i think DePIN will make a BIG comeback this cycle - some thoughts: 1) '23-24 depin was structurally broken: i think conceptually depin was an excellent idea: using crypto to form economic networks the idea was simple: you use tokens as a way to solve cold-start problem i.e bootstrap supply → then you aggregate demand → eventually form a network around it (eg. bitcoin is the first proof of concept of depin network) but there were issues: – high fdv, low float: eg. vc-backed projects typically launched at $1b fdv & 10% float and now you've 90% of supply overhang waiting to be dumped by VCs and suppliers + suppliers have costs in fiat - so it automatically becomes the sell pressure and VCs needs to exit too – revenues didn't accrue to network: some projects (eg. grass or compute ones) did have some pmf but the value accrue to network hasn't been clear essentially, all depin projects were designed in a way to have only sell pressure from high fdv - with no upside for speculators and without speculation, the concept of depin falls apart + regulation was a huge hindrance (or excuse) for projects to have their depin token only as a 'governance' token and prevent any true financial engineering of a network (despite this some tokens like tao, render, akt, geod, grass, vvv are still doing well - showing market appetite) so, what changes now? 2) new on-chain mechanics: in '24, memecoins/pump/metadao gave birth to a new mechanism: i.e anyone can easily launch and bootstrap capital now, - as a project: you don't need to have fancy VCs, tier-1 cex listings, $1b fdv to launch a network token - as tokenholder: you don't have to wait for supply dumps, buyback announcements and a foundation a project can launch at low fdv, have buybacks or token utility coded at network level we've now much mature on-chain markets for best dynamic pricing for marketplaces: → creators or LP fees or transfer taxes: where you can translate speculative energy to a network fees you can also use this rewards for bootstrapping supply or demand - leading to a token flywheel (without directly dumping tokens) → propAMMs allow you to price anything on-chain with external reference price (eg. energy index) or you also have tokens paired with compute indexes (instead of sol or usdc) → upgraded payments infra (like stablecoins, wallets, on/off-ramps, x402) to power the payment mechanics of network + all on-chain financial engineering can 10x the network effects of typical marketplaces 3) new world co-ordination problems: ai has led to a whole supply-chain disruption from mining to energy to compute to inference internet era lead to us to tons of $100b marketplaces (eg. airbnb, uber) and there'll be need for much more marketplaces for ai era eg. there'll be incredible demand for energy - and we'll need tons of niche marketplaces to aggregate demand & supply even OpenRouter is an example of an inference marketplace lot of '23-24 depins tried to recreate decentralised versions of existing successful networks (eg. mapping, bandwidth) - but that didn't work as there is not much new supply or demand to aggregate but as the world develops new problems around coordinating energy, mining, compute etc - i think a lot of room for experimentation opens up 4) long markets, long token marketplaces! the market's risk appetite has never been higher. whenever we see something slightly novel appears (eg. memecoins paired with their stocks) - you get good bids world's speculation is at its all-time high (eg. stock markets) - particularly, retail wanna bid anything they can understand you can now translate speculative energy of markets to solve co-ordination problems via financial incentives + regulations allow you to be hugely expressive on-chain even, venice/vvv is the only way to get exposure to 'inference' on-chain - hence gets a good premium despite having seperate equity value 5) what's next? while obviously most of these network (like energy/compute) would be controlled by huge companies but there'll be many gaps unserved - and the token marketplaces can start from niche and eventually grow as the token keeps getting attention and the network itself becomes more valuable as long as you're commoditizing or aggregating supply and demand, you can form a marketplace around almost anything and you can keep adding people to the network (+ keep upgrading the network) and having some mechanism baked in: where network usage automatically benefits the token at a fundamental level now, you don't even need trad VCs (and whole supply dump) and as soon as you flip the model and make it more bottoms-up, where the earliest consumers or speculators receive the majority of the upside - they have an incentive to propagate the network eg. imagine an openrouter launching at a $10m every inference consumer now has an incentive to share it with friends and bring more people into the network - and bringing attention to the network also benefits the token (ofc, it'll again break if projects launch at v high fdvs as there isn't much asymmetrical upside left to propagate the network) ultimately, it's about figuring out a good mechanism and ofc you'll need a strong team that can execute on both sides of the marketplace: supply and demand and achieve PMF overall, i remain cautiously optimistic for depin or 'token-led marketplaces' to make a comeback in a bigger and different form factors keep looking at solana/base/robinhood plays and ofc, tons will fail - but i'm all here for new experimentations and will bid some good ones! 🫡