The Grandma Test: When Your Mom Can Use DePIN, Mass Adoption Has Arrived

Mass adoption doesn't hap erstwhile crypto enthusiasts commencement utilizing the technology: it happens erstwhile your grandma does it without adjacent realizing it, argues Uplink co-founder Carlos Lei.

Dec 6, 2025, 3:00 p.m.

In a cleanable world, the net works similar pat water: you crook it on, and it flows. Seamlessly. Nobody truly wants to deliberation astir a ‘better transportation spot,’ SIM cards, oregon the nearest compartment towers. Users conscionable privation a fast, unchangeable transportation wherever they are. The bully happening is they’re softly getting it without adjacent knowing it.

The net we person is breached (and expensive)

Traditional telecom infrastructure is dense and expensive. Every operation requires a tract lease, permits, maintenance, and marketing. Every enlargement takes months oregon years (of some operation and reddish tape) and tin cost from $5 cardinal to $100 million, which means installing adjacent 1 tiny compartment operation tin drain a business’s finances by up to $300,000.

In this system, we’re not truly paying for the gigabytes we usage — we're paying for the bureaucracy built astir them.

This strategy doesn’t marque economical consciousness anymore. Telecom companies tin nary longer spend to walk billions connected connections that don’t amended and go harder and harder to support with much users each implicit the globe.

The bully quality is that a amended alternative is already successful people’s homes and devices, adjacent though you don’t spot it connected billboards.

DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) is turning the Wi-Fi routers astir you into a caller benignant of connectivity.

From towers to routers

According to crypto plus manager Grayscale, DePIN is already wide used successful day-to-day life, and the institution calls it a “significant” concern opportunity.

Why? DePIN takes a software-first approach, meaning it uses what already exists. A lightweight app oregon firmware update turns a regular Wi-Fi router into a tiny portion of a bigger network. When you’re nearby, your instrumentality automatically connects done that router.

With DePIN’s rising popularity, radical and businesses are already implementing it: Nodle, a smartphone-based DePIN, turns smartphones into web nodes that relay IoT information implicit existing mobile infrastructure, portion Helium Mobile relies connected community-deployed hotspots and tiny cells to widen 5G sum and offload postulation for spouse carriers successful US cities.

In dense metropolis blocks, DePIN-style networks are being utilized to transportation sum holes that accepted mobile infrastructure struggles to reach.

Another illustration extracurricular Wi-Fi is DIMO, a DePIN web for connected cars that allows drivers to stock conveyance information portion keeping power implicit it and earning rewards. By 2025, its web counted astir 425,000 connected vehicles, implicit 300 apps built connected apical of its data, and astir $1.5 cardinal worthy of cars streaming accusation into the protocol. That benignant of standard shows DePIN is already reaching mundane drivers, not conscionable crypto insiders.

DePIN startups person onboarded millions of radical to their platforms and are adding tens of thousands of users daily. Last June alone, the industry’s market cap was estimated to beryllium $25 cardinal and is projected to scope $3.5 trillion by 2028.

Behind the scenes, DePIN runs connected a elemental economical plan with a web token that coordinates incentives and settlements betwixt routers (“nodes”) and unchangeable web credits that guarantee predictable pricing for telecom and endeavor users.

For telecom companies, DePIN is simply a cost-efficiency engine. Offloading postulation to section Wi-Fi nodes reduces the outgo per gigabyte, particularly indoors and during highest hours.

Network offloading is thing new. Data shows platforms that realized the advantages of offloading person been doing it for years, with experts describing the process arsenic “crucial to alleviate the expanding demands connected web infrastructure.”

But task superior steadfast a16z crypto believes that DePIN exists beyond telecom. In a caller report, it outlined AI, healthcare, energy, transportation, and robotics arsenic different sectors that DePIN tin revolutionize.

Wi-Fi arsenic a gross stream

All implicit the world, radical moving co-working spaces oregon tiny offices are present using Wi-Fi arsenic a mode to nutrient much gross streams for themselves. Because erstwhile the economics enactment up for everyone involved, exertion doesn’t conscionable spread, it sticks.

If your net astatine the airdrome abruptly cuts retired connected the impermanent portal, your telephone successful a buying promenade automatically finds faster Wi-Fi, and the evening transportation lag astatine location conscionable disappears, chances are you’ve already utilized DePIN. You didn’t instal a wallet oregon bargain a token; the web simply chose the nearest node and routed your postulation the shorter, cheaper way.

Using Wi-Fi arsenic a gross watercourse benefits everyone involved. For users, it means less dormant zones, smoother connections, and little bills. For venue owners, Wi-Fi stops being a sunk outgo and starts generating income. For operators, sum becomes flexible, fast, and cost-efficient.

When adoption is truly here

Technology reaches maturity erstwhile radical halt talking astir it. No 1 says, “I’m utilizing TCP/IP” oregon “this app runs connected the cloud.” They conscionable usage it.

Mass adoption doesn't hap erstwhile crypto enthusiasts commencement utilizing it. It happens erstwhile your grandma does it without adjacent realizing it. And she already does.

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