Deep Dive: Solana DePIN - July 2024

Note: Below is the text-accessible version of this post for visually impaired readers.

Part I: Solana AI, Compute, & Data

Render saw an ATH in tokens migrated to Solana. This spike was driven by major exchanges like Binance and MEXC upgrading the Render token to the Solana version.

Nosana hit an ATH in both active GPU operators and rewards distributed. Nosana exhibited an almost 8x increase from Dec 2023 in both metrics and plans to continue onboarding new operators to their Test Grid, growing the network.

Nosana's monthly inferences have stabilized in the 100k range. Currently all inferences are run by the Nosana team to stress test onboarded GPUs, a critical step as the protocol forms new partnerships.

Kuzco GPU supply has taken off. Kuzco is a decentralized GPU cluster on Solana that offers scalable and cost-effective inference for large language models (LLMs). Since its launch in early March, Kuzco has grown 18x in online GPUs, reaching 8,500 by the end of July.

Kuzco's daily points payouts doubled in just one month. Kuzco's daily points surged from an average of 2.3B in June to 4.3B by July, reflecting significant growth in both the number of workers and the volume of inferences made by the network.

Notable July Developments:

Render: Render has been included in Grayscale's newest investment product, Grayscale Decentralized AI Fund.

Nosana: Nosana forged two new partnerships with PiKNiK and theoriq.

Grass:

1. New Product Release: Desktop Node
2. Final epoch for the closed beta began.

Shaga: Shaga has attracted 51k users into their quests where users can earn points daily.

UpRock: UpRock announced two partnerships with DATSProject and Hawksight.

io.net: io.net announced two new partnerships with SharpeLabs and Envision.

Part II: Wireless

Helium Mobile's demand economy exhibited healthy growth. Helium Mobile saw a 60% increase in new subscribers for July and a 14% increase in Mobile Data Credits (DC) burned.

Helium is steadily onboarding new Mobile and IoT hotspots, though at a slower pace than winter highs. Mobile hotspots onboarded experienced a 28% July increase, while IoT growth has stalled.

Active Helium Mobile contributors have risen significantly in 2024, closing the gap on the broader IoT user base.

Dabba Network has deployed 1,577 hotspots and connected 26,480 devices across three cities in India. Dabba Network applied to Jupiter's LFG Launchpad, foreshadowing a future token.

Part III: Mapping

Hivemapper has shown its most consistent four-month stretch of map data demand yet. Hivemapper sells map data to both developers and enterprise customers, resulting in fluctuating monthly demand with large spikes driven by enterprise sales. In July, Hivemapper burned $21k worth of HONEY tokens, an increase of 7% from June.

Hivemapper has set another retention ATH. Out of over 8,000 new contributors in May, 64% continued to contribute after two months, while June's one-month retention rate remained strong at 66%.

Hivemapper rewards map coverage data more than all other activities combined. In July, map coverage made up 67% of rewards distributed.