Summary

This month, Solana’s DePIN ecosystem added two major players. ROAM, a shared WiFi-based project, was launched on major exchanges such as Bybit and Kucoin on March 6, reaching the fourth position in the DePIN track with the highest number of nodes and the top rank in hardware devices. Austin Federa, former strategic lead at the Solana Foundation, along with Solana’s co-founders and top-tier VCs like Dragonfly and Multicoin, raised $28 million to launch the distributed bandwidth project DoubleZero. This project aims to create a high-speed communication highway for Web3 based on Web2 infrastructure, which is expected to fundamentally address the network latency issues currently faced by Web3.

Additionally, we observed that as of March 14, 2025, Solana’s DePIN ecosystem has significantly grown, reaching a market capitalization of over $25 billion with around 78 DePIN projects covering various subfields such as wireless communication (e.g., Helium), computing resources (e.g., Render Network), geolocation (e.g., Hivemapper), and cloud storage (e.g., GenesysGo SHDWDrive).

Solana is becoming the preferred platform for DePIN projects due to its high throughput, low transaction costs, mature developer ecosystem, and large user base. We are witnessing a DePIN empire ecosystem emerging from Solana.

1. DePIN Track Key Project Analysis

1. DoubleZero — Building Web3’s Highway on Solana

On March 10, amidst a sluggish overall crypto market, the emerging DePIN dark horse project DoubleZero Foundation secured a massive investment of $28 million from top-tier VCs.

What is DoubleZero Foundation, and how did it manage to secure such an impressive investment in a low market environment?

I have summarized the key points as follows:

(1) The founding team has rich blockchain project experience and a history of success. Additionally, the founders possess many resources and a luxurious ecosystem.

DoubleZero’s founder, Austin Federa, was the Head of Strategy at the Solana Foundation and can be considered one of the key drivers behind the early rise of the Solana ecosystem. During his time at the Solana Foundation, he not only led global market strategies but also directly participated in the launch of several key projects, such as integrating USDC and USDT on Solana. He was even deeply involved in ecosystem partnerships during the FTX era.

Moreover, Austin Federa maintains strong ties with the core Solana team (including Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal), and this relationship allowed DoubleZero to gain early support and market recognition from the Solana ecosystem.

(2) The investment team is impressive, with Solana’s founders co-investing, openly backing Solana’s DePIN strategic layout.

The image below shows the investor team of DoubleZero. If you are familiar with the crypto investment landscape, you will recognize the immense influence of Dragonfly and Multicoin. Not only are they long-term supporters of the Solana ecosystem, but they also played significant roles in several key projects (such as Multicoin’s early bet on Solana and Dragonfly’s involvement in Serum).

Additionally, aside from top-tier VCs, internal funding forces from the Solana ecosystem also played a core role in this round of financing. Solana Ventures and Solana Labs co-founders Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal also participated as angel investors.

From a somewhat irrational perspective, this is almost like publicly declaring, “This is my favorite child.”

It’s worth noting that DoubleZero’s investment came shortly after the Solana Foundation announced its DePIN ecosystem strategy, marking it as the first project to receive official investment.

Therefore, we believe that with Solana’s official support, Austin is not going it alone but entering with the entire Solana resource pool, representing a comprehensive shift in funding, technology, and market resources. This is undoubtedly a key signal for the entire DePIN track: the Solana ecosystem is actively building a physical infrastructure network, and DoubleZero may be the “vanguard” leading the charge.

(3) Advanced technical solution, building Web3’s highway, making Web3 projects as seamless as Web2.

We know that the Web3 space faces numerous challenges. One key issue in the infrastructure layer is the limitations of public internet bandwidth and non-deterministic routing, which often prevent Web3 projects from running as smoothly as Web2. Even if public bandwidth limitations and non-deterministic routing are resolved, Web3 projects will still struggle to match Web2’s smoothness if the latency issues between validators are not addressed.

DoubleZero was created specifically to address the infrastructure layer issues currently facing Web3.

From the architecture shown above, we can see DoubleZero’s unique Two-Ring Architecture. The Outer Ring connects to the public internet, using hardware (such as FPGA) for attack protection, signature validation, and transaction filtering, while the Inner Ring processes the filtered traffic through dedicated bandwidth lines and builds consensus.

