📝 Editor's Note:

Good morning, and welcome to OurNetwork’s latest, the second issue in a two-part series covering DePINs. As stated in the first issue, valuations for DePINs have come down, potentially making the networks’ respective assets more attractive investments. 

Below, we have analysis from Vinayak of EV3, a venture firm focused exclusively on DePINs. The pseudonymous ismarty, chipped in with onchain coverage of Grass, a DePIN which allows users to monetize their unused internet bandwidth. 

Alex also covered DIMO, the decentralized network and marketplace for vehicle data, and OurNetwork’s Brandyn dug into Akash, the cloud computing marketplace.

– ON Editorial Team

Sector Update | Grass | DIMO | Akash

• While DePIN tokens were crushed over the last six months on the public market, DePIN networks continued to show strong growth with teams delivering on their promise to utilize crypto economic incentives that fuel real-world utility. DePIN flips the traditional model on its head, transferring the central locus of control from CapEx and OpEx-heavy industries to individual operators across wireless, telecom, compute, and energy networks.

• However, even as flagship DePIN projects continue to make good on their promises, token valuations have been crushed over the last three months in the public markets, repricing these assets to more attractive valuations.

• Aggregate ARR across projects remains strong with teams like Helium (HNT) opening up new pipelines to traditional Web2 audiences by launching the nation’s first free monthly wireless plan which offered 100 min of talk, 300 text messages, and 3GB of data for free each month.
• Over the past few years, disintermediation of the DePIN stack has reduced the barrier of entry for new networks by removing some technical challenges and letting operators focus on the regions and products they know best, but hardware is beginning to consolidate. For example, DAWN (Decentralized Autonomous Wireless Network), which allows users to sell back their excess internet bandwidth, is launching a device that aggregates user compute, bandwidth, routing, and more into a single device.

• Stakers of GRASS have earned over $13.7M in rewards, an impressive feat for a protocol that had its token generation event (TGE) less than a year ago. Grass is reshaping internet monetization by aligning user incentives with data infrastructure. Its ecosystem is built on two core components: the Grass App, which lets users share unused bandwidth for rewards, and the Sovereign Data Rollup, a network that transforms raw web data into structured datasets for AI and analytics.

• Daily staking volume on Grass has dropped since peaking post-TGE at over $10M. Still, stakers have earned over $13.7M from $211M total staked, showing strong engagement for a project under a year old, showing trust in Grass’s vision of reshaping internet incentives and data monetization.

• Post-TGE, there has been good activity by airdrop recipients, with about 4% of airdrop recipients staking their tokens. This shows prolonged engagement from users beyond airdrop farming.

• Over the first six months of 2025 the DIMO team has taken the apps per vehicle from just 1 to 1.3. With over 50,000 weekly active vehicles connected, that means at least 15,000 new connections between users and new apps launched on the platform. This is all part of the flywheel of DIMO and the value proposition to developers: there's an active network of users who will use new products they discover on DIMO.

• The amount of staked DIMO continues to grow ~20% month-over-month with over 7M tokens staked by users.

• There are now four individual apps that have over 1,000 vehicles connected (not counting the original DIMO Mobile app license, which is being deprecated.) More cars connected to more apps means more revenue for the protocol.

• Akash is a network is a decentralized cloud-resource marketplace running on its own Cosmos-SDK blockchain. Unlike centralized cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, Akash enables anyone to rent out unused compute capacity, just like Airbnb lets homeowners list spare rooms. Since launching in late 2020, users have spent nearly $3.5M on Akash cloud resources. Over half of that, 1.8M, was burned in just the first two quarters of 2025, and 2024 alone saw an 860% year-over-year surge in USD spending.

• CPUs are the backbone of any compute platform, and Akash boasts 21.4 k total CPU cores available. While capacity has been steadily rising, only 5.7 k of them are leased, just a 27 % utilization rate. Users can also tap into GPUs, RAM, and storage on demand.

• AKT, the Akash token, is the native utility token of the network and is used to secure the network and lease resources. Of the 274M AKT in existence, over 40 % is currently bonded (staked), earning holders roughly 9.6 % APR for keeping the network running.