Part 3: From Degenerative to Regenerative

The Principles Are Sound

After dissecting the broken models of the DePIN space, it would be easy to become cynical and dismiss the entire concept as a failed experiment. But that would be a mistake.

The foundational principles of DePIN—of community-owned infrastructure, aligned incentives, and open access—are more powerful and necessary than ever. The failure is not in the vision; it is in the execution. The degenerative patterns I’ve observed are not inevitable. They are choices. They are the choices that lead down a path of techno-feudalism, where technology is used to centralise power, enforce scarcity, and ultimately render communities into surplus populations. It is time to choose a different path.

This article is not another critique; it is my blueprint. It is a guide for building regenerative DePINs that can finally deliver on the original promise by tackling the hardest problem of all: ownership and governance.

The Ownership Illusion

The great, unspoken truth of the DePIN world is this: no mainstream project has solved ownership. The benefits are not distributed to the people building the infrastructure. Instead, early insiders and venture capitalists accumulate tokens, creating a de-facto system of techno-feudalism where the community is treated as cheap labour and disposable serfs. This is pure extraction, shrouded in the language of decentralisation. They bear the risk of buying the hardware, while a centralised core team reaps the rewards.

A regenerative DePIN must be built on a foundation of genuine community ownership. This requires a radical rethinking of how power is distributed and work is compensated.

Principle 1: Real Governance, Not Theater

The one-token-one-vote DAOs common today are plutocracies, not democracies. They are governance theater. A truly decentralised network needs more sophisticated tools. Fortunately, these tools exist.

Organizations like Hypha.earth are pioneering advanced DAO frameworks inspired by sociocracy, featuring linked “circles” with specific domains of responsibility and consent-based decision-making. Imagine a DePIN project with dedicated circles for Core Protocol Development, Network Monitoring, and Community Growth, each with defined authority and accountability. This moves beyond monolithic voting towards a more distributed and specialised form of governance where real contributors have a real voice.

Principle 2: Meritocracy Over Kleptocracy

If governance is how decisions are made, compensation is how value is distributed. In the current model, value flows to the largest token holders. A regenerative model must reward meaningful contributions, not just capital.

This is where frameworks from projects like Colony.io become essential. Colony provides tools to create meritocratic DAOs where influence (reputation) and rewards are earned by completing tasks and contributing value to the network. Reputation is non-transferable; it cannot be bought, only earned. This ensures that those who do the work gain influence over the project’s direction. By integrating such a system, a DePIN could reward a developer for fixing a bug, a community member for providing excellent support, or a hardware operator for maintaining high uptime—all in a transparent and equitable way. This is technology replacing the need for meaningless bureaucratic labour, freeing humans to focus on creative, value-additive work.

Principle 3: Sustainable Economics and Accessible Hardware

Finally, the economic and physical layers must be sustainable.

• Utility First: As we saw in Part 2, a network must have real customers. The token’s value must be tied to the revenue generated by the network’s utility, not just speculation.
• Commodity Hardware: Networks should be built on accessible, off-the-shelf hardware to lower the barrier to entry and prevent the creation of useless e-waste.

The Regenerative Flywheel

When these principles are combined, they create a powerful, positive feedback loop—a regenerative flywheel. Where the degenerative path uses technology to replace humans, this regenerative path uses technology to enable cooperative production and unlock distributed sovereignty. Advanced governance frameworks build trust and attract dedicated contributors. Meritocratic compensation ensures those contributors are rewarded fairly and gain influence based on their work. This engaged and empowered community makes better decisions for the long-term health of the network. Sustainable economics and accessible hardware create a resilient and valuable service, which in turn attracts more users and builders, strengthening the entire ecosystem.

Where the Revolution Will Begin

It is tempting to look for this regenerative future to emerge from the same tech hubs that created the current models, but that may be shortsighted. The most powerful innovations often arise from necessity, not from abundance.

For this reason, I believe the most significant breakthroughs in regenerative DePIN will likely come from the Global South. Communities in these regions are often the most underserved by traditional infrastructure and the most exploited by extractive global economic models. They have the most to gain from building their own resilient, community-owned networks.

Furthermore, younger generations in these regions are effectively locked out of the speculative, insider-driven games of the current DePIN world. They will inherit the consequences—both environmental and economic—of today’s degenerative behavior. It is their ingenuity, born from necessity and a clear-eyed view of the system’s failures, that is most likely to produce the truly equitable and sustainable models we so desperately need. The future of DePIN may not be designed in Silicon Valley, but in Nairobi, São Paulo, or Manila.

A Call to Action

The future of DePIN will be defined by the choices we make today. We stand at a crossroads, and the path forward requires a conscious and collective effort.

To the builders: Stop building kleptocracies. The tools to build truly decentralised, community-owned systems are here. Use them. Look at the work of Hypha and Colony. Building more human-centred DAOs that are more than just voting contracts is possible. The same distributed ledger that can enforce a plutocracy can also enable a meritocracy. The same technology, opposite functions.

To the participants: Demand better. Demand real ownership. Do not invest your time and money in projects that treat you as exit liquidity. Support the projects that are building fair, transparent, and meritocratic systems.

The journey towards a regenerative DePIN will be challenging. It requires us to abandon the easy narratives and confront the hard work of building systems that are fair, sustainable, and genuinely useful. But the destination—a world of genuinely community-owned infrastructure—is more than worth the effort.