Firstly, the Outer Ring connects to the public internet and uses hardware (such as FPGA) for attack protection, signature validation, and transaction filtering.

The benefit of this is that by pre-filtering incoming junk and duplicate transactions with specialized hardware, the burden on validators is reduced, allowing the blockchain to share filtering resources without requiring each validator to provide it individually.

Secondly, the Inner Ring processes the filtered traffic via dedicated bandwidth lines and builds consensus. It increases communication efficiency by providing clear message routing, tracking, and priority management.

Regarding the specific technical process, the official disclosure explains it as follows:

(1) The Outer Ring serves as the first line of defense, responsible for filtering junk transactions, DDoS attacks, and malicious contract calls. It uses an adaptive traffic filtering mechanism that leverages machine learning and heuristic rules to analyze transaction patterns in real-time, accurately identifying and intercepting malicious traffic. This ensures that only valid transactions can enter the blockchain’s mainnet.

At the same time, the Outer Ring relies on decentralized zero-permission fiber contributions, where independent contributors in the network provide physical infrastructure, further guaranteeing the authenticity and priority of data packets. All transactions must undergo basic validity screening in the Outer Ring before entering the Inner Ring, reducing invalid transactions from entering the core network and improving overall processing efficiency.

(2) Transactions entering the Inner Ring have been strictly filtered, so it can focus on efficient transaction processing. The Inner Ring adopts a high-performance architecture similar to Solana’s, supporting ultra-high TPS (transactions per second), ensuring extremely short transaction confirmation times and handling a large volume of transactions.

To further enhance network fluidity, DoubleZero also uses a stateless validation model. This lightweight transaction processing method, compared to the traditional state-storage model of blockchains, makes the entire network run more smoothly and efficiently.

2. Roam — Web3 Version of Starlink Built on Solana

On March 6, another decentralized wireless network project based on the Solana blockchain, Roam, was launched on Kucoin and Bybit, with a circulating market cap exceeding $60 million. Solana has added another powerful player to the DePIN space.

(1) What is Roam?

Roam is a decentralized wireless network project built on the Solana blockchain, aiming to provide seamless, secure WiFi and eSIM connections globally, with the goal of creating an open global wireless network. It leverages blockchain technology to enable automatic network switching and secure connections, supporting individuals, smart devices, and AI agents.

Currently, Roam has over 2.3 million users and 2 million WiFi nodes, covering over 190 countries, ranking high in the DePIN field.

The $ROAM token has a total supply of 1 billion, with 600 million allocated for mining and community activities. Users can earn tokens by providing WiFi or validating networks.

According to Messari’s 2024 report, Roam ranks fourth among DePIN projects with over 1 million active nodes and first in hardware nodes. Competitors include Helium and DIMO, but Roam’s global coverage and user scale give it an advantage.

If SpaceX’s Starlink has built a communication system based on space, I would call Roam the Web3 version of Starlink based on ground communication networks.

(2) Technical Advantages

Roam utilizes OpenRoaming™ WiFi and eSIM technology, allowing users to provide WiFi access or share network performance data. Roam also uses decentralized identity (DID) and verifiable credentials (VC) to ensure that no data leakage occurs during WiFi sharing or usage, ensuring privacy and security.

The specific technical architecture and functions are as follows:

• OpenRoaming™ Wi-Fi: Follows Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) standards, enabling users to seamlessly switch between different WiFi networks and ensuring continuous connectivity.
• eSIM Service: Provides smart eSIM services in over 160 countries, allowing users to access data networks without traditional SIM cards.
• Blockchain Incentive Mechanism: Uses a Proof-of-Service mining algorithm, where users earn ROAM tokens by providing WiFi services or validating network performance.
• Decentralized Identity (DID) and Verifiable Credentials (VC): Uses blockchain technology to protect user privacy, eliminating the reliance on centralized validators and enhancing security and decentralization.

In this system design, OpenRoaming™ Wi-Fi solves the connection protocol issues between communication systems in different countries and regions. eSIM addresses the lack of SIM services in many areas, especially helping impoverished regions create communication conditions. DID and VC technologies solve data security and privacy issues during communication, while introducing Web3’s economic system to quickly tackle early network construction challenges.

