The New Trend in the DePIN Track: The Rise of Integration with AI

In recent years, the decentralized physical infrastructure network ( DePIN ) sector has experienced rapid development. Although market attention has shifted, DePIN has not stagnated but is seeking new directions for development. Currently, the latest trend in this field is the integration with artificial intelligence ( AI ) technology, with the Roam project being a typical representative.

The Essence of DePIN

DePIN is short for Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network, which encourages users to share personal resources through a token incentive mechanism to build an infrastructure network. These resources include storage space, communication bandwidth, cloud computing, and energy, among others. The core of DePIN lies in resource integration, enabling resources to flow efficiently to the demand side through token incentives.

Mainly divided into three categories:

1. Storage Class: Provides cloud storage services
2. Computing Power: Decentralized GPU Rendering Platform
3. Network Type: Forming a global WIFI network through token incentives

DePIN is similar to Bitcoin in that it requires an initial investment to purchase physical equipment, followed by continuous mining. Due to its connection with the real world, DePIN is not a closed system and brings positive externalities to the entire industry.

Current Status of the DePIN Market

According to the data, DePIN has nearly 4.56 million devices in about 196 countries or regions worldwide, with a market value of 7.1 billion USD. Among them, Roam has the largest number of devices, approximately 1.18 million.

From a geographical distribution perspective, DePIN hardware devices are primarily concentrated in the United States, Europe, and Southeast Asia. Among them, Southeast Asia has a particularly high concentration, including countries like India, Vietnam, the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan. South Korea has the highest density, indicating a strong atmosphere for the cryptocurrency industry in the country.

Overall, DePIN is bringing a new round of wealth effects, and the Southeast Asian region is fully investing in this field by leveraging its manufacturing and human resource advantages.

Introduction to the Roam Project

Roam belongs to the network sub-track within DePIN and can be understood as a combination of Web3 and WIFI, representing a decentralized wireless network. Roam ranks first in related node data rankings and has become a leading project in the DePIN track.

Roam offers a variety of products, initially WIFI hardware, which users can purchase proprietary hardware for mining; it later expanded to eSIM cards, allowing users to apply for eSIM cards and earn free data by completing tasks. The Roam application allows users to connect to nearby WiFi networks for free, and users can also earn points or eSIM rewards by adding or checking in to WiFi.

In Roam's technical architecture, the Roam telecom data layer is a core concept that operates through four main ecological modules: network construction, user growth, project incubation, and community governance.

The Integration of Roam and AI

Roam is deeply integrating with AI technology, leveraging its advantages in communication data to provide high-quality usable data for AI projects. In the field of AI, data is currently the key bottleneck, especially communication data, which is mainly controlled by traditional telecom operators and is not open to the public.

Roam provides operator services through Web3, and in return, the data generated will be used as a data source for AI companies while protecting privacy. Roam uses decentralized identity (DID), verifiable credentials (VC), and zero-knowledge proof (ZK) technology to protect user privacy.

Roam is actively expanding its range of services by collaborating with multiple DePIN ecosystem partners to jointly build a diverse AI training dataset ecosystem. This collaboration model not only broadens the range of data sources but also enhances the depth of data quality.

Roam's data services not only provide basic carrier-grade data but are also building a comprehensive data ecosystem. Through deep collaboration with partners in various fields, Roam is able to integrate and provide multidimensional data resources, including real-time weather monitoring, globally distributed CDN services, renewable energy use, decentralized identity verification, 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. This diversified data integration capability offers unprecedented data dimensions and depth for training AI models.

How Ordinary Users Participate in DePIN

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

Unlike traditional telecom operators, Roam directly provides users with free data, which can be obtained by completing tasks. At the same time, purchasing dedicated hardware can accelerate mining, but users can also participate in the project without buying hardware; they just need to share their own WIFI to earn points, thus having the chance to participate in future airdrops, significantly lowering the participation threshold.

This free airdrop model is a powerful weapon for Web3 projects, attracting users through direct incentive benefits and maximizing the subsidy strategy of the Web2 industry. This also provides ordinary users with opportunities to participate.