Wireless networks and compute markets
Decentralized wireless networks are one of the clearest examples of DePIN in practice: individuals install hotspot hardware, often small radio units that provide network coverage using unlicensed spectrum, and earn token rewards for the coverage and data transfer they provide. Coverage tends to grow organically wherever someone finds it worthwhile to install a hotspot, rather than following a single company's rollout map.
Decentralized compute and GPU networks apply the same idea to computing power. People with spare GPU capacity, whether idle gaming rigs or dedicated hardware, rent it out to the network for workloads like AI model training, inference, or rendering. This effectively creates a marketplace for compute that draws on hardware already sitting underused around the world, rather than requiring a cloud provider to build new data centers for every increase in demand.