Roam’s rapid growth after its 2024 rebranding can be attributed not only to the siphoning effect from the Solana ecosystem but also to its technological and sectoral accumulation.

(3) Operational Advantages

The project team has been deeply involved in the Web3 space for years and is well-versed in Web3 project strategies. By utilizing Web3’s incentives like sharing rewards and engagement, Roam quickly accumulated network effects and early users.

Roam encourages users to participate in network building through the mobile app, such as adding WiFi nodes, signing in daily, or inviting friends to earn Roam Points, which can be exchanged for ROAM tokens after the Token Generation Event (TGE).

Upon further investigation of the project team, we see that while Roam launched on April 2, 2024, it was previously named MetaBlox. MetaBlox was originally founded in 2018 and remained dormant until it rebranded as Roam and migrated to the Solana mainnet in 2024. This shows that the success of any project comes from years of deep industry involvement, and even during market downturns, strong projects can still emerge over time.

In summary, Roam provides a great wireless network sharing project that has already built solid network effects. With a current market cap of only around $15 million, compared to Grass’s $360 million, there’s still a significant gap. However, if more users join Roam’s network, we may witness the project’s rise and success in the next bull market.

2. Ecosystem Observation

As of March 14, 2025, we have observed significant growth in the DePIN ecosystem based on Solana, with a market value exceeding $25 billion, far surpassing the DePIN projects on other ecosystems. We are witnessing the development of a DePIN empire on Solana.

According to publicly available data, there are approximately 78 DePIN projects on Solana (data based on 2024 statistics from platforms like Messari and DePIN Scan), covering various subfields such as wireless communication (e.g., Helium), computing resources (e.g., Render Network), geolocation (e.g., Hivemapper), and cloud storage (e.g., GenesysGo SHDWDrive). Solana’s high throughput (theoretically up to 50,000 TPS), low transaction costs (about $0.00025 per transaction), and mature developer ecosystem make it the preferred platform for DePIN projects.

Currently, representative DePIN projects on Solana include:

• Helium: The world’s largest decentralized wireless network, which, after migrating to Solana, has deployed nearly 1 million hotspots, covering 192 countries, and providing IoT and 5G services.
• Render Network: A decentralized GPU computing platform that migrated from Ethereum to Solana, having processed tens of millions of image frames and supporting AI and media rendering.
• Hivemapper: A decentralized digital map network that challenges Google Maps with user-contributed dashcam data, covering multiple cities.
• GenesysGo SHDWDrive: A decentralized cloud storage solution aiming to fill the storage gap in the Solana ecosystem.
• Dabba Network (emerging project): Focused on the Indian broadband market, aiming to improve network coverage through decentralization.

The total market value of Solana’s DePIN projects reached approximately $25.6 billion in June 2024 (DePIN Scan data), and it may fluctuate due to market dynamics and project growth in 2025. Leading projects such as Helium, Render, and Hivemapper have fully diluted valuations (FDV) exceeding $10 billion.

Comparison of Solana’s DePIN ecosystem with other public chains.

From the table above, it is clear that Solana has a significant advantage over other public chains in the DePIN space:

• In terms of technical performance and cost advantages, Solana’s high performance and low costs, compared to public chains like Ethereum, make Solana’s low gas fees particularly friendly for DePIN projects that require frequent transactions (such as micro-payment incentives).
• Proof of History (PoH) and parallel processing capabilities allow it to handle large amounts of real-time data from DePIN projects (such as IoT device communications and map data uploads), enabling DePIN projects to operate smoothly and comfortably like Web2 projects.
• In the public chain ecosystem, the Solana Foundation actively promotes the development of DePIN projects through funding and hackathons (e.g., in partnership with Multicoin Capital). Recently, they also launched the Solana DePIN Fund, aiming to nurture more high-quality projects on Solana. The first project under this fund, DoubleZero, is one of the most well-known examples.

Therefore, we are optimistic in believing that Solana is not merely a meme coin chain. Its success to date is not just due to its MEME effect but also its strong ecosystem foundation, technical advocacy, and extensive support for communities and projects. We are optimistic that the next DePIN empire ecosystem may be born on Solana.

