The Direction of the DePIN Track and Its Integration with AI: Taking Roam as an Example

In recent years, the decentralized physical infrastructure network ( DePIN ) sector has undergone a process from a boom to a cooling down. With the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, the market's focus has shifted to the AI field. However, DePIN is not stagnant; it is seeking new development directions, the most notable of which is the integration with AI technology. The Roam project is a representative of this trend.

The Essence of DePIN

DePIN refers to a token incentive mechanism that encourages users to share personal resources to build an infrastructure network. This includes multiple areas such as storage space, communication bandwidth, cloud computing, and energy. The core of DePIN lies in resource integration, efficiently directing resources to the demand side through token incentives.

Mainly divided into three categories:

1. Storage Class: Provides cloud storage services
2. Computing Power: Decentralized GPU Rendering Platform
3. Network type: Forming a global WIFI network through token incentives

The DePIN project is similar to Bitcoin in that it requires an initial investment to purchase physical equipment, followed by continuous mining. Due to its connection with the real world, DePIN brings positive externalities to the entire industry.

Current Status of the DePIN Market

According to data platform statistics, DePIN has nearly 4.56 million devices in approximately 196 countries and regions worldwide, with a market value of 7.1 billion USD. Among them, Roam has the highest number of devices, reaching 1.18 million. DePIN devices are mainly distributed in the United States, Europe, and Southeast Asia, with the highest concentration in Southeast Asia, especially in South Korea.

Overall, DePIN is bringing about a new wave of wealth creation, and the Southeast Asian region is fully investing in this track by leveraging its manufacturing and human resource advantages.

Roam Project Introduction

Roam belongs to the network sub-sector within DePIN and can be positioned as a combination of Web3 and WIFI. It is a decentralized wireless network and telecom operator. Roam offers a variety of products, including WIFI hardware and eSIM cards. Users can mine by purchasing hardware or earn free data by completing tasks.

In the technical architecture of Roam, the Roam Telecom Data Layer is a core concept that enables functionality through four primary ecological modules:

1. Roam Network: Focused on network infrastructure construction
2. Roam Growth: Encouraging user participation through incentive mechanisms
3. Roam Discovery: Supporting new projects and promoting innovation
4. Roam Community: Focus on community building and governance

Roam's future plans aim to accelerate the implementation of the data layer and deeply integrate with AI.

The Integration of Roam and AI

Roam is leveraging its advantages in communication data to provide high-quality usable data for AI projects. In the AI era, the data monopoly of traditional giants hinders comprehensive model training and global data integration. Roam provides operator services through Web3 means and, in return, offers data sources for AI companies while protecting privacy.

Roam utilizes decentralized identity (DID), verifiable credentials (VC), and zero-knowledge proofs (ZK) technology to protect user privacy. By collaborating with multiple DePIN ecosystem partners, Roam is building a rich and diverse AI training dataset ecosystem.

Roam not only provides basic carrier-level data but also integrates multidimensional data resources, including weather monitoring, CDN services, renewable energy usage, authentication, payment behavior, and more. This diversification of data integration offers unprecedented data dimensions and depth for AI model training.

How ordinary users can participate

The rapid development of Roam mainly relies on two strategies: free access and airdrops. Users can obtain free traffic by completing tasks or sharing their WIFI to earn points, thereby participating in future airdrops. This low-threshold participation method greatly enhances the appeal of the project.

By directly incentivizing users, Roam takes the subsidy strategy of the Web2 industry to the extreme. This also provides ordinary users with the opportunity to participate and potentially earn rewards through simple daily activities.