DePIN uses blockchain and crypto incentives to coordinate and maintain real-world hardware networks like storage, wireless, energy, and sensors through peer-to-peer participation rather than centralized networks.
The sector now represents roughly $10 billion in circulating market capitalization and generated an estimated $72 million in on-chain revenue in 2025. Leading revenue-generating DePIN networks trade at approximately 10-25 times revenue, a contrast with valuation multiples exceeding 1,000 times revenue during the 2021 market cycle.
“DePIN is being forced into fundamentals,” Markus Levin, co-founder of DePIN project XYO, told Decrypt. “When token prices are flat, the only thing that matters is whether someone is actually paying for the service, and whether the network can sustain itself without subsidies. That shift is healthy.”
The Messari report argues that only a narrow set of strategies remain viable for sustainably scaling DePIN projects. One of them is an alternative financing model, such as InfraFi and relying on speculative capital during bull markets.
InfraFi, which seeks to finance physical infrastructure using crypto-native capital such as stablecoins, is emerging as one potential path forward. With more than $175 billion in stablecoins outstanding, early InfraFi deployments suggest DePIN assets could attract yield-seeking capital, though the model introduces new credit, duration and regulatory risks and remains in its early stages.
Dylan Bane, a senior research analyst at Messari and the report author, told Decrypt that DePIN can increase its reputation by generating sustainable revenue from selling valuable resources to the market. “In favorable market conditions such 'gimmicks' [partnerships, ecosystems and community] can actually help accelerate the build out of supply side growth, but the newly added supply must generate corresponding revenue for the DePIN to be viable," he said.
"In our view, DePINs should not abandon these supply side growth strategies but at the same time must prioritize finding [product-market fit] on the demand side."
DePIN is also intersecting with growing demand from artificial intelligence companies.
Levin said AI developers have increasing needs for compute, storage and especially verifiable real-world data, which some DePIN networks are positioned to supply. Over time, he said, AI buyers are likely to focus less on decentralization as an ideology and more on outcomes such as cost, reliability, and data provenance.
Despite weak public token performance, private investment into the sector remains active. DePIN startups raised approximately $1 billion in 2025, largely at the seed and Series A stages, signaling continued private-market conviction even as public markets price in limited survival for many projects.
Bane and Levin differ on whether 2026 will represent a new record for investment, with Bane telling Decrypt there were “no obvious catalysts to increase investment this year,” while Levin predicted an influx of funds driven by DePIN “starting to look financeable.”
“Now you’re seeing more diligence around unit economics, payback periods, and whether revenue holds up when incentives taper,” he said. “When investors can point to real demand, recurring revenue, and clearer paths to scaling capex, they write bigger checks.”
