2025 became a year of product depth and infrastructure maturityOver the past twelve months, Fluence moved from a narrow compute narrative to a fully-fledged CloudStack — production-ready CPUs, virtual servers, a rebuilt provider stack and a platform designed to serve real workloads at scaleTo close the year, Fluence co-founders Tom Trowbridge and Evgeny Ponomarev sat down to reflect on what was built, why certain decisions mattered, and how those foundations set the stage for what comes next.A natural part of that evolution is GPUs and AI. In 2025, Fluence expanded beyond CPU compute into GPU containers, VMs, and bare metal — opening the door to AI workloads and a market that continues to reshape global infrastructure. This episode unpacks how Fluence approaches GPU economics, capacity, and scale — and why compute is becoming one of the most valuable commodities of the next decade.Beyond the product itself, the conversation also touches on ecosystem building. Through DePIN Day and the DePINed Podcast, Fluence continues to invest in the DePIN community — creating a shared space where founders, builders, and operators can connect, learn and grow together. That ecosystem work feeds directly back into stronger products, better alignment, and a healthier market overall.
Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) promise a new internet. In this episode, Jason Brink, CEO and co-founder of Datagram, explains why most DePIN projects fail and what it actually takes to build one that works.Datagram is not another “node-for-tokens” network. It’s a production-grade decentralized infrastructure already serving hundreds of real B2B customers, handling voice, video, connectivity, and soon AI inference — at a fraction of the cost of centralized providers.What we cover in this episode:- How Datagram operates as a decentralized alternative to AWS for connectivity, video, and infrastructure- Why transparency in uptime, usage, and token distribution is critical for long-term sustainability- Datagram’s 100% buy-and-burn token model and how revenue directly supports node operators- Real traction: 400+ B2B customers, government and academic use cases, and live production traffic- The future roadmap: VPNs, decentralized AI inference, hosting, and full decentralized cloud services💡 This episode is a deep dive into real decentralization, real revenue, and real infrastructure. 🎙️ Don’t miss this deep dive into one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in the DePIN ecosystem
Small, specialized AI models are catching up to and in many cases outperforming — frontier LLMs. Fortytwo is building a decentralized compute network where thousands of lightweight models collaborate, rank each other’s outputs, and produce reasoning-quality results that rival the biggest models in the world. This is swarm Inference powered by DePIN.In this episode, Tom Trowbridge (Co-Founder of Fluence) talks with Ivan Nikitin, Co-Founder of Fortytwo — a decentralized AI network that recently surpassed GPT-5–class models on coding, math and hard-science benchmarks.🚀 This episode breaks down why the era of mega-models is slowing, how swarm architectures overcome hallucinations, and why decentralized compute may be the future of AI infrastructure:
- Why small specialized models now outperform frontier LLMs on domain tasks
- How Fortytwo’s “swarm ranking” filters out hallucinations and boosts accuracy
- The limitations of giant models: diminishing returns & rising compute costs
- Decentralized compute: consumer hardware as a global AI network
- The Fortytwo reward system: reputation, incentives & proof-of-InferenceIf you want to understand why decentralized compute is challenging the frontier-model paradigm — and how swarm Inference could redefine the future of AI — listen now! 🎧
Explore how decentralized energy is transforming the power grid — rooftop solar, home batteries, virtual power plants, and on-chain financing. This is the new DePIN-powered energy economy.In this episode, Tom Trowbridge (co-founder of Fluence) talks with Jason Badeaux, co-founder of Daylight Energy — one of the fastest-growing decentralized energy networks in the world.Daylight recently announced a $75M funding round, combining venture capital with project finance to deploy thousands of solar-plus-storage systems across the U.S. This episode breaks down why electricity demand is exploding, how decentralized energy solves the bottleneck, and why the future grid will be built at the edge — home by home, community by community.What we cover in this episode:
- Solar + battery systems becoming the new distributed power plants
- The energy crunch: AI, EVs, industry and the surge in electricity demand
- Virtual Power Plants as a scalable alternative to traditional utilities
- Energy subscriptions: zero-upfront solar & storage for homeowners
- DePIN incentives creating community-driven grid expansion
- On-chain financing and real-world yields through Daylight’s GRID token
- The roadmap to 1M decentralized energy homes and gigawatt-scale impactIf you want to understand how DePIN intersects with energy, why virtual power plants are the future, and how decentralized finance will fund the next wave of power infrastructure — listen now! 🎧
Explore how Carrier One is redefining global connectivity through DePIN and bringing telecom into Web3.In this episode, Tom Trowbridge interviews Samer Bishay (CEO & co-founder of Karrier One) — a decentralized telecom network enabling global roaming, local coverage, and Web3-native identity for millions of mobile users.Carrier One merges 25+ years of telco expertise with DePIN economics to solve one of the world’s biggest challenges:💡 1/3 of humanity still has no reliable internet access, and over 2 billion people remain unbankedThis conversation dives deep into:
- Why telecom is one of the most powerful real-world use cases for DePIN
- The difference between Web3-first and Telco-first DePIN projects
- How Carrier One enables global roaming using local hardware (WiFi, CBRS, macro nodes)
- The economics behind a B2B DePIN model (AT&T partnership, real revenue)
- Trustless settlement: why blockchain solves telecom’s biggest pain point
- Tokenized connectivity: consumption, burn mechanics, incentives
- Hardware deployment: how communities can earn from coverage
- The long-term mission: connect the unconnected + bank the unbanked
- What makes adoption so hard — and how Carrier Number solves onboarding
- The 1M → 10M Web3-enabled phone vision
- Global expansion beyond North America🎙️ If you want to understand the future of decentralized telecom, roaming without borders, and why DePIN is the biggest opportunity Telco has seen in decades — this episode is essential.
