After the 2024 explosion, the decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN) sector has failed to do so repetition Its success. The recession has worsened since the second half of 2025, in line with the broader industry.
Despite the decline in market value, noticeable structural shifts have unfolded within the sector. Investors are starting to favor more mature teams that are able to scale products and generate revenue. The sector has also drawn momentum from frequent outages at centralized providers like Cloudflare, demand for AI and robotics training models, and increased regulatory clarity.
In a new report, ForkLog examined how companies are reshaping to increase profits and which DePIN lines could be strengthened in 2026.
Revenue is king
In 2024, the mania around DePIN arose from the early successes, growth of the user base, and rising prices of the project’s tokens. The popularity of this sector is also due to artificial intelligence, as DePIN has become an alternative source of capacity and supply GPU Calculate and generate data. However, according to A a report By Massari, in 2025 the sector lost about 56% of its value.
The correction revealed weaknesses in infrastructure companies and shortcomings in evaluating the industry using only technical analysis and market capitalization.
Analysis based on speculative assets has obscured fundamental changes in this sector. At the end of a good run, analysts boldly predicted growth would reach $150 million in 2025. As they put it, “it may have happened,” but verifying the outcome is almost impossible given the details of the business and accounting tricks. A significant portion of revenue is accounted for off-chain and is bundled with services only tangentially related to DePIN.
The economic downturn has forced a more professional approach to valuing this area, moving beyond the hype around nominal prices and big claims of teams. Cross-chain revenue has become one of the cornerstones of DePIN’s transformation in 2025.
Even as tokens for stronger projects like cloud computing platform Akash, mobile operator Helium, and geodetic sensor network Geodnet declined over the year, its teams posted strong revenue growth. Massari believes that such conditions create a more attractive entry point for investors, with room for improvement in 2026 results.
according to Deepin’s pulsefrom August to November 2025 R The value of the Hivemapper project, a decentralized counterpart to Google Maps, rose from $500,000 to about $3 million. On December 29, the project’s 30-day annual rate of return exceeded $1.3 million.
Hivemapper’s active reorganization process began in 2024, He allowed her to be baptized the Suggestion for improving the map (Meep). It has provided a customer-focused approach to meeting the demand for map data and increased map update speeds required by some categories of buyers.
The startup also lowered the barrier of entry for data suppliers, namely drivers who photograph roads using Bee devices. Hardware rental, software, and required membership cost $19 per month.
Investors supported the changes. In the same month Bee Maps He grew up $32 million in funding round led by Pantera Capital, LDA Capital, Borderless Capital and Ajna Capital.
Massari estimates that DePIN’s projected annual revenue could double in 2026, exceeding $100 million.
Main engines:
- new TGE Projects like DAWN, BitRobot, and Daylight may account for on-chain revenue events in a timely manner while improving transparency;
- Expanding proven and profitable networks.
Scale up and solve the demand problem
The pioneers hypothesized that surplus community-supplied hardware would allow networks to compete primarily on the price of GPU compute, bandwidth, and storage, while offering performance concessions such as low latency. In practice, revenues proved modest.
Most DePIN networks effectively produce goods for which building a permanent sales channel has been difficult. Massari believes that the most profitable models will consolidate the deliverables into a full cycle solution sold directly to the end customer, changing the business approach, as Hivemapper did.
In 2022-2023, leaders of several DePIN projects assumed that the problem was a lack of sales and marketing support to provide resources. Some protocols have created subsidiaries and funds. This approach has only yielded initial profits.
Analysts say part of the problem lies in the nature of commodity companies. Low margins and intense competition require the lowest possible price and are highly dependent on volume, which the DePIN sector has not achieved.
From their point of view, the reform could be as follows:
- moving to higher-margin products that can command premium prices;
- Expanding the customer base to secure direct access to end users;
- Eliminate the need for aggressive price dumping;
- Enhancing long-term symbolic value by linking it to multiple higher value economic activities;
- Create a tight feedback loop between users and the network for more flexible demand matching.
according to Deepin’s pulsethe undisputed leader in this segment’s revenue for 2025 was Helium Mobile. The 30-day annual rate of return in December approached $21 million; The daily figure on December 29 was $60,666.
Experts attribute the wireless startup’s success primarily to vertical integration.
Instead of selling bandwidth as a public good, Helium Mobile offered a complete consumer product, combining hotspots and mobile coverage. The company handled every stage of customers’ workflow, from device activation and billing to SIM cards and support.
This reshaped the economics of helium. Masari estimates that the mobile unit accounts for 53% of HNT burn, the internal currency used to pay for services, and data credits (DC).
To sustain a shrinking economy, Helium Mobile is burning 100% of its subscription revenue from the $15 and $30 monthly plans. Although unloading Helium Mobile Offload burns significantly less HNT in dollar terms than a similar operation at centralized competitors, and the “virtual operator” generates more revenue on the network B2C model.
