7 DePIN Projects Generating $10M+ Revenue (And What You Can Learn From Them)
Most DePIN projects 2026 are still burning through token incentives without generating meaningful revenue. But seven decentralized infrastructure networks have cracked the code, building real businesses that generate $10 million or more in annual recurring revenue from actual customers paying for services.
The data tells a striking story: While thousands of DePIN projects chase token-driven growth, companies like Aethir are generating $166 million ARR by serving enterprise AI workloads, and Helium has attracted 541,000 paying mobile subscribers through carrier partnerships with T-Mobile and AT&T. These aren't speculative metrics—they're auditable revenue streams that institutional investors can evaluate using traditional business fundamentals.
What separates these revenue leaders from the pack? They solved real market problems that generate willingness-to-pay from non-crypto buyers, designed tokenomics where rewards align with actual usage, and secured enterprise validation before scaling supply. They shifted focus from deployment metrics (nodes, hotspots, contributors) to business metrics (ARR, gross margins, customer retention).
This analysis examines seven DePIN projects that have crossed the $10 million revenue threshold, revealing the specific tactics, partnerships, and business model decisions that drove their success. Whether you're building decentralized infrastructure or marketing to enterprise clients, these case studies provide a blueprint for transforming crypto experiments into sustainable businesses that institutional capital can confidently back.
1. Aethir (ATH) – Leading DePIN Projects 2026 in GPU Computing
Aethir operates the largest decentralized GPU compute platform, connecting enterprise AI workloads with distributed infrastructure across 93 countries. The network delivers AI training and inference services at 70% lower cost than AWS while maintaining enterprise-grade reliability.
Aethir has achieved what most DePIN projects only promise: massive enterprise adoption with verified revenue. The platform generated $166 million ARR in Q3 2025—a 13x year-over-year increase that rivals hypergrowth SaaS companies. For institutional investors, this represents direct proof that decentralized infrastructure can capture meaningful market share from hyperscalers in high-margin AI compute markets.
Three factors drive Aethir's success. First, the platform operates 435,000+ GPU containers including 3,000+ premium H100/H200 units, creating the scale needed to serve enterprise workloads. Second, it maintains 99.31% uptime guarantees through geographic distribution and redundancy—meeting enterprise SLA requirements that traditional DePIN projects struggle with. Third, Aethir's 6.1% revenue-to-market cap ratio leads the industry in capital efficiency, indicating sustainable unit economics rather than speculative valuations.
The platform serves 150+ enterprise clients including AI labs, gaming studios, and telecommunications companies that require consistent compute capacity. One major gaming studio reduced rendering costs by 65% while improving deployment speed, demonstrating real operational benefits beyond cost savings.
The primary consideration is enterprise customer concentration risk, though Aethir's quarterly growth acceleration (22% QoQ in Q3 2025) suggests expanding demand across multiple verticals rather than dependence on a few large contracts.
2. Grass (GRASS) – Decentralized AI Data Collection Network
Grass operates a decentralized bandwidth aggregation network that monetizes unused internet capacity from over 8.5 million users globally, selling AI training data access to major technology companies. Users simply install a lightweight application that passively shares idle bandwidth while earning GRASS tokens.
This project addresses the critical AI training data shortage that's driving competition among hyperscalers. With 90 TB of data scraped daily, Grass has built essential infrastructure for the AI economy while creating a distribution moat that traditional data brokers cannot replicate. The $33 million annualized revenue validates strong enterprise demand for decentralized data collection.
Key characteristics that drive Grass's success include zero-friction user onboarding requiring just three clicks to activate, geographic diversification across 8.5 million nodes preventing data concentration risks, and transparent revenue sharing plans with node operators creating sustainable incentive alignment. The project's 21.3x market cap to revenue multiple significantly undervalues it compared to peers like Helium (265x) or Akash (334x).
Leonardo AI and other enterprise customers rely on Grass's distributed network to collect training data that would be prohibitively expensive through traditional methods. The frictionless participation model—users don't stake capital or manage hardware—enabled rapid scaling from 2 million to 8.5 million users in just six months.
The main consideration is regulatory uncertainty around data collection practices, though enterprise customer adoption suggests compliance frameworks are manageable at scale.
