The irresistible charm of decentralization
Web3 is a fascinating part of the current technology field. It is more like a set of operating methods that change traditional concepts. The traditional concept is that a team or project maximizes returns through funds or market demand. The concept of Web3 is that fewer people provide a decentralized mechanism (platform or project) to combine a wide range of idle resources to meet market demand and share benefits.
In fact, in the traditional Internet field, the sharing economy is the embodiment of combining a wide range of idle resources to gain economic benefits through decentralization. AirBNB's shared idle housing and Uber's shared cars are both representatives. However, the essence of these Web2 projects has nothing to do with Web3, they are just more compatible in form.
These projects are usually managed by centralized companies or teams, and have strong authority and voice. Web3 is more decentralized and equal in nature. For example, it regulates the powerful power of traditional companies through blockchain, smart contracts, and privacy computing.
The charm of Web3 is not only decentralization in the underlying operation, but Parity developer Shawn believes that decentralization is only a tool of Web3, and its goal is unstoppable. Unstoppable has been well reflected in Bitcoin - payment and settlement only require peer-to-peer transactions, and no banks are needed at all.
In the field of DePIN, we can see the most vivid manifestation of unstoppable nature. By "using crypto-economic protocols to deploy real-world physical infrastructure and hardware networks" (quoted from Messari, the creator of the DePIN concept), DePIN encourages all parties to jointly build a physical infrastructure network through blockchain-based token incentives. This kind of decentralized layout that deeply participates in the real world, such as electricity, communications, energy, transportation, cloud computing, satellite networks, etc., is being "DePINized" to make resources more accessible, more owned by the public, and more powerful. Previously, these infrastructures were firmly controlled by a few capital groups or the public sector. In these networks, ordinary individuals have almost no say and can only passively accept services, prices, and even blockades.
Interesting projects for Decentralization (DePIN)
Communications, electricity, cloud computing, energy, transportation, big data and other fields have been or are being transformed into DePIN.
Helium is a DePIN project for wireless networks of IoT devices, attempting to build a universal, distributed, economically incentivized wireless network for IoT devices. Consumers can purchase several Hotspots (i.e., hardware hotspots in the Helium network) to provide signal coverage for nearby IoT devices, thereby participating in network construction and earning tokens.
PowerVerse (HiBao Cloud) is a decentralized cloud computing power DePIN project. It has deployed computing power nodes in Hangzhou, Tianjin, Shenzhen, Chengdu and other places and plans to access idle computing power resources around the world. Users can use PowerVerse Chain to chain computing power resources into NFTs for circulation and trading on the platform, automatically settle and trade through PowerVerse Market, participate in staking and become a DAO governance member. Small and medium-sized enterprises, individual developers, and game players will be able to use high-performance, low-latency, and low-cost high-quality computing power.
Filecoin is a distributed data storage network with more than 3,800 storage providers worldwide contributing more than 17M TB of storage capacity. Participants such as Web3 users can use the Filecoin virtual machine for lending, perpetual storage, cross-chain, verification, and other functions. Through the Filecoin virtual machine (FVM), developers can deploy smart contracts and plan data storage, governance, and monetization in the open market.
Hivemapper is a crowdsourced map DePIN project built and owned by the community. Users use dashcams to record their surroundings while driving. These images and videos are then used to create maps and visualizations, benefiting the community through the fields of land environment, transportation and energy. Contributors will receive Hivemapper's native token $HONEY.
Conclusion
With the strong development of Web2, especially AI big models and the Metaverse, the security and privacy of data, the high performance and convenience of computing, the security and protection of storage, etc. will all be handed over to users. Users decide how their data is used, how they benefit from it, and how it is secure; users decide how computing power is obtained and traded; how data is stored and secure.
Just as DeFi gives users the sovereignty of transactions, DePIN also gives users the sovereignty of the physical world's infrastructure. This is the original intention of Web3 and its greatest charm.
