Recently, Grass’s listing on Binance sparked a wave of excitement, and the leading Solana DePIN project, IO, also experienced a significant rebound. Research firm Messari estimates that the total addressable market (TAM) for the DePIN sector could exceed $2.2 trillion, reaching $3.5 trillion by 2028. Various institutions are actively entering this space, leveraging AI narratives to gradually expand different DePIN projects.

Apart from Grass, which other DePIN projects are worth paying attention to, and how can one get involved early? This article will provide a quick, tiered overview of passive income DePIN projects, offering insights on how to earn early airdrops.

Five-star Attention

DAWN

DAWN is a decentralized autonomous wireless network project developed by the Andrena team. The Andrena project began research and development as early as 2014, initially focusing on Web2 mobile data sharing. The founder, Chatterjee, hails from Princeton University, while another key member, Pramod Viswanath, boasts a stronger academic background compared to Chatterjee’s entrepreneurial experience. Pramod Viswanath is a professor at Princeton University and a core member of another popular crypto AI project, Sentient.

DAWN aims to disrupt the traditional model where internet bandwidth is managed and allocated by large Internet Service Providers (ISPs), leaving consumers with no say in its allocation or pricing. Instead, DAWN turns bandwidth into a commodity that each user can manage, utilize, or sell. The project has secured $18 million in funding, led by Dragonfly, with participation from CMT Digital, Castle Island Ventures, Wintermute Ventures, 6th Man Ventures, and ParaFi. Solana has also shared its promotion on X. According to the official whitepaper, around 32% of the total token supply is allocated for user airdrops, with 7% designated for software participants.

DAWN operates by combining software and hardware, though the project is still in its early stages, and RAS hardware has yet to be widely adopted. Currently, participation is quite straightforward. Users can act as validator nodes and earn early reward points by simply downloading a browser extension from (https://www.dawninternet.com/blog-posts/dawn-validator-extension-rewards-system). Additionally, users can receive a 15,000-point bonus upon completing social tasks.

Gradient Network

Gradient Network is an open layer for edge computing on Solana, aiming to make computing inclusive, accessible, and affordable for everyone. Similar to DAWN, it falls under the category of IP mining. The project has already secured investments from Multicoin Capital, Pantera Capital, and Sequoia Capital. Its initial product, GradientSentry, has been launched and is currently in the public testing phase.

The registration process is similar to DAWN. Users can sign up by entering their email or logging in directly with Google. By downloading the plugin and running it in the background, users can automatically earn points, with the option to increase points by inviting friends.

Rivalz Network

Rivalz Network is an AI-driven DePIN RollApp and the first player-to-AI network built on Dymension and supported by Celestia Labs. Rivalz Network primarily serves as a source of personal data, offering verifiable personal, credential, and behavioral data sources, with embedded privacy and intellectual property features. The project has secured $9 million in funding, with major investors including Delphi Ventures, D1 Ventures, Gate.io, Magnus Capital, and Cogitent Ventures. Other backers include DWF Labs, Mask, and GSR.

Rivalz Network currently supports mining on Windows, Mac, and Linux clients. Users can also earn RIZ tokens through social tasks. Purchasing nodes can provide additional airdrop allocations, comprising around 25% of the total token supply. The official minimum system requirements are: 8 GB RAM, a 4-core CPU (2.2 GHz), 50 GB SSD storage, and a network speed of 10 Mbps.

Nodepay

Nodepay is an AI infrastructure project and a decentralized AI training network. It provides decentralized bandwidth network infrastructure for AI training. By connecting to the Nodepay network, users can sell unused internet bandwidth to AI companies, enabling efficient transmission of public training data, labels, model sharing, and remote distributed training.

Nodepay completed a funding round in October this year, though the amount raised has not been disclosed. Investors include Animoca Brands, Jump Crypto, Elevate Ventures, OKX Blockdream, Mirana Ventures, and NGC Ventures. On November 12, Nodepay announced an airdrop for users holding the “Proof of Humanhood” badge. Recently, the Nodepay mobile app has performed well in app stores, with high user activity, ranking among the top 200 in the app store.

The participation method is similar to the aforementioned projects. Users can simply download the plugin and run it in the background to earn points.

Nexus Network

Nexus Network is a large-scale parallel proof mining network and a decentralized cloud computing network. It is a world-class instantiation of the Nexus zkVM, designed to operate at a speed of one trillion CPU cycles per second. The Nexus zkVM (zero-knowledge virtual machine) is currently in its 1.0 phase and is a modular, scalable, open-source, highly parallelized, verification-optimized, and contributor-friendly zkVM, written in Rust, with a focus on high performance and security.

