available to users around the world with no lag.

Theta Network offers a built-in solution for digital rights management (DRM). DRM enables digital content creators to claim royalties whenever their videos are streamed.

That’s been a major selling point for Theta Network, which now has more than 10,000 active nodes in its streaming network. Creators can get paid for creating content, node hosts can get paid to deliver content, and viewers pay extremely low fees compared to traditional content streaming platforms.

Theta also plans to launch EdgeCloud, which will provide “unlimited access to GPU processing power for any AI or video task.”

The $THETA token is at the heart of Theta Network and provides governance control over the project. It now has a market cap of nearly $2.9 billion and is up 70% over the past 12 months.

5. Render – GPU Computing Marketplace for 3D Graphics Rendering

Render is a decentralized computing network focused on aggregating GPU computing power. Anyone can access GPU compute resources through Render, making it possible to render enormous 3D projects without a huge investment in computing infrastructure.

Render has enormous potential because 3D graphics rendering is crucial to any future metaverse development. A widely used metaverse will require massive amounts of GPU power, and Render is uniquely positioned to deliver it.

Render is powered by the project’s native $RNDR token, which users must pay to use GPU computing on the network. GPU resource providers earn $RNDR, creating a marketplace for the token. Notably, Render itself takes a share of $RNDR from each transaction, creating a project treasury that can be used for future development or token burns.

Render has been one of the best DePIN tokens over the past year, gaining nearly 400%. It now has a market cap of $4.1 billion.

6. Arweave – Permanent Decentralized Data Storage for a Flat Price

Arweave is a decentralized, blockchain-based storage solution that looks similar to Filecoin at first. However, whereas Filecoin users have to pay ongoing fees to store their data, Arweave charges users a single upfront fee for permanent distributed data storage.

Arweave pays for this by depositing fees into an endowment fund, which it invests to earn interest. It then pays storage providers annual fees from this fund in $AR tokens. The whole time, Arweave aims to earn more in interest than it pays out, so the endowment fund keeps growing.

The project’s permanent storage makes it a perfect solution for storing historical crypto transaction data. Solana, Avalanche, Polkadot, and Cosmos all use Arweave. In addition, Arweave has partnered with the Internet Archive, with over 700,000 torrent files already archived.

The $AR token is up over 100% over the past 12 months and has a market cap of $2.3 billion.

7. Hivemapper – Drive-to-Earn Token Mapping the World’s Streets

Hivemapper is a collaborative, distributed mapping program that aims to capture images of all the streets in the world in 4K imagery. It’s an ambitious project that shows the potential power of DePIN to achieve real-world goals.

Hivemapper works by paying drivers in $HONEY tokens to place a dash cam on their vehicle and start driving. The more miles of previously un-imaged roads that a driver travels and captures on video, the more $HONEY they earn. Over 140 million kilometers have already been mapped.

$HONEY is burned as developers and businesses use Hivemapper data, ensuring that the token’s value increases as the amount of data available grows and becomes more useful.

$HONEY has returned more than 150% in the past year and has a market cap of $174 million. We think this is an innovative project with a lot of room to grow. $Honey is available on Coinbase or decentralized exchanges.

8. Peaq – Layer 1 Blockchain Built for DePIN Development

Peaq is a new Layer 1 blockchain built specifically to encourage the growth of the DePIN token ecosystem. It offers ultra-fast transaction processing—essential for real-world applications—plus a number of unique features tailored to suit the needs of infrastructure projects.

One particular feature that stands out is the ability to assign machine IDs with Peaq. This is crucial for manufacturing processes, where individual machines have different properties and capacities. Machine IDs make it possible to assign an individual ID to, for example, an electric vehicle or robot. They have over 100,000 machines and devices in their network, including 100 tokenized Teslas.

Another unique feature is support for role-based user access. This is a crucial security measure in industrial processes that limits who can control what physical devices.

Overall, Peaq is an impressively future-proof network that promises to deliver 100,000 transactions per second by 2025. The $PEAQ token is currently preparing for its initial coin offering—look for it to launch on DEXs this year.

What Does DePIN Mean?

DePIN is crypto shorthand for Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks. It’s a broad category of projects that use blockchain technology to build or operate real-world infrastructure.

There are two types of DePIN projects:

• Physical Resource Networks are projects that incentivize decentralized providers to deploy physical hardware. Examples of Physical Resource Networks include eTukTuk and Helium Network.
• Digital Resource Networks are projects that incentivize decentralized providers to deploy cloud-based resources, such as computing power or digital storage space. Examples of Digital Resource Networks include Filecoin, Theta Network, and Render.

In both cases, providers of physical hardware or cloud infrastructure are typically incentivized by earning a project’s native token for their efforts. Networks are structured so that people who use the provided infrastructure must pay for that infrastructure in the same token, creating value for the token.

Why is DePIN Important in Crypto?

DePIN is extremely important for cryptocurrency because although many aspects of the crypto ecosystem are decentralized, the physical and cloud infrastructure that most blockchains and dApps run on are controlled by centralized entities.

This creates a fundamental problem for crypto: if a Big Tech company or government decides to shut down a project, it could potentially cut off computing resources to the blockchain that the project runs on. Unless blockchains have their own decentralized computing infrastructure, they are potentially at risk of censorship.

On the other hand, if a blockchain runs on DePIN technology, it’s virtually impossible to shut it down. It would run on servers distributed around the world, so no one government could take a blockchain offline. Similarly, if data is stored redundantly on devices globally, it cannot be censored or deleted.

DePIN cryptocurrencies exist because these networks need a way to incentivize individuals and businesses around the world to contribute infrastructure. The DePIN tokens themselves serve as payment, making it potentially profitable to join a DePIN project.

Are DePIN Coins a Good Investment?

DePIN is a relatively new field within the crypto world. However, it’s already generated a lot of excitement among investors and analysts. At the beginning of 2024, CoinDesk named DePIN one of the top crypto innovations to watch.

The potential importance of DePIN to the growth and independence of crypto means that this is a field that’s likely poised for growth. Early projects like Filecoin and Arweave have gotten off to successful starts and have been quick to develop partnerships, showing there’s a real appetite for DePIN cryptocurrencies.

That said, it’s important for investors to tread carefully when evaluating the best DePIN projects. Building real-world infrastructure is extremely challenging, and even the most seasoned founding teams can run into problems. Seemingly promising cryptos can face issues scaling up or find that the payment that infrastructure providers demand is more than infrastructure users are willing to pay.

Conclusion

Our takeaway is that the best DePIN crypto likely have an extremely bright future and could see explosive growth in the current crypto bull run. However, potential investors have to be very careful in choosing which DePIN projects to invest in.

Look carefully at a project’s real-world market, tokenomics, early usage statistics, and partnerships. These clues will provide the best indications as to whether a DePIN cryptocurrency is set to rocket upwards or fizzle out.

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