Fluence’s Bet on Sustainable DePIN: Revenue, Community, and Rethinking Incentives

In Brief

Tom Trowbridge, Co-Founder of Fluence, discussed the company’s early customer traction and revenue, emphasizing its commitment to building a long-term community-driven ecosystem.

At the recent Hack Seasons Conference in Cannes, Tom Trowbridge, Co-Founder of Fluence, offered a candid look into the company’s trajectory within the booming DePIN space. The conversation highlighted not only Fluence’s early traction with real customers and revenue but also its commitment to building a long-term community-driven ecosystem, far beyond hype and short-term rewards.

From Vision to Revenue: Fluence’s Market Breakthrough

“Customers and revenue are what’s differentiating DePIN from the rest of the blockchain space,” said Trowbridge, emphasizing that 2025–2026 will be pivotal years where DePIN moves from theory to profitability. And Fluence is already ahead of the curve.

“We’ve closed our first customers. We have about a million dollars in revenue booked into the network, and our pipeline is many multiples of that,” he shared. The company’s main clients are third-party node providers—a market estimated between $500 million to $2 billion. Fluence’s decentralized compute platform offers them a major value proposition: cost savings of 40% to 80% compared to traditional cloud infrastructure.

“Half of their cost is compute. So if we can save them 50% on 50% of their spend, that’s a significant margin gain,” Trowbridge noted. With over 90 businesses in the pipeline, Q3 is expected to be a major growth phase for Fluence.

Strategic Positioning: Targeting Institutional-Grade DePIN

Fluence has deliberately positioned itself as institutional-grade decentralized compute, tailored to serious infrastructure players rather than speculative users. “We’re not building for the hype cycle—we’re building something customers actually need and use,” Trowbridge emphasized.

This clarity in targeting aligns with the broader industry movement: real products, real infrastructure, and real revenue, not just token speculation.

Top 25 DePIN Leader: More Than Just Recognition

Recently named a Top 25 DePIN Leader, Trowbridge sees the honor as validation not just of Fluence’s tech but also of its efforts to galvanize the wider DePIN ecosystem.

“We’ve hosted 12 DePIN Days across 8 or 9 countries with thousands of attendees,” he said. “Our goal was to create a forum for founders, investors, and community members to gather, share ideas, and grow this space together.”

Trowbridge also hosts the DePIN Podcast, which has featured nearly 60 prominent voices in the space. “It’s about raising the profile not just of Fluence, but of the whole DePIN movement,” he explained.

Why Fluence Went ‘Pointless’ Instead of Airdrops

Fluence’s unconventional “Pointless” rewards program sparked curiosity across the space—and for good reason. Eschewing traditional token airdrops, Fluence built a point-based system with deeper intent.

“It’s called ‘Pointless’ because it’s not about short-term token rewards,” Trowbridge said. “We want people who are genuinely interested in Fluence and want to help build the ecosystem, not mercenaries just farming tokens.”

The program emphasizes long-term engagement and fun, gamified participation. “If there are token rewards down the line, that’s great, but it’s not a transactional relationship,” he added. “We’re building sustainability and community, not a speculative flash-in-the-pan.”

Community First, Revenue Real, Vision Long-Term

From securing revenue to reshaping community incentives, Fluence is proving that DePIN doesn’t have to be a hype-driven race. It can be strategic, deliberate, and deeply sustainable.

“We’re trying to do this the right way,” Trowbridge concluded. And in a space too often driven by short-termism, that may be Fluence’s biggest competitive advantage.