It goes without saying that 2025 has been a challenging year for cryptocurrency investors.
In the depths of this bear market, you may have started to wonder if the industry is indeed dying, or if this is just a temporary lull in which opportunities abound.
After watching the DePIN Coffee Hour with Bradley from DePIN Connection and Neil from Hivello, you may come to the conclusion that the latter is true.
Topics covered on the show included decentralized approaches to robotics (AUKI), location (Geodnet), and the collection of 3D geospatial data (ROVR), all of which we will briefly cover below.
AUKI
The first problem with standard GPS is that it doesn't well work indoors. Secondly, it is only accurate to within a few meters.
AUKI, which we covered in a previous article, is building a standard for the indoor navigation that autonomous humanoid robots need.
It was mentioned in the show that AUKI has been working with grocery stores on a product called Cactus, a spatial AI platform that uses AR and AI to optimize indoor navigation.
You can get more information about AUKI in their Discord.
Geodnet
Via a decentralized RTK (Real-Time Kinematic) network, Geodnet can provide more precise (1-2cm) location data than standard GPS.
Geodnet's highly precise location data can be used for things like drones, agriculture (crop spraying), and robot lawnmowers.
The community has already deployed 20,000+ base stations worldwide, and they are earning GEOD tokens for maintaining them. As location data is sold, GEOD tokens are bought off the market and burned.
One benefit of the current bear market is that the low price of GEOD results in more tokens to be burned, creating more scarcity.
Geodnet has been integrated into other DePIN projects including Wingbits and ROVR for location verification.
Peaq
Peaq is a Polkadot based blockchain that facilitates machine identification and payment rails, allowing autonomous robots to send payments to each other.
Neil mentioned that the number of machine IDs on Peaq surged earlier this year.
ROVR
By attaching a LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) device to their cars, drivers earn ROVR tokens for helping to build out 3D geospatial maps.
ROVR uses Geodnet to get precise location as the data is generated.
Hivemapper & Natix Network
In the case of Hivemapper, drivers install a dashcam to collect street imagery and earn HONEY tokens for uploading it to the network.
Hivemapper has partnered with the likes of Volkswagen and Lyft, and has built-in connectivity via OG DePIN project Helium.
HONEY buybacks are now transparent. Revenue generation helps to offset token sell-offs, as fundamentals become tied to token price.
If not collecting street-level data via their smartphone app, Natix Network has a device for Teslas (VX360), which allows drivers to monetize the data their vehicle is collecting.
Other projects briefly covered on the show were RiceAI (which apparently shares an office with AUKI) and XMaquina.
Until next time...
We need to ask ourselves the question - do we want a handful of corporations to own all the vehicle and drone fleets that run our future world, or do we want to build the maps, own the sensors, and hold the tokens that power these networks, so that we all have a seat at the table of this next productivity revolution?
If you learned something new from this article, be sure to check out my other posts on crypto and finance here on the Hive blockchain. You can also follow me on InLeo for more frequent updates.
Sources
DePIN Coffee Hour Podcast [1]