Table Of Contents
The Seductive Pitch
The term DePIN, or Decentralised Physical Infrastructure Networks, carries an almost utopian promise. It paints a picture of a world where the essential physical networks we rely on—from wireless and mobile connectivity to mapping and sensor data—are built not by faceless corporations, but by us. It’s a vision of grassroots collaboration, where individuals are empowered to deploy hardware, share resources, and collectively own the infrastructure of tomorrow.
The appeal is undeniable. For decades, we’ve been beholden to centralised monopolies that dictate prices, innovate slowly, and often leave entire communities underserved. DePIN proposes to shatter that model. By aligning incentives with cryptographic tokens, it aims to crowdsource the deployment of infrastructure at a scale and speed that traditional companies can only dream of. The vision is compelling: a more open, equitable, and resilient world, built and owned by the people.
But after years of deep involvement in this space, I’ve seen a troubling gap emerge between the promise and the practice. Behind the soaring rhetoric of decentralisation, a different pattern often plays out—one that feels less like a revolution and more like the same old story, just wrapped in new, blockchain-flavoured packaging.
The Hardware Treadmill and the E-Waste Elephant
For many DePIN projects, the revolution begins with a simple transaction: selling you a piece of hardware. These devices, often marketed as your ticket to passive income, are frequently alpha-quality products sold at premium prices. This isn’t just a way to build the network; it is the primary funding mechanism. The model outsources the cost and risk of building the network directly to the most enthusiastic community members, while the core entity retains control and the lion’s share of the upside.
This leads to a critical, often ignored, consequence: e-waste. When a network pivots its technology, fails to gain traction, or when the token rewards simply dry up, what happens to the hundreds of thousands of single-purpose devices distributed globally? They become expensive paperweights, destined for the landfill. We must ask ourselves: what is the true environmental cost of this hardware-fuelled hype cycle?
A Personal Journey Through the Helium Hype
My experience with this reality is not just academic; it’s personal. I was deeply involved in the Helium network, drawn in by its initial, powerful vision of “The People’s Network.” I wasn’t just a participant; I co-authored and kicked off the proposal that would eventually become HIP-71.
Our original title for the proposal was “Scaling Helium Transparently.” We chose those words carefully because transparency was already becoming a critical issue. The project, while claiming to be decentralised, was effectively being run by its founding company, Helium Inc. (which later rebranded to Nova Labs). Our proposal aimed to address the growing centralization and lack of transparency that threatened to undermine the very principles the network was founded on. In a move that was as symbolic as it was telling, the title was changed without our consent, erasing the call for transparency that we felt was so vital.
Over the years, I watched as the project’s governance became a shadow play. The Helium Foundation, established as a non-profit to steward the ecosystem, often felt more like a fig-leaf, providing a veneer of decentralisation while the core for-profit entity, Nova Labs, continued to pull the strings. We saw disproportionate token allocations enrich founders and early insiders, while the rewards for the average hotspot owner—the very people building the network—dwindled.
The dream of a network owned by the people had morphed into a system that primarily benefited a central corporation and its venture capital backers. The locusts of the old world hadn’t been displaced; they had simply adopted new camouflage.
The story of Helium is not an isolated case. It’s a cautionary tale that reveals a fundamental flaw in the current DePIN landscape. The promise is real, and the technology is powerful, but the execution is often plagued by the same degenerative greed and centralised control it claims to replace.
In the next part of this series, I’ll explore how this pattern repeats itself across other projects and define the critical fork in the road that the entire DePIN sector now faces: a choice between a degenerative, extractive model and a truly regenerative, community-owned future.
Attribution: Image by Neil Moralee, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Visit here