Explore how Grass became one of the most important data engines powering today’s AI models!
In this episode, Tom Trowbridge (co-founder & CEO of Fluence) interviews Andrej Radonjic, Founder & CEO of Winged Labs — the team behind the Grass Network, a DePIN system with 8M+ residential devices contributing bandwidth and enabling petabytes of real-world web data for the world’s leading AI labs.
This conversation dives deep into:
- How Grass built the largest AI-focused DePIN network in the world
- Why AI companies need massive, multimodal datasets (especially video)
- How Grass handles hundreds of petabytes of data and pushes 4 PB/day at peak
- The hidden world of residential proxy networks — and why Grass chose the ethical path
- Why blockchain and tokenized network ownership are essential for scaling
- Forced verticalization: building their own storage, servers, GPUs, and infra
- The future of AI: Live Context Retrieval and real-time access to the entire public web
- Token holders, incentives, and the economics behind a global data network
🎙️ Grass is enabling AI models to see the real world in real time. If you want to understand the data layer behind the next generation of AI, this episode is essential.
In this episode of the DePINed Podcast, Tom Trowbridge sits down with Luis Oscar Ramirez, Founder of Mawari, the Immersive Compute Network powering the future of XR and AI.
Mawari started as a Web2 company trying to solve the hard problem of streaming 3D content for AR/VR — and found DePIN as the only viable way to scale.
Today, they’re running over 5,000 GPUs across APAC, powering real-time edge rendering, AI inference, and even virtual YouTubers — with a modular 4-node architecture and a mission to make immersive content truly global.
Topics covered:
– Why AR/VR needs real-time compute at the edge
– How Mawari evolved from XR studio to DePIN infra
– The use case explosion: from AI agents to K-pop avatars
– DePIN in Asia: Japan, Korea, and the coming wave
– Their upcoming Guardian Node launch & token model
A rare inside look at an Asia-first DePIN project solving real infrastructure challenges today.
🎙️ Don’t miss this deep dive into one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in the DePIN ecosystem
In this episode of the DePINed Podcast, Tom Trowbridge talks to Mike Zajko, co-founder of Lattice, one of the most active DePIN-focused venture firms. Mike shares what VCs really look for in early-stage crypto projects, how the DePIN category has evolved, and why real-world traction and revenue are more critical than ever.👀 We cover:- Lattice’s origin story- What makes a DePIN project fundable (and what doesn’t)- Common mistakes early founders make- Tokenomics, airdrops & why points changed the game- The future of institutional adoption in DePIN- Why “build it and they will come” is no longer enough🎙️ Don’t miss this deep dive into one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in the DePIN ecosystem
What if your TV could talk back?In this episode of the DePINed Podcast, we dive into the future of interactive media with Mateusz Poreda, co-founder of Rumi — a decentralized protocol turning passive video into AI-powered, personalized experiences.
Real-time content indexing, contextual ads and second-screen engagement, Rumi is building a gateway between streaming, gaming, and generative AI. Don’t miss this conversation on why TV is becoming a two-way experience and how DePIN makes it possible.
We cover:• What Rumi is and how it works• How node operators contribute to media indexing• The rise of AI remotes and second-screen agents• Token incentives, airdrops & monetization• Why contextual media is the future of advertising
💡 Whether you’re a developer, builder, or DePIN enthusiast — this episode dives deep into
🎙️ Don’t miss this deep dive into one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in the DePIN ecosystem
What if anyone, anywhere could contribute to the next generation of AI and get paid for it?
