Recently, Asia’s well-known Web3 accelerator Web3Labs officially announced that it will join forces with DePIN infrastructure leader IoTeX and venture capital firm Goldford-HB Ventures to launch a new round of global recruitment for DePIN projects. Committed to finding and cultivating project teams with innovative spirit and strong potential for joint investment, aiming to incubate and accelerate innovative and high-quality DePIN projects with the powerful DePIN/AI/Web3 resources, network and partner resources of the three parties, and jointly develop disruptive technologies and products.
In November 2022, Messari officially proposed the concept of DePIN. Although it is not entirely novel, it has many similarities with IoT (Internet of Things) technology and is regarded as an emerging force in the sharing economy field. In this wave of DePIN development, the core projects are closely built and expanded around the three core elements of artificial intelligence — data, algorithms, and computing power. Notably, computing power projects such as io.net , Aethir, and Heurist have occupied a pivotal position in the DePIN ecosystem with their excellent performance and innovation capabilities.
What is DePIN?
DePIN stands for DecentralizedPhysicalInfrastructureNetworks, which stands for “Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network”. It uses blockchain technology to connect physical hardware infrastructure in a decentralized way, allowing users to access and utilize network resources in an affordable way. Usually, it encourages users to actively participate in network construction through token Incentive Mechanism.
Traditional physical infrastructure networks, constrained by huge capital investment and operating costs, have long been controlled by large enterprises or industry giants, resulting in a highly centralized market and a relative lack of innovation vitality. The emergence of the DePIN model, with its decentralized architecture design, clever Incentive Mechanism, and high transparency, effectively addresses problems such as uneven quotas, low utilization efficiency, and uneven service quality brought about by centralized control, and promotes the development of physical infrastructure networks towards a more efficient and sustainable direction.
Challenges facing the DePIN project at this stage
Despite the many advantages demonstrated by the DePIN model, the DePIN project inevitably encounters a series of challenges at its current stage of development. The primary challenge is that DePIN has built an extremely complex vertical technology system, which requires the project team to have no weaknesses in any aspect. Starting from the underlying blockchain technology, the team needs to be proficient in blockchain construction, develop IoT oracles, build a trusted execution environment (TEE), and enter the hardware manufacturing field. This series of tasks puts extremely high demands on the team’s general capabilities. Compared with other blockchain native projects, the DePIN project team must have comprehensive full stack technical capabilities.
Another major challenge focuses on how to attract and promote active user participation. Currently, the User Experience and Interface (UI) of Web3 are still insufficient compared to mature Web2 services. This situation requires project parties in the DePIN field to attach great importance to optimizing User Experience.
Web3Labs’ strategic cooperation with IoTeX and Goldford-HB Ventures is aimed at promoting the high-quality development of high-quality DePIN projects by leveraging the deep accumulation and advantages of the three parties in their respective fields, in order to meet the many challenges on the development path and jointly create a new chapter in the DePIN field.
IoTeX is the DePIN Modularization infrastructure platform and currently the only ecosystem that supports DePIN openness, Modularization, and large-scale adoption. IoTeX innovatively provides a series of flexible combinations of DePIN infrastructure modules (DIMs) and public resources for DePIN developers, including internal research and development and various advanced Modularization solutions provided by global partners such as Filecoin, Risc0, Near DA, and Espresso, making the development and deployment threshold, cost, and efficiency of DePIN lower.
By significantly lowering the threshold for building DePIN projects and supported by a systematic economic system, IoTeX is accelerating the large-scale adoption of DePIN. IoTeX’s open ecosystem plans to connect more than 100 million devices in the next 3–5 years, unlocking trillions of dollars in real-world value on the chain and realizing the vision of “DePINforeveryone”.
Resources to empower
1. Special project funding and joint investment opportunities
Selected high-quality projects will receive special project funds as incentives and investment opportunities provided by Web3Labs and IoTeX to accelerate project growth and monetization.