3. io.net – Successful DePIN Projects for AI Compute
io.net operates a transparent GPU marketplace that aggregates compute power from independent providers and delivers it to AI developers at 70% lower cost than AWS. The platform has crossed $20 million in cumulative network earnings with $2.5 million monthly revenue by mid-2025, putting it on track for $30+ million ARR.
io.net solves the fundamental compute bottleneck facing AI companies while providing unprecedented revenue transparency. All earnings are verified on-chain, eliminating the audit risk that plagues traditional infrastructure investments. The platform's enterprise customer base—including Leonardo AI (owned by Canva) and UC Berkeley—demonstrates product-market fit with recognizable brands that investors can validate independently.
The network operates 101,000+ unique GPU workers across 130+ countries, ranging from enterprise-grade H200s to consumer 4090s. This hardware diversity creates resilience against supply chain disruptions while the geographic distribution reduces regulatory concentration risk. The platform has distributed 49 million $IO tokens to providers, creating a sustainable incentive structure that scales with demand.
Leonardo AI's adoption is particularly significant—Canva's AI subsidiary processes millions of image generation requests daily, requiring enterprise-grade reliability and cost efficiency. This validates that decentralized compute can meet demanding production workloads, not just experimental AI training.
The main consideration is market competition from other GPU aggregators like Aethir, though io.net's transparency model and on-chain verification provide a unique positioning advantage for institutional capital seeking auditable infrastructure investments.
4. Helium (HNT) – Top Revenue DePIN Projects in Wireless
Helium operates a decentralized infrastructure network for IoT and mobile devices through community-deployed hotspots, having evolved into a full MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) offering $20/month mobile plans and carrier offloading services. The network has shifted from primarily IoT applications to mainstream mobile connectivity with direct carrier partnerships.
This transformation demonstrates how DePIN projects can achieve mainstream adoption beyond crypto-native users. Major carrier partnerships with T-Mobile, AT&T, and Telefónica validate that traditional telecommunications companies view decentralized networks as legitimate infrastructure alternatives rather than experimental technology.
Revenue Performance: Helium generates $18.3 million annualized revenue with the steepest growth trajectory among all DePIN infrastructure projects, showing 196.6% quarter-over-quarter growth in daily Data Credit burns. The network serves 541,000+ mobile subscribers and peaks at 1.7 million daily active users.
Network Utilization: The platform processed 5,451 TB of data offload in Q3 2025 alone, doubling quarter-over-quarter as enterprises and consumers increasingly rely on the network for actual connectivity rather than speculative farming.
Tokenomics Alignment: Helium implemented a 100% revenue burn mechanism in 2024, where every dollar of network revenue directly reduces HNT token supply through Data Credit purchases, creating immediate alignment between business growth and token value.
Enterprise adoption accelerated throughout 2025 as traditional carriers discovered they could offload traffic to Helium's network at significantly lower costs than building additional tower infrastructure. The combination of real mobile subscribers, carrier validation, and transparent revenue burns positions Helium as the leading example of Web3 infrastructure serving Web2 customers at scale.
5. Filecoin (FIL) – Decentralized Storage Network
Filecoin operates the world's largest decentralized storage network, incentivizing users to provide hard drive space for immutable data storage. After seven years of operation, the network reached a critical milestone in March 2025 when paid storage exceeded self-mined data, representing 51% of total network capacity.
Filecoin's maturation from miner-driven to demand-driven represents proof that decentralized infrastructure can achieve sustainable unit economics. The network now generates an estimated $10-15 million in annual recurring revenue, with enterprise customers paying $0.009/GB/month—39% of AWS pricing including staking costs. This pricing advantage, combined with immutable storage guarantees, appeals to enterprises requiring long-term data retention.
Three developments signal institutional readiness: First, AI companies now contribute 120 PB of monthly storage growth, representing 35% of network expansion as hyperscalers seek cost-effective training data repositories. Second, the effective storage data ratio improved to 65% in April 2025, up from just 1% in 2022, indicating real customer usage rather than speculative mining. Third, successful data retrievals increased 388% year-over-year, demonstrating the network's evolution from "storage proving" to "storage serving."
Enterprise partnerships span AI platforms, identity verification firms, and SaaS companies integrating decentralized storage for compliance and cost reduction. The recent introduction of Proof of Data Possession and Fast Finality upgrades provides the technical reliability enterprise customers demand.
