Solana DePIN ecological revenue hits a new high for the year, with multiple projects showing outstanding performance

In April, the decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) track within the Solana ecosystem achieved its best performance of the year. Monthly cumulative revenue reached $458,000, a year-on-year increase of 33%, setting a new high since 2025. This growth is primarily attributed to the stable development of several major projects such as Helium and Render.

Despite record high revenues, the number of active contributors to DePIN protocols has seen a slight decline. The seven main projects, including Helium and Hivemapper, together maintain about 87,000 active contributors. Notably, there has been a significant increase in the number of contributors to smaller DePIN protocols, with one protocol experiencing a growth rate exceeding 100%. In contrast, the number of contributors to larger protocols like Helium and Hivemapper has remained stable or declined slightly.

Here is a review of the performance of some major DePIN projects:

Dabba Network

As a DePIN project targeting the Indian market, Dabba Network has deployed Wi-Fi hotspots across India in collaboration with local cable operators using a "managed deployment" model. During the period from March to April, its cumulative data consumption doubled to 8000 TB, and device sales increased by 29%, further expanding the network scale.

Helium Mobile

As a mobile virtual network operator under a well-known network, Helium Mobile combines community-deployed Wi-Fi hotspots and partnered cellular base stations to provide users with low-cost mobile data and voice services.

After opening free mobile plans to all users, new subscription users surged by 125%, reaching a historic high of 36,000. Monthly revenue increased by 34%, reaching a new high of $250,000, with data offload accounting for 79%. In addition, the average daily offload subscription volume rose by 65%, and the offload data volume increased by 32%, both setting new historical records.

It is worth mentioning that since 2025, the overall number of active contributors to the project has shown a slight downward trend and has currently stabilized around 75,000.

XNET

XNET is a decentralized mobile network built on the Solana blockchain. In April, the data offloading of XNET continued to grow, with an average daily offloading increasing by 16%, marking a steady upward trend in data offloading for XNET over the past 8 months. In addition, despite a 6% decrease in rewards, the number of active contributors to XNET Mobile in April still rose by 6%, reaching 732, setting a new historical high.

Roam

In April, Roam added 535,000 WiFi nodes (the second highest in history) and 87,000 new users, bringing the total number of nodes in the protocol close to 4 million and the number of users close to 3 million. Although the monthly user check-in volume decreased by 19%, the cumulative check-in count has surpassed 300 million, demonstrating that user engagement remains strong.

Shaga

The Shaga protocol utilizes idle GPU computing power to support Web3 games, currently covering 74 GPU models, providing 33.12 TB of storage and 15.27 Gbps throughput, with high-performance computing capabilities. Within two months, Shaga achieved 4,500 interactive game live streams, totaling 50,000 hours, allowing viewers to control and participate in the streamer's game in real-time.

Hivello

As a DePIN aggregation platform, Hivello is used to monetize idle resources, with online hours in April doubling compared to March, and more nodes joining to contribute to the network.

Nosana

Nosana is a decentralized GPU computing network built on the Solana blockchain, focused on providing a distributed computing market for AI inference workloads. In April, the job completion volume of Nosana saw a slight increase along with contributor rewards, while GPU nodes remained stable; the newly launched Gaianet AI collaboration project allows AI agents to run on the Nosana infrastructure or drive job growth.

Sallar.io

Sallar connects the idle computing power of devices such as smartphones to the network, forming distributed computing nodes to support high-performance computing needs. In April, Sallar's dollar rewards increased by 27% month-on-month. As a protocol for sharing device computing power to complete AI tasks, the dollar rewards in April rose to $11,800, while the number of active wallets remained stable.

Grass

Grass connects users' idle internet bandwidth to the network, providing a foundational data source for AI training, data scraping, and proxy services, while rewarding participants in the form of on-chain tokens. In April, Grass's data collection volume reached a historic high of 34.5 million GB.

Wingbits

Wingbits is a decentralized physical infrastructure network project based on the Solana blockchain. It collects aircraft data in real-time through ADS-B hardware deployed by global users and uploads this data to the chain in exchange for native token rewards. Since November 2024, the number of flights tracked by the Wingbits network has increased to 150,000, with daily data points collected rising to 9 billion, representing increases of 7% and 29% respectively; the number of contribution sites has also increased by 43%, reaching 3,000.

Hivemapper

Hivemapper is a decentralized mapping network where users collect street-level images via dash cams to earn token rewards. The team continues to iterate on the product side, and 20-30% of the monthly platform fees will be used to burn tokens, which may further promote growth.

Hivemapper's monthly mapping mileage remained stable in April, and its AI-driven platform for fleet management was officially launched that month, which will bring new growth momentum as more fleets join. Since February, the number of active map contributors for Hivemapper has stabilized at around 5,000.

NATIX Network

The NATIX Network aims to collect street view and geographic data through smartphones and dedicated devices, providing high-precision positioning and imaging support for map making, autonomous driving, and physical AI. Participants can earn token rewards for their data contributions. The ecosystem remained stable in April - user-driven mileage has been maintained at 11 million kilometers for the third consecutive month.

Sourceful Energy

Sourceful Energy focuses on decentralized virtual power plants, integrating distributed energy resources from households and businesses into the Solana blockchain network. Participants who contribute electricity or data can receive token incentives. In April, Sourceful Energy's power output increased by 30%, and with the new smart energy efficiency analysis devices receiving 500 pre-orders, this growth trend is expected to continue.

AmbiosNetwork

AmbiosNetwork has built the world's largest environmental monitoring DePIN, providing real-time, ultra-localized environmental data by deploying low-cost air quality and environmental sensors, supporting enterprises, AI, and public services, with sensor owners able to receive token rewards. In April, AmbiosNetwork's cumulative user ecological data check-ins exceeded 2 million, with a 12% growth in ecological data check-in volume; the total number of platform users increased to 45,000, a year-on-year growth of 2%.