In this episode of Untangling Web3, co-founder of Fluence and host of the DePINed Podcast, Tom Trowbridge, breaks down the evolving world of DePIN—Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks.

Drawing on his leadership at Fluence and his experience launching Hedera Hashgraph, Trowbridge provides a technical yet accessible overview of how DePIN offers an alternative model to centralized infrastructure, unlocking powerful new design patterns in blockchain-based networks.

Key highlights:

• Definition and Criteria of DePIN: DePIN is defined as a crowdsourced physical infrastructure network delivering services through crypto-incentivized mechanisms. What differentiates DePIN from traditional infrastructure models is that the networks rely on community-owned hardware—whether dashcams, routers, drones, or browser extensions—rather than centralized corporate-owned systems. Participants contribute these resources and receive tokens, creating a more distributed and participatory infrastructure layer.
• Economic Models and Token Utility: The viability of DePIN depends on token-based crypto-economics that incentivize contribution and participation while allowing network effects to scale without centralized capital expenditure. Without tokens, projects would require upfront funding to bootstrap infrastructure and could not easily reward contributors with upside. Token rewards create both short-term participation incentives and long-term value alignment between users and the growth of the network.
• Fluence and the Cloudless Internet Fluence, the decentralized computing platform Tom co-founded, addresses the final missing piece in the decentralized internet stack: compute. While Filecoin and Arweave have decentralized storage, Fluence is focused on replacing centralized cloud compute providers like AWS and Azure. Fluence uses enterprise-grade infrastructure to deliver decentralized compute with service-level agreements (SLAs), competitive pricing (up to 70% cheaper than traditional cloud services), and an open architecture that supports dynamic scaling and migration.

DePIN represents a fundamental rethinking of infrastructure—from centralized ownership to community-powered networks secured and incentivized by blockchain.

From physical deployments like drone-based mapping to compute platforms like Fluence, this emerging paradigm offers the chance to outcompete traditional infrastructure on cost, resilience, and scalability. DePIN is now poised to evolve into one of the most impactful sectors in Web3.

Read Tom's DePIN Tokenomics report in full here:

https://depined.xyz/report#depin-token-economics-report

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This episode is sponsored by the VeChain foundation. Learn more about VeBetterDAO here:

https://vebetterdao.org/

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Learn more about Web3 at:

https://untanglingweb3.com/

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Untangling Web3 is brought to you by hosts Jack Davies and Alec Burns, with music by Daniel Paigge. Got a question or topic suggestion? Send us an email at [email protected].

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The views we express here are our own, and do not represent the views of our employers. Nothing discussed or stated in the show should be considered advice.