The primary consideration is growth velocity—while Filecoin demonstrates proven sustainability and regulatory clarity, its growth rate lags newer projects like Aethir or Grass in the current AI infrastructure boom.
6. Akash Network (AKT) – Decentralized Cloud Compute
Akash operates a reverse-auction marketplace where GPU and CPU providers bid competitively for compute jobs from developers, delivering 70% cost savings versus traditional cloud providers. The platform generates $4.3 million ARR through a sustainable fee structure that distributes network revenue directly to AKT token holders.
While Akash falls below our $10 million threshold, it earns inclusion as the most capital-efficient DePIN project with proven unit economics that institutional investors can model confidently. The platform's focus on developer adoption rather than retail token farming reduces regulatory exposure while creating sticky enterprise demand for AI training and inference workloads.
Three factors distinguish Akash's business model: The reverse-auction mechanism ensures market-based pricing that consistently undercuts AWS and Google Cloud. Token holders receive dividend-like payments from network fees, creating direct revenue participation without relying on speculative appreciation. The platform targets developers building AI applications, generating higher-value compute jobs than consumer-focused alternatives.
Real-world traction comes from AI labs and Web3 developers who use Akash for model training at fraction of hyperscaler costs. The 4% fee on AKT payments and 20% fee on USDC transactions demonstrate diversified pricing power across payment methods.
The key consideration for infrastructure founders: Akash proves that mature tokenomics with revenue-sharing mechanisms can attract institutional capital even at smaller scale. The project's $492 million market cap relative to $4.3 million ARR suggests investors value the sustainable business model and replicable marketplace structure over pure revenue magnitude.
7. Hivemapper (HONEY) – DePIN Case Studies: What Not to Do
Hivemapper incentivizes users to collect street-level imagery via dashcams and smartphones, creating a decentralized alternative to Google Maps with contributors earning HONEY tokens for mapping data. The project represents a critical cautionary tale in DePIN economics despite achieving impressive technical milestones.
This project serves as a negative case study demonstrating how supply-driven growth without demand validation leads to rapid collapse. Despite mapping 33% of global roads and securing Lyft as an enterprise customer, Hivemapper's revenue crashed 94% from $195,000 monthly (December 2024) to just $6-12,000 by March 2025.
The technical achievement is undeniable: 7,040 contributors at peak mapped 139 million kilometers across global road networks, with 75% token burn mechanics ensuring deflationary tokenomics when developers purchase map data. Lyft's adoption validates the core use case—businesses will pay for accurate, real-time mapping data as an alternative to Google's expensive APIs.
The fundamental flaw was scaling contributor incentives before validating enterprise demand at scale. While mapping data represents a proven multi-billion dollar market (Google generates substantial revenue from Maps), Hivemapper discovered that one enterprise customer cannot sustain an entire network economy designed for thousands of contributors.
Infrastructure founders should note that technical excellence and even enterprise adoption don't guarantee sustainable unit economics—demand must scale proportionally with supply incentives to maintain network stability.
DePIN Projects 2026: Key Takeaways for Success
The DePIN projects generating meaningful revenue share three critical patterns: they prioritize enterprise customers over retail users, implement transparent on-chain revenue verification, and focus on competing directly with traditional infrastructure providers rather than creating entirely new markets.
Sustainable DePIN projects win by offering 70%+ cost savings to enterprises while maintaining operational reliability that matches incumbents. Revenue transparency through token burns and on-chain transactions eliminates audit risk, making these investments comparable to traditional SaaS valuations.
Hivemapper's collapse demonstrates that supply-side scaling without demand validation creates unsustainable networks. According to Messari's Q1 2025 DePIN report, the winners build revenue first, then scale infrastructure.
Building decentralized infrastructure? Learn from the best with RZLT's case study library and expert guidance to avoid common pitfalls and accelerate enterprise adoption.
As institutional capital flows into DePIN projects throughout 2026, networks with proven unit economics and enterprise traction will command premium valuations while speculative protocols face funding extinction. The World Economic Forum estimates the DePIN market could reach $3.5 trillion by 2028, but only for projects that demonstrate sustainable revenue models like the seven outlined here.