Nexus has completed two funding rounds, raising a total of $27.2 million. In June of this year, Nexus raised $25 million in Series A funding, led by Pantera and LightSpeed, with participation from Dragonfly Capital, Faction Ventures, and Blockchain Builders Fund, among others.

The initial Beta version of Nexus Network is now live, which is a distributed validator network based on the zero-knowledge virtual machine and is accessible to anyone. Nexus aims to unlock a verifiable internet by uniting computers worldwide to form a single supercomputer.

To participate, simply enter the Beta testnet and click “Connect.” It’s important to note that since the wallet is not yet linked, clearing your browser cache may result in losing your points.

Other inventory

Multiple Network

Multiple Network is a decentralized privacy acceleration network that leverages idle bandwidth from distributed nodes to enable anonymous communication and high-speed encrypted data transmission. The project completed a $2 million seed funding round in the first half of 2024, led by OKX Ventures, with participation from NGC, Youbi, Stratified, Puzzle, CatcherVC, Bitrise, and others. A new Series A funding round has now begun. The first phase of the testnet launched in August this year, with 20.67k global nodes. Currently, the product supports Windows and Linux systems, with other versions to be launched soon.

At present, only whitelisted users can participate. Whitelists can be obtained through social tasks and event participation. After receiving the whitelist, users can earn an airdrop reward worth 400-600 U by running the software for 500 hours. According to the official Twitter announcement, the public beta will soon be fully open. The official guide for participation is available here: https://multiple-network.gitbook.io/multiple-network-gitbook/introduction/multiple-node-participation-guide.

Network3

Network3 is a decentralized AI infrastructure that allows users to share bandwidth, computing power, datasets, and more to provide inference, fine-tuning, and training services for edge AI models, earning token incentives in return. Network3 currently supports mining on all major systems, including Mac, Windows, Android, iOS, and Linux. The project has raised $5.5 million in funding, with investors such as Waterdrop Capital and IoTex participating. The first round of mining machine pre-sales began in August, with estimates suggesting that the initial mining machines will break even in approximately 120 days.

Uplink

Uplink is a decentralized physical infrastructure network that primarily provides decentralized network connectivity, aiming to create better distributed and user-operated infrastructure. Users can become providers by installing hardware compatible with Uplink’s network for their own communities or business locations, directly profiting from its usage. Its business model is similar to DAWN. The project has raised $10 million in funding, led by Framework, with participation from Blockchange, Outlier, NxGen, Stratos, and others. Additionally, the project has previously partnered with Ericsson, Deutsche Telekom, and E.ON. The mining client has not yet been launched, and users can only earn points by completing social tasks.

BlockMesh Network

BlockMesh is a decentralized bandwidth network project that allows users to tokenize excess bandwidth, providing passive income opportunities while enabling participation in AI data layers, online privacy, open-source projects, and the blockchain industry. The project also won first place in the DePIN track at a hackathon and has formed a partnership with the exchange BackPack.

PinGo

PinGo is an AI and DePIN project on the TON network, aimed at addressing the fragmentation and underutilization of idle computing resources, providing the computational foundation for building AI models. PinGo originally started as Cpin, a Web2 company, with nearly 100,000 devices. These devices will eventually be integrated into its own DePIN network. As one of the few DePIN projects in the TON ecosystem, PinGo completed its seed funding round in October, with investors including CGV, CatcherVC, T-Fund, K24, and LandScape. Currently, it supports only Android and Linux systems.

Oasis AI

Oasis AI is an AI inference project and a GPU computing power sharing mining project, designed to meet the growing demand for open-source model inference. Oasis connects AI model users and computing resource providers through a browser extension. Users can access and run open-source AI models for free, such as chat assistants, image generators, and speech-to-text tools. Meanwhile, computing resource providers can earn tokens by sharing GPU or CPU resources. The platform currently supports Windows, Mac, and Linux systems, and users can earn the OAI token simply by running the software in the background.

Functor Network

Functor Network is an autonomous layer for AI agents. It can automatically execute complex and data-intensive tasks, aiming to create a world securely assisted by AI agents. The team boasts strong technical expertise, with the CEO having won 8 hackathon awards and being one of the founding members of H.E.R DAO. The project is still in its early stages, and users can mine by downloading the plugin and running it in the background. Registration grants users an initial 200 FUNC tokens.

Teneo

Teneo is a DePIN IP mining project. It appears to originate from the same team behind the Eloop One project. The team members are primarily based in Europe, and the network operates in Vienna, Austria, though its investment and funding background are unclear. Users can register to receive 2,500 points and can earn rewards by downloading the plugin and running it in the background.

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