An allocator looking at decentralised physical infrastructure networks, DePIN for short, is really asking one question: is anyone paying to use this hardware, or is the network paying its own operators to keep it running? The pitch is that individuals and companies deploy wireless hotspots, storage drives, GPUs, mapping cameras or energy hardware, earn a token for doing so, and that customer demand eventually replaces the token subsidy. The dated evidence below suggests few networks have made that transition, and for many it is too thin to tell. That distinction matters more to an institutional reader than the technology does, because it decides whether a network is a business or a subsidy programme with a market price attached.
What counts as usage, and what counts as participation
Every DePIN network has two separate flows, and conflating them is the most common error in how they are described. The first is emissions: new tokens minted on a schedule and paid to people who contribute hardware, coverage or storage, whether or not anyone downstream pays for the service. The second is usage revenue: money or tokens that come in because a customer bought data transfer, storage, compute time or map access. A network can show impressive hotspot counts, exabytes of capacity or GPU-hours online while usage revenue covers a small fraction of what operators are paid. Growth in nodes or capacity, on its own, says nothing about demand.
The revenue-to-emissions gap, network by network
Helium is the most reported wireless example, because the Data Credits customers burn to use the network are recorded on-chain. In an analysis published on 22 September 2026, RZLT reported that Helium's annualised revenue peaked at $18.3 million in Q3 2025 and held at $11 million on an organic basis in Q4 2025, excluding discretionary burns, and that current on-chain revenue tracks lower on DePIN Pulse's stricter on-chain-only method. The same analysis lists carrier offload partnerships with AT&T and Telefónica's Movistar. We did not find a published figure netting that revenue against the total value of tokens paid to hotspot operators over the same period, which is the comparison an allocator actually needs.
Geodnet, a network of satellite-positioning base stations that sells correction data, led the DePIN Pulse revenue leaderboard in July 2026 with $8.19 million in annualised on-chain revenue, according to the same RZLT analysis. In January 2026, FalconX reported, citing Blockworks data, that Geodnet's token burns in recent weeks had offset around 70% of issuance, while noting team and investor unlocks of about $4 million a month, which it put at 6% of circulating supply, due through late 2026. On those numbers, burns were covering most of new issuance but not all of it, before the unlocks are counted.
For Akash Network, a decentralised compute marketplace, RZLT reported $851,700 in lease income and $860,000 in network fee revenue in Q3 2025, and, citing a March 2026 BlockEden analysis, an annual run rate of around $4.2 million. For Filecoin, Messari's State of Filecoin Q3 2025 report put total committed capacity at 3.0 EiB, down 10% on the quarter as smaller storage providers left after the network's v27 upgrade, with active storage at 1,110 PiB and utilisation up from 32% to 36%. Part of that utilisation gain came from capacity shrinking rather than demand growing. Filecoin's own 2026 network strategy, published on 19 February 2026, describes "a shift in ecosystem focus, away from growing supply and towards scaling demand", which is a statement of intent, not evidence that demand has caught up. For Render Network, a GPU rendering marketplace, we did not find a dated primary figure comparing job revenue with token emissions.
Hivemapper, a mapping network that pays contributors in HONEY for street-level imagery, says in its documentation that when HONEY is burned for map data, 75% is burned permanently and 25% is re-minted as rewards for contributors, up to 500,000 HONEY a week. FalconX reported record burns in token terms in December 2025, about $107,000 equivalent, citing Dune data. We did not find a published aggregate comparing that consumption with the total HONEY minted to contributors over the same period. Across the sector, RZLT put annualised revenue at approximately $82 million against a combined market capitalisation of around $6.95 billion as of August 2026. For energy-focused DePIN networks, we found no comparably dated, independently verifiable usage figures; that gap is an absence of evidence, not evidence that the economics work.
Operators are underwriting the token price
Because rewards are paid in the network's own token, an operator's return depends on that token holding its value, not only on the network growing. A hotspot, storage rig or GPU rack has a fixed cost in dollars to buy, power and maintain; if the token halves in price, the operator's dollar return halves too, even if rewards in token terms are unchanged. The worry is not new: in July 2022 CoinGeek reported that Helium's revenue was falling even as its hotspot count kept growing, leaving people who had paid for hotspots short of the returns they expected. Newer designs try to break the link. io.net describes its Incentive Dynamic Engine as providing "stable, USD-targeted supplier rewards" for GPU providers, with token supply adjusted to real demand rather than a fixed emission schedule, a design Messari has also analysed. Whether it holds up under sustained low demand is something only its own future disclosures will show.
Three regulatory questions, at different stages
Securities status: settled in one case, not decided as a rule
In January 2025 the SEC sued Nova Labs, the main developer behind Helium, alleging that its HNT, IOT and MOBILE tokens were unregistered securities. In April 2025, as reported by The Block and CoinDesk, the SEC dropped those claims with prejudice, so it cannot bring them again against Nova Labs, and Nova Labs agreed to pay $200,000 to settle separate allegations without admitting or denying them; the court entered final judgment later that month. Nova Labs said it could now "definitively say" that the distribution of HNT, IOT and MOBILE through the network is not a securities offering. That is a case-specific outcome for one issuer, not a rule, guidance or safe harbour for DePIN tokens generally.
Spectrum: a contested petition, not a rule
LoRaWAN devices in the United States, the technology behind Helium's IoT network, use the 902–928 MHz band, which the FCC's Part 15 rules allow to be used without an individual licence. Since April 2024, NextNav has petitioned the FCC to reconfigure part of that band for a licensed nationwide service. Nearly 2,000 parties filed comments opposing it, and in June 2026 a coalition of 60 businesses and trade associations led by the Retail Industry Leaders Association urged the FCC to reject it. The FCC sent a draft notice of proposed rulemaking to the White House for interagency review in March 2026, and in April 2026 the House Appropriations Committee approved bill language that would bar the FCC from using funds to advance any rulemaking reconfiguring the band; that language is committee text, not enacted law. As of August 2026, no rule on NextNav's petition had been formally proposed for comment or adopted.
Data: in force, with a new obligation just applying
Networks built on personal or vehicle data, such as DIMO, sit under the EU's General Data Protection Regulation and the EU Data Act. The Data Act has applied since 12 September 2025, including its obligations to make data available to users and its rules on unfair terms in data contracts concluded from that date; those rules extend to certain older contracts from 12 September 2027. Its requirement that connected products be designed so users can access their data by default applies to products placed on the market after 12 September 2026, so it now binds new hardware but not devices already sold. DIMO's privacy policy, dated 26 June 2026, says it is written to support compliance with both regimes and that vehicle owners control which data is shared and can revoke access at any time; that is the network's own representation, not an independent audit.
What the evidence does not yet show
Even where usage revenue is real, as it is for Helium and Geodnet on the figures above, we found no network publishing a single dated figure that nets total usage revenue against the total value of tokens paid to operators, the number that would show whether the subsidy is shrinking in practice rather than in narrative. Until that figure exists for a network, burn totals and capacity numbers are not a substitute for it. This is not investment, legal or tax advice.
How a device identifies itself, prices a transaction and settles it without a human approving each one is covered in our piece on machine-to-machine payments. The capital behind the wider GPU buildout is covered in financing the AI compute buildout, and a token-incentive design that pays for machine intelligence rather than physical hardware is examined in our piece on Bittensor.