3. Recent Key Events in the DePIN Space

1. On February 1, IoTeX, a modular infrastructure compatible with both DePIN and AI across the blockchain, released its 2025 development roadmap, focusing on the DePIN + AI ecosystem:

• DePIN-Powered Physical Perception AI

IoTeX has launched the open-source framework QuickSilver, which integrates large language models (LLMs) with DePIN network data to create advanced AI applications. The testnet for QuickSilver is expected to launch in the first quarter, allowing developers to connect the existing DePIN world with the emerging AI world, creating a new wave of “perceptible AI applications.”

• Building DePIN + AI Strategic Reserves

IoTeX plans to create an initial DePIN + AI asset strategic reserve based on BTC for IOTX holders. This reserve will serve as a “vault” for high-quality tokens and assets in the long term, protecting the interests of IOTX holders.

• Community First

IoTeX is implementing a comprehensive community empowerment plan, along with a DAO-based governance model that will allow the community to directly participate in the development of IoTeX.

1. On March 3, during the ETHDenver 2025 event, the DePIN + AI R3al World Summit was held, where Blockchain Association Policy Director Salah and IoTeX Ecosystem Leader Larry had a forward-looking discussion about the regulatory framework for cryptocurrency, DePIN, and AI. The conversation sparked deep reflection on the integration of technology and policy directions in the industry.

Salah emphasized, “Currently, U.S. regulators are accelerating their efforts to explore how to incorporate innovative technologies like DePIN, which integrates the physical and digital worlds, into national strategy frameworks. Future regulatory frameworks must balance technological innovation with public interest, and DePIN’s transparency and AI’s explainability may hold the key to solving regulatory challenges.”

Larry shared IoTeX’s practical experience: “From compliance collaborations with Grayscale and Coinbase to co-chairing the Blockchain Association’s DePIN Working Group, we have always focused on ‘verifiable physical data,’ aligning DePIN + AI with the needs of the real economy.”

1. On March 6, the Solana Foundation and the Solana Chinese Community Solar will host a DePIN Day event in Shenzhen, the hardware capital, on March 8.

Solana’s emerging DePIN projects, including Cudis, Starpower, Geodnet, Roam, Aethir, Gradient, and DeGlass, will attend and share their insights and demonstrations.

4. Recent industry financing events

1. On February 27, the Solana ecosystem DePIN project Shaga completed a $4 million seed round financing, with IOSG Ventures leading the round, and participation from Everyrealm, Amber Group, and several angel investors. Shaga aims to reshape the gaming industry—breaking hardware limitations and bringing ultra-low latency to make high-performance gaming accessible. BlockBeats previously reported that on June 25, 2024, Shaga completed a $1 million angel round financing, led by Arca, with participation from MARIN DIGITAL VENTURES, Skybridge20 Ventures, Aurory, Quotient Ventures, as well as Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko and Helium co-founder Amir Haleem, among other angel investors.

2. On February 25, the DePIN project Geodnet completed an $8 million token financing round, with Multicoin leading the round. Geodnet provides financial incentives to encourage ordinary people to host physical infrastructure. Due to strong demand for Geodnet’s services, the project’s token (which drives its incentive mechanism) has more than doubled in the past 12 months. Last April, the GEODNET Foundation announced it had completed over $2 million in strategic financing, with participation from CoinFund, Pantera Capital, VanEck, and Santiago R. Santos. The additional funds will help the foundation achieve its short-term goals, including decentralization and developer ease of use.

3. On February 5, the DePIN gaming infrastructure platform Beamable completed a $13.5 million Series A financing round, led by Bitkraft Ventures. Beamable Network aims to change the way gaming backend infrastructure is built and operated.

4. DoubleZero Foundation announced it received $28 million in investment led by Dragonfly and Multicoin Capital. DoubleZero is a DePIN project that allows anyone to contribute independent fiber optic links without permission, essentially laying the “information highway” for the Web3 world. The project’s biggest highlight is its hardware-driven nature, focusing directly on the infrastructure layer. DoubleZero’s goal is simple: to increase bandwidth and reduce latency for all high-performance blockchains.

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