DeFi
Franklin Templeton names these two Solana projects as the first “DePIN” winners – DL News
- Franklin Templeton picked two DePIN projects to watch.
- Both projects run on the Solana blockchain.
- DePIN is a $26 billion crypto industry.
Financial markets aren’t the only blockchain advocates in the industry claiming the new technology can be disruptive. They also say the technology can decentralize the infrastructure that supports Internet services such as mapping, wireless and computing.
DePIN, or decentralized physical infrastructure networks, is a nascent crypto sector full of projects that claim to use blockchain to achieve this and it’s already a A $26 billion marketaccording to CoinGecko.
Franklin Templeton Wednesday identified two projects – Hivemapper and Helium – which are gaining ground.
Although these two DePIN projects are not the largest DePIN projects in terms of market value, Franklin Templeton noted in his report that Hivemapper and Helium are showing early signs of creating products that will be successful.
Hivemapper is a $133 million Solana-based crypto mapping project, similar to Google Maps and aimed at providing more recent real-world map data than its centralized counterparts.
The project rewards contributors with its native HONEY token for road mapping.
Hivemapper has mapped more than a fifth of the world’s roads in less than three years, primarily in the United States and Europe.
Franklin Templeton’s report noted that while the project has “had great success” in terms of recruiting contributors, demand still lags.
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Helium is also a Solana project. It is estimated at $570 million.
DePIN projects tend to be attracted to Solana due to the high speed and low costs of the blockchain.
Wireless service
Helium offers mobile wireless service and claims to offer cheaper subscription plans than traditional wireless carriers.
The Franklin Templeton report says the project has signed up 93,000 subscribers to its unlimited wireless plan.
“Helium has shown early signs of product market fit and has the potential to disrupt the telecommunications sector,” the report said.
However, the trillion-dollar asset manager noted that the success of these projects remains linked to symbolic incentives and not the value of their services. This could change with a greater network effect for these projects.
“As these network resources increase, DePIN projects could become more valuable to potential customers,” the report states.
However, the symbolic incentives of these projects are not without criticism.
Chris Newhouse, DeFi analyst at Cumberland Labs, previously questioned the need for these projects to reward users with their native tokens in the first place, saying DL News that many projects fail to align their economic incentives in a way that requires crypto token rewards.
Osato Avan-Nomayo is our DeFi correspondent based in Nigeria. He covers DeFi and technology. To share tips or story information, please contact him at osato@dlnews.com.