DePIN is a lifeline for Bitcoin miners, says Livepeer CEO

Bitcoin
(BTC)
miners
might
turn
to
the
DePIN
ecosystem
to
turn
mining
facilities
profitable
after
the
latest
halving
cut
block
rewards
to
3.125
BTC,
shared
Livepeer
CEO
Doug
Petkanics
with
Crypto
Briefing.
DePIN
is
short
for
decentralized
physical
infrastructure
network,
a
blockchain
industry
sector
that
brings
transparency
and
decentralization
to
the
real
world.

Petkanics
highlights
that
this
movement
to
DePIN,
where
the
business
model
is
usually
providing
computing
power
through
GPUs
to
artificial
intelligence-focused
companies,
is
met
with
good
and
bad
news
for
Bitcoin
miners.

“The
hardware
that
they’ve
bought
and
deployed
and
paid
for
Bitcoin
mining
are
really
specific
to
Bitcoin.
Their
ASICs,
they
can
only
mine
Bitcoin.
They
can
only
do
that
specific
cash
function.
They
really
can’t
be
redeployed
into
other
networks.
I
think
that’s
the
bad
news.
But
that’s
not
surprising.
That’s
what
they
knew
their
investment
was
and
they
knew
they
were
optimizing
for.”

On
the
opposite
side,
the
expertise
and
surrounding
infrastructure
that
the
facilities
built
up
around
mining
crypto
are
really
efficient
when
it
comes
to
energy
usage,
bandwidth,
and
operational
management,
Petkanics
points
out.
This
characteristics
can
be
proven
useful
when
managing
a

The
expectation
after
the
April
20
halving
is
that
electricity
and
overall
production
costs
will
nearly
double,

according
to
a
report
by
asset
management
firm
CoinShares.
The
report
also
sheds
light
on
that
mining
companies
like
BitDigital,
Hive,
and
Hut
8
are
already
generating
income
from
artificial
intelligence
(AI).

“All
that
expertise
and
resources
absolutely
can
be
repurposed
into
one
of
the
sort
of
biggest
opportunities
of
this
point
in
time
that
we’re
in
right
now,
due
to
the
just
massive
amount
of
computing
resources
that
are
going
to
be
required
when
it
comes
to
this
paradigm
shift
of
artificial
intelligence
models
being
this
new
technology
that’s
changing
everything
about
how
people
interact
with
technology.”

Fostering
development

According
to
Livepeer
CEO,
decentralized
computing
power
networks
offer
benefits
in
different
layers.
The
first
is
related
to
how
the
GPU
market
is
organized,
where
tech
firms
must
buy
large
batches
of
graphic
chips
to
achieve
a
cheaper
acquisition
price.

However,
these
companies
usually
don’t
have
immediate
usage
for
all
the
GPU
acquired,
and
that’s
where
DePIN
shows
its
potential
by
letting
computing
power
be
lent.

“I
think
that
actually
fits
really
neatly
into
this
notion
that
decentralized
networks
can
let
anyone
who’s
paid
for
that
capacity,
but
has
it
sitting
idle,
make
it
available
to
developers
that
want
to
use
it
temporarily
via
open
marketplaces.”

Moreover,
the
necessity
to
buy
large
batches
of
GPU
is
also
a
threshold
to
companies
such
as
data
centers
and
infrastructure
providers.
This
is
also
another
issue
that
can
be
solved
by
DePIN,
as
these
smaller
companies
can
tap
into
the
dormant
capacities
of
these
idle
graphic
chips
via
an
open
marketplace,
Petkanics
underscored.

“You
don’t
have
the
overhead
or
the
bureaucracy
of
needing
contracts
and
customer
relationships
and
sales
and
the
stuff
that
adds
a
lot
of
cost
on
top
of
just
sort
of
connecting
directly
to
the
computing
power.”