We are celebrating 14 years since the emergence of Bitcoin, a technology that was, and still is, often dismissed as a scam or bubble despite its increasing value as an investment asset, now standing at a market capitalization of $1.3 trillion. This technology has reshaped decentralization and served as a foundational block for all the Web3 innovations we see today. Yet, many people remain ignorant or skeptical, viewing the space through a narrow lens that focuses on current use cases instead of understanding the potential these technologies have to reshape the future.
In this article, we will tackle one important segment within the Web3 space: DePIN, which stands for Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network. This segment deals with decentralized networks used to manage and operate physical infrastructure. The approach aims to create more efficient, secure, and resilient infrastructure systems by leveraging the principles of decentralization and Blockchain technology. From data storage, render farms, and energy management to massive IoT data exchange and connectivity, this sector can be the building block for how average people will notice the power of Web3 technologies as it effects their lifestyle directly.
Recently, I had a call with Yog Shrusti, the founder of Farmsent, a decentralized infrastructure platform that aims to assist:
- Farmers by maximizing their benefits, eliminating most middlemen, and securing their funds and profitability.
- Suppliers by enabling them to manage and permanently record their order books, transactions, and supply chain.
- Consumers by providing live, immutable traceability data of the fruits and vegetables they consume, from the day they are planted to the time they reach the supermarket next door.
Farmsent is an excellent example of how innovative and useful a DePIN segment can be. Many farmers around the world struggle to sell their yields at a decent price due to the involvement of multiple middlemen, which results in them receiving the bare minimum price. With the Farmsent platform, farmers can sell directly to clients worldwide, maximizing their profits. The blockchain records and traces the entire process, eliminating fraud, manipulation, and errors. This is a life-saving solution for farmers who can no longer afford their expenses or lack the necessary experience to manage and market their yields.
On the other end, consumers have struggled with misinformation throughout their lives, with no mechanism to verify what is true or legitimate. People get poisoned due to incorrect expiration dates, receive fake goods with false origins, or, even worse, encounter products with the wrong ingredients from unknown suppliers. This issue became evident to me when I used an online app to buy fruits from a grocery shop. The shop did not specify whether the fruits were local or imported, I didn’t make a purchase because certain goods are not advisable from certain sources, or as a consumer, I might prefer local vegetables, Indian mangoes or Australian berries. A fully public traceability system can improve credibility and trust, providing consumers with complete information from how the seeds were planted to the entire process and time it took to arrive at our doorstep.
We can see how Farmsent is a noble service for a noble cause. In fact, the platform is completely free to use and will be open source, allowing developers to utilize it as infrastructure and build more innovative solutions. Yog and his team have already on-boarded 160,000 farmers from Indonesia as part of its beta testing.
One of the most interesting aspects of the Web3 space is how community, collaborations, and partnerships serve as core elements of mutual success. In the case of Farmsent, they have partnered with Peaq Network to use their tailored DePIN chain for storage and records. They have also teamed up with NuklAI to assess and categorize all the data, providing relevant information and insights. Recently, they partnered with Chirp to create standards that other developers can use to communicate with the platform.
All these projects are DePIN initiatives that work hand in hand to deliver a comprehensive solution. It’s a modular ecosystem in which everyone can participate and derive substantial value.
Ahmed Al-Ansari
Founder of Alansari Studios, Co-Founder of Impressco. Author, Researcher, Media, Marketing, & IT Consultant from the Kingdom of Bahrain.
