Why DePIN matters, and how to make it work

DePIN, or decentralized physical infrastructure networks, could break the natural monopolies of utilities and telecoms by letting users and small businesses own and operate essential services, producing networks that are more robust, transparent and competitive. Helium deployed one of the largest LoRaWAN networks globally without a large upfront hardware investment from a single entity, because users bought routers directly from manufacturers and became network operators. Filecoin aggregates unused space on ordinary hard drives into a cloud storage provider, and Daylight is building a decentralized virtual power plant that lets energy companies temporarily control user-owned grid devices for a fee.