Hot on the heels of DePIN Denver (okay, ETHDenver…), the Hotspotty Team is back in the office, eager to report back to you. It was an awesome few days in Colorado, and we’ve got plenty of juicy insights to share 📢

In this issue

🏅 DePIN Hub Leaderboards
🚨 Special Offer: Aethir's Initial Node Offering!
📰 In The News
🐳 ETHDenver Wrap Up
🎙️ Podcast Updates
👋 Parting Words

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DePIN Hub Leaderboards 🏅

Growth statistics of some standout DePIN projects based on social metrics and token price

🚨 Special Offer 🚨

Aethir, the platform supporting the exciting new APhone, is set to launch its much anticipated Initial Node Offering. Now is your chance to get in on the action and contribute to this powerful enterprise-grade GPU infrastructure platform that’s tailor-made for the resource intensive demands of AI and gaming.

The public sale for their Checker Nodes launches on March 20 at 10 AM UTC. Checker Nodes ensure the integrity and performance of Containers within the Aethir network and are one of the three fundamental components of the Aethir Network backend infrastructure.

This is the first chance for the community to get involved in Aethir mining. With the relentless demand for GPUs driven by the rise of AI, this is a project worth gaining exposure to. To give you an idea of why we’re feeling bullish on this one - Render and Akash make up 2 of the top 5 DePIN projects by market cap. Guess what? Aethir has deployed 31x more infrastructure capital than both networks combined! 🤯😱🤯😱

There are 100,000 Checker Nodes going on sale, which can be purchased using wETH on the Arbitrum network. You’ll receive an Aethir NFT that represents your Node License. There’s no limit to the number of nodes you can purchase, but there is a rising multi-tier sales dynamic in play, so early birds get the best prices! 👀

For all you diehard DePIN Hub readers, we’ve arranged a special discount with Aethir to give you 10% off your purchase! Use this link: Aethir 10% OFF

And if you’d like to learn more about Aethir and the opportunities that await within this powerful GPU network, check out the DePIN Hub podcast interview with Aethir Founder Mark Rydon. Click Here!

In The News 📰

Bitcoin breaks through 2021’s all-time high! 📈

The significant $69K milestone was celebrated best by an OG Bitcoin miner who took the opportunity to sell 1,000 bitcoins, mined way back in 2010!

Congrats to this seriously patient hodler! 💎

Wicrypt launches the Wicrypt Agent campaign

The Wicrypt Agent campaign, provides extra incentives for bulk orders and additional rewards funded by the Arbitrum Foundation grant program.

What’s Wicrypt you ask? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with this recent blog post: 🔗 Solving Last Mile Internet Connectivity with Wicrypt

Feature

ETHDenver Wrap Up 🐳

Crypto faithfuls descended yet again on Colorado last month. Amidst the hype of an imminent crypto bull run, one particular narrative took the city of Denver by storm: DePIN 🌪️

With Bitcoin itching to break its previous all-time high price, sentiment was high, and rightly so for the builders who have braved the bear market and worked so hard to attach real-world utility to blockchain infrastructure.

DePIN Hub was represented by none other than Hotspotty Co-founder Daniel Andrade and Head of Growth Michael Sothan.

It was a wild week with tons of events and project announcements, so here’s a quick recap of what went down in Denver.

ETHDenver 2024

Every year since 2018, Denver converts into a crypto lover’s paradise, with the convention continuing to grow in size and popularity year on year. It’s a great place to network and learn about new trends and projects in the crypto space. With talks and summits revolving around a variety of blockchain topics, such as Bitcoin, Solana and Polkadot, the convention’s scope is not limited purely to Ethereum.

Ethereum does of course make up for the vast majority of discussion on hand, and this year’s event saw lots of hype surrounding DeFi, restaking, liquid staking derivatives, and Web3 social applications.

Yet despite ETHDenver being a traditionally more DeFi focused event, the DePIN narrative has become so hot that it felt more like…

DePIN Denver 🚀

And the proof is in the pudding.

Whereas ETHDenver only offered 1 DePIN event last year, we saw at least 10 DePIN-related events in this year's edition. It was a busy schedule for those involved and interested in the DePIN space. Our very own DePIN maestro Daniel Andrade was invited to speak at 3 events.

R3al World was a jam packed, full-day DePIN event put on by the IoTeX team on Feb 28th.

Daniel had the opportunity to join a panel with the good folks from EV3, FutureMoney Ventures and Stanford Blockchain Accelerator to discuss “How to scale a DePIN project from 0 to 100”. You can check out that particular discussion, along with the rest of the day’s presentations on the IoTeX YouTube channel.

As far as DePIN is concerned, this was definitely one of the highlights of ETHDenver and the early reports from the attendees are that R3al World was a resounding success. 🚀

“R3al World was absolutely incredible, we're still riding a high! Thank you so much for your hard work and bringing your energy to the event. We've heard nothing but positive feedback, and we would not have been able to do it without all the sponsors, speakers, and projects making it a memorable experience for all. In total there were 2,000+ registrations, 800+ attendees, and 1,600+ views on the livestream and counting.” (Jing Sun, Co-Founder of IoTeX)

A couple of days later, Meson Network, together with co-host OKX Wallet, put on yet another awesome event called DePIN Summer.

