Render and Helium fuel expansion of Solana’s DePIN ecosystem: Flipside

Solana’s
Decentralized
Physical
Infrastructure
Network
(DePIN)
ecosystem
is
experiencing
significant
growth,
driven
by
its
high-speed
transactions,
low
costs,
and
robust
infrastructure,
according
to
the
“Solana
DePIN
Snapshot:
H1
2024”
report
by
on-chain
data
firm
Flipside.
The
report
explored
different
sectors
within
the
DePIN
narrative
by
analyzing
their
key
projects.

Render
Network
was
used
as
a
benchmark
for
the
decentralized
compute
sector.
Decentralized
compute
networks
provide
scalable
and
cost-effective
computing
power
by
leveraging
a
network
of
decentralized
nodes.

Render
has
successfully
rendered
approximately
33
million
frames,
equivalent
to
33,000
GPU
hours
using
NVIDIA
RTX
3090
GPUs.
Weekly
active
node
operators
peaked
at
1,900
in
January
2024,
a
66.3%
increase
since
migrating
to
Solana.
Node
operator
rewards
increased
by
34.3%
post-migration,
peaking
at
228,000
RNDR
in
early
January
2024.

Another
sector
from
the
DePIN
narrative
is
decentralized
connectivity,
which
was
represented
in
the
report
by
Helium.
Decentralized
wireless
networks
are
based
on
the
idea
that,
as
technology
has
progressed,
physical
networks
don’t
need
to
be
built
from
a
top-down
approach.

Helium
Network’s
mobile
network
token
burns
vastly
outnumber
those
of
the
IoT
network,
driven
by
the
rapid
adoption
of
Helium
Mobile
services.
Helium
Mobile
subscribers
peaked
at
nearly
90,000
in
January
2024,
sustained
by
competitive
pricing
and
MOBILE
token
incentives.
Mobile
Discovery
Rewards
growth
has
accelerated
since
December
2023,
outpacing
new
subscriber
growth.

Decentralized
data
and
sensor
networks
are
also
a
part
of
the
DePIN
industry,
and
are
represented
in
the
report
by
Hivemapper.
The
projects
within
this
sector
leverage
distributed
technology
to
collect,
process,
and
share
data
from
a
vast
array
of
sensors,
creating
a
robust,
real-time
web
of
information.

Hivemapper
has
mapped
over
50
million
kilometers
across
90+
countries,
making
it
the
fastest-growing
mapping
project.
There
has
been
a
significant
rise
in
net
HONEY
burns
due
to
increased
network
activity
and
enterprise
adoption.
Nearly
one-third
of
HONEY
token
owners
are
active
contributors,
indicating
high
community
engagement.

Furthermore,
another
traditional
service
that
has
its
decentralized
version
in
DePIN
is
storage
solutions.
Decentralized
storage
networks
provide
secure,
scalable,
and
cost-effective
data
storage
solutions
by
distributing
data
across
multiple
nodes
rather
than
relying
on
centralized
servers.

ShdwDrive
is
the
representation
of
this
DePIN
niche
in
Flipside’s
report.
The
project
demonstrated
impressive
performance
in
Testnet
2,
handling
up
to
38,000
transactions
per
second
during
surge
scenarios.
The
number
of
SHDW
token
holders
peaked
at
67,000
in
March
2024,
with
more
top
wallets
accumulating
than
selling.
Staking
activity
has
shifted
towards
withdrawals
since
rewards
ended,
typical
for
pre-utility
phases.