In this episode of the DePINed Podcast, we talk to Max Li, founder and CEO of OORT — a decentralized data collection network with over 350,000 contributors across 100+ countries and 100,000+ active nodes. OORT is building the global infrastructure for verifiable, crowd-sourced AI data — from speech to video to edge cases.
We cover:
Don’t miss this deep dive into one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in the DePIN ecosystem 🎙️
💡 Can blockchain help power the future? In this episode of DePINed Podcast, we sit down with Jemma Green, Executive Chairman and co-founder of PowerLedger to explore how decentralized infrastructure is reshaping the $2 trillion global energy industry.
Jemma shares Powerledger’s journey — from launching Australia’s first ICO to building a cross-chain energy ecosystem on Solana and Ethereum.
With 100+ deployments in 15 countries, Powerledger tracks, tokenizes, and automates clean energy transactions — from peer-to-peer solar trading to renewable energy certificates (RECs) and dynamic grid pricing.
We cover:
- How energy markets are being disrupted by AI, renewables & regulation
- Why battery storage is the new local power plant
- How Powerledger’s token (POWR) is evolving with new DePIN use cases
- Community-owned energy, on-chain SLAs & economic incentives
- What “true two-sided markets” for energy could look like
- Why DePIN is the next breakout category in crypto
🎙️ Don’t miss this deep dive into one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in the DePIN ecosystem
With over 100 live games and millions of players, Beamable offers a full backend-as-a-service for game developers — now expanding into DePIN to cut infrastructure costs and reduce centralization risks 🎮 In this episode of DePINed, we speak with Jon Radoff, CEO and co-founder of Beamable — a platform that’s reshaping game development through decentralized infrastructure.We cover:
- The economics of game backend infrastructure
- Why DePIN is a game-changer for indie and AAA studios
- How Beamable’s upcoming tokenized network works
- Checker nodes, worker nodes & staking
- The future of game publishing powered by DePIN
- Beamable’s vision for a community-owned cloud for games💡 Whether you’re a developer, builder, or DePIN enthusiast — this episode dives deep into the intersection of gaming and decentralized infrastructure.🎙️ Don’t miss this deep dive into one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in the DePIN ecosystem
The demand for faster, cheaper content delivery is exploding — can decentralized CDN scale to meet it? 🌐
In this episode of the DePINed Podcast, Tom Trowbridge talks to Phil Mataras, founder & CEO of AR.IO — the first permanent cloud network built on Arweave.
We explore how AR.IO is creating seamless, reliable access to permanent data and applications by adding essential services to the Arweave ecosystem: gateways, indexing, decentralized naming and hosting infrastructure.
Topics we cover:
– Why AR.IO built a decentralized layer of access and services on top of Arweave
– The architecture behind gateway nodes, from Raspberry Pi to enterprise scale
– Tokenomics and staking incentives for running a gateway
– Use cases: censorship-resistant journalism, NFTs, social apps, and more– The vision for scaling to hundreds of terabytes and millions of permanent identities
🎙️ Don’t miss this deep dive into one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in the DePIN ecosystem
In this episode of the #DePINed Podcast, we’re joined by Cathy Zhu, COO of ARO Network — a decentralized content delivery network (CDN) designed to transform how bandwidth is shared, monetized and scaled globally.
ARO empowers everyday users to contribute unused bandwidth through simple software or low-cost edge devices, while businesses benefit from reduced latency and dramatically lower costs.
🎙️ In this episode:
– What makes decentralized CDN cheaper and more efficient
– How ARO aggregates idle bandwidth via hardware and software
– The economics of rewarding contributors with 90% buy-and-burn
– Why ARO focuses on real revenue before token launch
– How partnerships in Southeast Asia power ARO’s growth
– Building a DePIN from Web2 infrastructure with Web3 distribution
Don’t miss this deep dive into the DePIN revolution. Subscribe now to explore how decentralized networks are transforming industries worldwide! 🌍
In this episode of the DePINed Podcast, Tom Trowbridge talks to Naman Kabra, co-founder & CEO of NodeOps — a rapidly growing DePIN platform offering a full-stack suite for decentralized compute orchestration.
From one-click node deployment to a fully operational cloud, security hub, and staking tools — NodeOps is redefining how developers, node operators, and compute providers interact.