2. Customized financing docking service
Join hands with Hong Kong Web3.0 Investment Alliance to customize one-on-one financing services for projects, accurately match market demand, help projects efficiently obtain capital assistance, and achieve maximum value.
3. Internationalization team landing assistance
In response to the expansion needs of the project in international markets such as Hong Kong and ASEAN, we provide comprehensive resource docking and team landing support to ensure the smooth integration and rooting of the project in the target market.
4. Collaborative media promotion and brand promotion
Utilize the extensive influence of the cooperative media platform to provide exposure opportunities for the project and significantly enhance its visibility. At the same time, Web3Labs and IoTeX will work together to provide brand building and marketing strategy support for the project, prioritize recommendations to both commercial cooperation institutions and investment partners, and expand the project cooperation network.
5. Customized acceleration service plan
According to the development needs of the project, timely organize international study tour offline exchange activities, invite industry experts to hold special courses, create more learning and exchange opportunities for the project, help it accurately grasp the market pulse, and win long-term development opportunities.
Registration entrance
Official website https://web3labs.g-rocket.co/
X(Twitter) @Web3LabsClub
Written at the end
DePIN is reshaping our digital world, which is not only a profound change in the field of technology, but also will promote the evolution of economic forms and social structures. We are fortunate to be witnesses to this historical process.
Globalization 1.0 played an important role in promoting global trade and investment. However, the globalization of that era also exacerbated the problem of wealth gap and social inequality to some extent, which is no longer suitable for the new requirements of contemporary economic development. The world urgently needs a more inclusive and sustainable cooperation model to jointly address the challenges facing humanity. DePIN is expected to lead a new round of globalization 2.0, realizing the global sharing of infrastructure and its value.
DePIN demonstrates the prospect of building a unified infrastructure and network on a global scale, although this is an unprecedented challenge, it is full of infinite possibilities.
About Web3Labs
Web3Labs, as a one-stop entry point for Web3.0 entrepreneurship, aims to respond to the policy declaration of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, and help global Web3 companies layout in Hong Kong and connect internationally through support such as landing services, investment acceleration, technical cooperation, and compliance assistance.
Currently, there are offline incubators in Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Hangzhou, Beijing and other places. Web3Labs has three vertical acceleration camps, namely SatoshiLabs focusing on the Bitcoin ecosystem, ICCCamp deeply cultivating the Gamefi field, and AIFocus focusing on AI + Web3 and Depin fields.
About IoTeX
IoTeX is an Open Platform for Modularization to construct AI + DePIN infrastructure. It aims to connect smart devices and real-world data with Web3, enabling Web2 to easily and effectively access the blockchain, creating a decentralized real-world open ecosystem of multidimensional data and scenes. Through Modularization construction, developers can connect innovative applications from smart wearables, vehicle to everything, green energy, environmental data and other scenarios from smart life to smart industry in Web3.
With the launch of W3bstream, the world’s first zero-knowledge chain decentralized off-chain computing infrastructure designed for smart devices and real-world data, IoTeX has become a leading supplier of decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) technology, constructing an open platform for all-scenario AI data stacks, enabling machines, humans, enterprises, and dApps to interact in a trusting and private manner, promoting innovation in various vertical fields of AI and DePIN.
With the support of over 60 research scientists and engineers worldwide, IoTeX connects billions of smart devices, machines, and sensors through its high-performance EVMLayer1, off-chain computing Middleware, and open hardware platform, providing seamless integration and interaction for dApps in the real and digital worlds, driving the development of the real world towards a decentralized and open ecosystem.
About Goldford-HB Ventures
Goldford-HB Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on investing in high-growth technology and Web3.0 enterprises in Asia and other regions.
The management team of Goldford-HB Ventures, along with strategic partners from China, Hong Kong, China, and Southeast Asia, has invested in more than 100 projects. They can actively provide support for invested enterprises in various aspects such as resource integration, market expansion, technology introduction, and refinancing.