Daniel was on stage to share his thoughts, this time on the topic of “Spotting the Next 100x Coin in the DePIN Sphere”. He was accompanied on the panel by an all-star lineup of DePIN experts, including Sota Watanabe, Founder of Astar Network, aka the Vitalik of Japan. Sota placed emphasis on the importance of ensuring demand alongside consumer adoption and mentioned they are partnering with Sony for different use cases.

News and announcements

It wouldn’t be a proper convention without some news and announcements, and on the DePIN side, there were a few interesting things of note.

Perhaps most significant was the announcement of a $100M DePIN fund by Borderless Capital.

This was announced on stage at R3al World, where they reiterated their commitment to IoTeX and the DePIN Surf Accelerator program.

Aethir showcased their revolutionary APhone product, a groundbreaking cloud-based smartphone solution that unlocks limitless storage and powerful processing. The virtual phone solution launched on Solana and is made possible thanks to Aethir's decentralized GPU cloud. ☁️

If you want exposure to the infrastructure upside, have we got an exciting opportunity for you! See the Special Offer above to learn about Aethir's much anticipated Node Sale! 🔥🔥🔥

This one feels reminiscent of when we first got our hands on Helium gateways in 2020. Not to be missed!

If you want to find out more about Aethir, check out our recent podcast interview with Founder Mark Rydon.

ATOR moved yet another step further to its highly anticipated mainnet launch as the team allowed users to collect their ATOR Relays in Denver. 🚀

And speaking of ATOR, March 15th is the last day to claim your rewards if you were selected in our recent $ATOR giveaway! 🤑

ICYMI, Hotspotty partnered up with ATOR to give away 500 $ATOR tokens to 5 lucky readers (100 each). So make sure you stay subscribed and tuned in, as there’ll be plenty more opportunities like that coming your way 👀

Finally, Hotspotty met up with Jesse Adams, founder of the scorching hot DePIN project UpRock, where they learned of their candidacy in Jupiter's LFG Launchpad. Their candidacy was alongside another well-known DePIN name - Srcful. 🔥

Crypto’s getting political

We all know that crypto’s becoming more politicized, especially in the US. It’s not that surprising to hear the occasional Bitcoin sound bite from presidential candidates on the news these days.

What is surprising though is to see them setting up stands at crypto conferences, trying to win the hearts (and votes) of the blockchain brigade.

Here’s a pic we snapped of the Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. campaign booth and at ETHDenver.

Our key takeaways

There was a lot of hype, enthusiasm and information to absorb from this busy week in Denver, but several key insights were apparent to us:
🤔 Following the explosion of interest in AI over the last year, it’s no surprise that decentralized AI and compute is becoming a hot crypto narrative. But don’t forget DePIN. With all the data being produced by various DePIN sensors, DePIN + AI is a match made in heaven. 🤖
🤔 Demand is the key driver for success. You can have the best tokenomics whitepaper in the world but if there’s no demand for your service, your project is bound to fail. ☠️
🤔 The DePIN space is still in its infancy and has the potential to ride through several more bull/bear cycles. Now is the time for collaboration between projects, with the focus on building and maintaining a rock solid industry. 🤝
🤔 There was a very strong showing from Asia, mainly on the investment and hardware side. 🌏
🤔 Most importantly, everywhere we went, the DePIN Hub brand was known far and wide, and every project we spoke to was eager to get listed on the site. DePIN Hub remains the one-stop shop for all your DePIN news and metrics. 🚀

That’s a wrap from DePIN Denver 2024!

Having grown from a single DePIN-flavored event last year, to at least 10 this year, the interest in decentralized physical infrastructure is clearly there. The bull run is on our doorstep, projects are shipping and the growth is real. 🌱

Just imagine where we’ll be in 2025! 💪

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DePIN Hub Podcast🎙️

Brought to you by Peaq Network, harnessing the home of DePIN projects! 🚀

👁️‍🗨️ Do you want to unlock a new era of digital freedom?

In this episode, you'll Neuratic and DNB Wizard from ATOR, the world's largest decentralized network for internet privacy. 🔒

🏅👨‍🚀 Buy NFT (required to get an ATOR miner!)

👀 Check out ATOR's website

👁️ Check the project on DePIN Hub

༄ The next week, we had Manolis Nikiforakis, CEO and CoFounder of WeatherXM, to talk about how they will disrupt the weather industry by building the biggest sensor network ever built!

📦 If you’re interested in grabbing your own weather miner, head over to the WeatherXM shop to order your station 🌧️🌦️🌤️☀️

👁️ Check the project on DePIN Hub

DePIN Hub Telegram Group 💬

🔔 Join our new DePIN Hub Telegram group for the latest updates and vibrant community discussions! Join now at https://t.me/depinhub! 🚀🤝

Parting Words 👋

A rising tide lifts all boats (and clothes irons).

Yours in Decentralization,
The Hotspotty Team

#009 - ETHDenver Wrap Up 🐳

#008 - How to Scale a DePIN Hobby to a $50K per Month Side Hustle👷‍♂️

#009 - ETHDenver Wrap Up 🐳

#008 - How to Scale a DePIN Hobby to a $50K per Month Side Hustle👷‍♂️