🎙️ In this conversation:
- How NodeOps scaled from $0 to 7-figure revenue in under a year
- The economics of third-party node provisioning
- Dynamic mint-and-burn tokenomics explained
- The roadmap to permissionless compute and verifiable infrastructure
- Building revenue-first in Web3 — without touching treasury
🎙️ Don’t miss this deep dive into the DePIN revolution. Subscribe now to explore how decentralized networks are transforming industries worldwide! 🌍
In this episode of the DePINed Podcast, Tom Trowbridge talks to Diego Di Tommaso, co-founder of Over, a leading project building decentralized 3D maps for ARWe explore how Over evolved from a metaverse platform to a large-scale visual positioning system and why real-world mapping is the missing link for immersive AR experiencesTopics we cover:
- How Over mapped 128,000+ locations with centimeter-level precision
- Why 3D maps are essential for anchoring AR to physical space
- The tokenomics behind mapping incentives and land ownership
- New revenue streams from enterprise use cases and spatial AI
- Collaboration across DePIN: partnering with networks like Hivemapper and NATIX
- What smart glasses mean for the future of Web3 AR🎙️ Don’t miss this deep dive into the DePIN revolution. Subscribe now to explore how decentralized networks are transforming industries worldwide! 🌍
In this episode of the DePINed Podcast, Tom Trowbridge sits down with Sam Williams, co-founder & CEO of Arweave, to unpack the economics, technology, and vision behind decentralized permanent storage and compute.
Discover:
- How Arweave achieves near-perpetual storage using an endowment model that beats AWS costs over time
- The tokenomics that underpin Arweave’s long-term sustainability and value capture
- Why Arweave’s system is inherently trustless, ensuring data integrity without centralized control
- How Arweave’s unique model incentivizes miners to keep costs low while locking up tokens in long-term endowments
- The relationship between Arweave and AO, its decentralized compute platform, and why AI workloads are driving massive growth
- How Arweave competes with traditional cloud providers by delivering a more resilient and cost-effective solution
🎙️ Don’t miss this deep dive into the DePIN revolution. Subscribe now to explore how decentralized networks are transforming industries worldwide! 🌍
In this episode of the #DePINedPodcast, Tom Trowbridge speaks with Colby Winegar, CEO of Storj, a decentralized cloud storage protocol with nearly a decade of evolution behind it.
We cover how Storj is bridging the gap between traditional cloud performance and decentralized architecture — through measurable value for real customers across AI, media, healthcare and academia
🧠 In this episode:
– How Storj achieves up to 80% lower storage and egress costs than AWS
– Why some customers report Storj is 2–3x faster than Amazon for global data access
– The economics behind fixed-price storage across 20,000+ decentralized nodes
– How the protocol handles operator payments in token, with a roadmap toward market-driven token demand
– Challenges in go-to-market, vertical focus, and customer education in the DePIN space
Listen now for an in-depth look at the real-world mechanics, tradeoffs, and opportunities behind decentralized storage at scale
🎙️ Don’t miss this deep dive into the DePIN revolution. Subscribe now to explore how decentralized networks are transforming industries worldwide! 🌍
🎙️ In this episode of the DePINedPodcast, Tom Trowbridge sits down with Arthur Sabintsev, CEO of POKT, one of the earliest DePIN projects and a cornerstone of decentralized infrastructure since 2019.
What started as a decentralized gateway to blockchain data has now expanded far beyond crypto: Pocket is evolving into a generalized data transport layer.
Watch to learn:
- How Pocket provides decentralized, censorship-resistant access to 60+ blockchains and open networks
- What it takes to run high-performance infrastructure in a DePIN protocol
- Why most Pocket nodes are now hosted in professional data centers
- The role of RPC gateways and sovereign access providers in Pocket’s new architecture
- How Grove (the team behind Pocket) thinks about pricing, competition, and revenue
This episode dives deep into the architecture, economics, and strategy behind one of the longest-running DePIN protocols — and why the future of infrastructure might belong to agents, not users.🎙️ Don’t miss this deep dive into the DePIN revolution. Subscribe now to explore how decentralized networks are transforming industries worldwide! 🌍
In this episode of the DePINed Podcast, Tom Trowbridge sits down with Juan Benet, inventor of IPFS and founder of Protocol Labs, to explore how Filecoin is evolving far beyond storage — into subnets, stablecoins, capital markets and real-world adoption.
📍 This special episode was recorded live at DePIN Day Dubai — a global conference series dedicated to exploring the rise of Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks
🌍 Want to join us in the next city? Check out https://depinday.xyz/ for upcoming locations
We explore:
- The productization of decentralized storage and the rise of L2s on Filecoin
- Why Filecoin’s tokenomics unlock long-term cost advantages
- How subnet architecture enables scalability and localization
- The launch of a Filecoin-backed stablecoin
- Why emerging markets are key to DePIN growth
- Tactical advice for DePIN founders building through a bear market
🎙️ Don’t miss this deep dive into the DePIN revolution. Subscribe now to explore how decentralized networks are transforming industries worldwide! 🌍