On December 8, Helium Mobile Offload burned HNT worth $6,700 compared to $201,377 of operators offloading. Instead of competing to sell bandwidth to carriers, Helium makes higher margins by serving end users.
Data showing massive growth in the number of new users coupled with a steady increase in installed nodes confirms DePIN’s success.
according to HeliumAs of December 29, 2025, subscriptions have reached 622,000 with 121,000 touchpoints.
Optimism rose after allegations second It has been solved. In organized April closed Its investigations are with helium developer Nova Labs.
In December the platform Announce Partnered with Mambo WiFi to improve internet access throughout Brazil. The Mambo WiFi network of over 40,000 hotspots will significantly expand Helium’s reach in a country with uneven connectivity.
The quest to build differentiated products that increase value has become the new narrative for DePIN.
One of the leaders in this sector – and one with a market capitalization of around $1 billion at the time of writing – is filecoin. The project started as a decentralized alternative to cloud storage. In November 2025 the team Announce Filecoin Onchain Cloud, competes with giants like Cloudflare and AWS.
The launch aims to expand Filecoin’s capabilities, including artificial intelligence: integrating storage, data retrieval, and cross-chain payments for Filecoin Beam and Filecoin Pay.
Everyone wants energy and artificial intelligence
Amid more frequent outages to internet infrastructure providers such as OsChanges to DePIN are likely to attract the attention of users and investors.
On November 18, 2025, within the last date incident At Cloudflare, trading volumes in the DePIN category on exchanges increased by 25-40% on average. Activity was evident in the FIL/USDT, AR/USDT, and GRASS/USDT pairs on Binance and Bybit.
The fluctuations were short-lived but sent an important signal: markets recognize the value of decentralized solutions.
Business clients in other sub-sectors are being targeted. Decentralized energy supply and distribution solutions like Daylight and Fuse are building their own vertical integrations.
Daylight focuses on renewable energy sources and solar panel and battery installation. It encourages users to link assets to the network through upcoming token rewards.
DePIN startup connects distributed energy resources, access energy and data through the grid, and sells a different product to energy buyers.
Daylight in October I mentioned It raised a total of $75 million in a funding round led by Framework Ventures.
Another important player in the DePIN energy sub-sector – Fuse Energy – operates a broader portfolio. The company handles generation, retail and virtual power plants within a single system. Instead of selling capacity and data to independent participants, Fuse runs its own ENERGY grid to generate supply.
The company uses token incentives to significantly increase the flexible capacity it has access to while reducing acquisition costs. The savings then fund customer rebates and rewards across Fuse’s energy ecosystem.
per DeepenscanFuse also received capital in December. In a Series B round led by Lowcarbon Capital and Balderton Capital, it raised $70 million, raising the company’s valuation to $5 billion.
According to Masari experts, a huge opportunity for DePIN lies in artificial intelligence, specifically in the adjacent pool of decentralized AI infrastructure.Depay.
The core is represented by a wide range of solutions, most of which take several years of widespread enterprise adoption. Analysts believe that collecting real-world data to train robots already carries economic weight.
Many AI companies are already willing to pay for:
- navigation data;
- Video streams.
- 3D maps;
- sensor logs;
- Telematics.
- Geospatial signals.
DePAI data collection protocols can fill specific gaps in these areas, creating near-term monetization opportunities.
Many existing DePIN networks already generate real revenue from selling data, showing that the demand from AI is real:
- DIMO — vehicle telematics data;
- Geodnet — geodetic sensor data;
- ROVR – Drone imagery and aerial photography.
These networks sell data directly to industries that intersect with actual AI training: mapping, navigation, geolocation, autonomous driving, simulation, and global model grounding. They do serve DePAI use cases, but not as specialized robotic data engines.
The next stage of development is DePAI networks specifically designed to capture bot-level data and train embodied AI.
Three projects under development stand out as the first dedicated DePAI data collectors:
- BitRobot. A decentralized platform for embodied AI research and robotics data built on Solana. It unifies robotics, computing, datasets, and contributors into modular subnetworks that generate real-world data, models, and benchmarks to accelerate AI progress;
- Prizmax. The protocol combines high-quality multimedia interaction data, robotic sensors, and human teleoperations within the loop to operate Master’s;
- Poseidon. An integrated data network focused on creating high-quality, IP-free datasets for AI, with built-in consent, licensing, and provenance. It targets humanoid robotics, autonomous driving, and multimodal learning.
According to Masari analysts, in 2025, DePIN is in an awkward middle ground for investors. Traders chasing prevailing narratives did not like the market conditions, while fundamental investors considered the current conditions to be the best F/S Multiple excessively rich.
However, the pressure for transparent accounting, development of the sector, Editing Regulatory oversight and token sales could attract investors in 2026.
In this new environment, DePIN is well positioned for the next phase. Its hallmarks – real-world utility, notable demand, and rising revenues – are in line with the market trend. Implementation remains an open question: whether DePIN networks can continue to increase revenues and grow into large, durable businesses.
