New Direction for the DePIN Track: Integration of AI Technology

DePIN(, the decentralized physical infrastructure network), once enjoyed great prominence and saw the emergence of numerous star projects. With the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, market attention has shifted to the AI field. So what is the current state of the DePIN track?

In fact, the DePIN field is not static, but is seeking new directions for development. The latest trend is the integration with AI technology, with Roam being a representative project. By analyzing the Roam project, we can understand the changes happening in the DePIN track.

The Essence of DePIN

DePIN is short for Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network. In simple terms, it is a decentralized hardware network that incentivizes users to share personal resources through a token reward mechanism to build an infrastructure network, involving multiple fields such as storage space, communication bandwidth, cloud computing, and energy.

The core of DePIN lies in resource integration: incentivizing users to share resources through tokens, allowing resources to flow efficiently to those in need. DePIN projects are mainly divided into three categories: storage, computing power, and network.

DePIN has similarities with Bitcoin, as both require an initial investment to purchase physical equipment, followed by ongoing mining. Due to its connection with the physical world, DePIN is not a closed system and brings positive externalities to the entire industry.

Current Status of the DePIN Market

According to data from DepinScan, DePIN has nearly 4.56 million devices across approximately 196 countries or regions worldwide, with a market value of 7.1 billion dollars. Among them, Roam accounts for the largest number of DePIN devices, reaching 1.18 million.

From the perspective of the number of devices, the DePIN track has seen multiple giants emerge, including Helium, IoTeX, etc., but the rising leader is Roam. It is important to note that Roam is the only DePIN project that has not yet issued a token, and ordinary users still have the opportunity to participate.

DePIN devices are primarily concentrated in the geographical regions of the United States, Europe, and Southeast Asia. Among them, Southeast Asia has a very high concentration, including India, Vietnam, the Philippines, South Korea, Japan, and others. South Korea has the highest concentration, reflecting a strong atmosphere of the cryptocurrency industry in the country.

Overall, DePIN has brought about a new round of wealth creation effects, and the Southeast Asian region is leveraging its manufacturing and human resource advantages to fully invest in this track.

Roam Project Introduction

Roam belongs to the network sub-segment within DePIN and can be simply defined as a combination of Web3 and WIFI. It is a decentralized wireless network, or in other words, a decentralized telecom operator.

Roam offers a variety of products, initially providing WIFI hardware that users can purchase for mining; later it expanded to eSIM cards, allowing users to apply for eSIM cards and obtain free data by completing various tasks.

Using the Roam APP, you can connect to nearby WiFi networks for free, and by adding or checking in to WiFi, you can also earn Roam Points or eSIM rewards.

In Roam's technical architecture, the Roam telecom data layer is a key concept and serves as the data and service layer in the decentralized physical infrastructure network built by Roam. This data layer achieves its functionality through four main ecological modules: Roam Network, Roam Growth, Roam Discovery, and Roam Community.

The Integration of Roam and AI

Roam is deeply integrating with AI technology, leveraging its own communication data advantages to provide high-quality usable data for AI projects.

In the AI era, data is one of the key elements, especially communication data, which is currently mainly held by traditional communication operators and is not open to the public. The innovation of Roam lies in addressing one of the most pressing data challenges of AI: the availability of operator-level data.

Roam provides operator services through Web3 means. In return, the data generated during this process can become a data source for all AI companies under the premise of privacy protection. Roam adopts decentralized identity (DID) and verifiable credential (VC) technologies, and integrates zero-knowledge proof (ZK) technology to ensure that user privacy is not leaked.

The Roam Discovery Program is actively expanding its service boundaries and ecosystem scope by strategically integrating with multiple DePIN ecosystem partners to jointly build a rich and diverse AI training data set ecosystem.

Roam's data services not only provide basic operator-level data for AI use, but also aim to build a comprehensive data ecosystem. Through deep collaboration with ecological partners in various fields, Roam is able to integrate and provide multidimensional data resources, including real-time weather monitoring data, globally distributed CDN service data, renewable energy usage data, decentralized authentication records, and innovative payment and lending behavior data.

In addition, Roam can collect and process behavioral data generated by AI agents during social interactions and payment transactions, as well as operational status information from various intelligent systems, providing comprehensive data support for the training and optimization of AI models.

How Ordinary Users Can Participate in DePIN

The rapid development of Roam relies mainly on two core strategies: free offerings and airdrops.

Unlike traditional telecom operators that charge for data usage, the decentralized telecom operator Roam provides free data directly to users, who can earn data by completing tasks. This approach is highly attractive.

On the other hand, while purchasing dedicated hardware can accelerate mining, users can still participate in the project without buying hardware. By simply sharing their WIFI, they can earn points and thus have a chance to participate in future airdrops, which significantly lowers the participation threshold.

Free and airdrops are powerful tools for Web3 projects, attracting users through direct incentive mechanisms and maximizing the subsidy strategies of the Web2 industry. This also provides ordinary users with the opportunity to participate.