The rise of new stars in the DePIN field, disrupting the traditional cloud computing landscape

Recently, an important piece of news has attracted attention in the DePIN field. A decentralized cloud computing project has received a strategic investment from a well-known investment institution, with a valuation of 470 million USD. This investment institution was an early investor in a well-known IoT project and a smartphone brand. The project claims to disrupt the status of traditional cloud computing giants, so what exactly makes it unique? Let's analyze its technology and business logic in depth.

The Predicament of the Traditional Cloud Computing Market

Currently, the cloud computing market is mainly dominated by three major tech giants, creating a new centralized situation. This pattern has brought about many problems:

1. Service costs are continuously rising, forcing companies to accept high cloud fees.
2. Users are deeply bound, and the migration cost is high, making it difficult to choose freely.
3. Enterprises lose data sovereignty, and privacy and security are completely reliant on the platform.

Innovation of Decentralized Cloud Infrastructure

This project aims to build a decentralized cloud infrastructure network designed to help businesses regain data sovereignty, reduce costs, and avoid vendor lock-in. This is precisely the core value proposition of DePIN – reconstructing traditional physical infrastructure using blockchain technology and token economics to reclaim dominance from centralized control.

Three-layer decentralization architecture

The project's technical architecture adopts a three-tier "checks and balances" system:

1. Hardware Layer: Provided by global hardware vendors contributing enterprise-grade hardware devices to ensure performance and stability.
2. Service Layer: Service providers build various cloud products on top of hardware resources, emphasizing combinability and innovation.
3. Monitoring Layer: Introduce independent SLA Oracle nodes responsible for monitoring and verifying service quality.

These three layers coordinate through a proprietary protocol, forming a self-regulating ecosystem. Compared to other storage-based DePIN projects, this architecture is more effective in solving validation issues, equipping cloud services with a "cheat-proof system".

Sound Business Strategy

Unlike many blockchain projects, this project chooses to establish its business before developing its token economy. It is reported that the project already has over 1,000 corporate clients in Europe and America, with an annual revenue exceeding $5 million and a growth rate of 2000%. By the end of 2025, the contracted annual recurring revenue is expected to reach $32.7 million.

The project takes storage services as the entry point, focusing on serving B2B enterprise clients. This strategy helps to create "data gravity," attracting subsequent demands for computing and network services while establishing a stable cash flow.

Pragmatic Token Economic Model

The tokenomics design of the project is highly aligned with its business logic:

1. Staking mechanism: Hardware providers must stake tokens to connect to the network, ensuring service quality.
2. Payment medium: Service providers use tokens to purchase resources, creating real demand.
3. Reward Tools: Oracle nodes and hardware providers receive token rewards for their contributions.

This design makes the token the "blood" of the network rather than a speculative tool, with its value directly derived from the scale of actual business.

Team Background and Investment Support

The project team has a background from Europe and the United States, with core members having rich experience in the gaming and cloud storage fields. The project has secured $18 million in funding, with investors spanning both the Web3 and traditional sectors. The latest round of strategic investment comes from a top-tier institution managing $1.6 billion in assets, providing strong endorsement for the project's development prospects.

Market Prospects and Significance

The global cloud infrastructure market has an annual revenue of approximately $313 billion and is expected to reach $837.97 billion by 2034. The goal of this project is to become the "AWS of Web3"; even capturing a small portion of the market presents significant business opportunities.

More importantly, this project represents the forefront of Web3 technology penetrating core IT systems of enterprises. It integrates the advantages of Web2 and Web3, paving a more pragmatic and feasible path for blockchain technology in enterprise-level applications. This innovative model may lead to new development directions in the DePIN field, warranting continuous attention.