Solana DePIN track income reaches a new high, analysis of major projects' performance in April

The DePIN track in the Solana ecosystem achieved significant results in April, with a monthly cumulative income of $458,000, a year-on-year increase of 33%, setting a new record for the highest level so far this year. This growth is mainly attributed to the steady development of several important projects, including Helium, Render, Hivemapper, and XNET.

Despite the rapid growth in revenue, the number of active contributors to the DePIN protocol has slightly decreased. The total number of active contributors for major projects such as Helium, Hivemapper, Nosana, Render, Sallar, Sourceful, and XNET remains at around 87,000.

It is worth noting that in April 2025, the number of contributors to small DePIN protocols saw a significant increase, with Nosana's growth rate exceeding 100%. In contrast, the number of contributors to larger protocols such as Helium and Hivemapper remained stable or slightly decreased.

Here is a performance review of major DePIN projects in April:

Dabba Network

Dabba Network, as a Solana-based DePIN exclusive to the Indian market, has deployed Wi-Fi hotspots across India using a "managed deployment" model in collaboration with local cable operators to provide users with high-speed, low-cost internet access services. During the period from March to April, its cumulative data consumption increased by 100%, reaching 8000 TB, while device sales grew by 29%, further expanding the network scale.

Helium Mobile

Helium Mobile is a mobile virtual network operator that combines community-deployed Wi-Fi hotspots and partner operators' cellular base stations to provide users with low-cost mobile data and voice services.

After opening free mobile plans to all users, Helium Mobile saw a 125% surge in new subscription users, reaching a historic high of 36,000. Correspondingly, Helium Mobile's revenue also set a new record of $250,000. The monthly revenue, measured by data point destruction, grew by 34%, reaching $250,000, with data offloading accounting for 79%.

In addition, the average daily unsubscription rate of Helium Mobile has increased by 65%, and the uninstallation data volume has grown by 32%, both setting new historical records.

It is worth mentioning that since 2025, the overall number of active contributors to Helium has shown a slight downward trend, currently stabilizing around 75,000.

XNET

XNET is a decentralized mobile network built on the Solana blockchain. In April, the data offloading of XNET continued to grow, with an average daily offloading volume increasing by 16%, marking that XNET has maintained a steady upward trend in data offloading for 8 consecutive months. Despite a 6% decrease in rewards, the number of active contributors to XNET Mobile in April still rose by 6%, reaching 732 people, setting a new historical high.

Roam

In April, Roam added 535,000 WiFi nodes (the second highest in history) and 87,000 new users, bringing the total number of nodes in the protocol close to 4 million and the number of users close to 3 million. Although the monthly user check-in volume decreased by 19%, the total number of check-ins has surpassed 300 million, indicating that user stickiness remains strong.

Shaga

The Shaga protocol utilizes idle GPU computing power to support Web3 games, currently covering 74 GPU models, providing 33.12 TB of storage and 15.27 Gbps throughput, with high-performance computing capabilities. Within two months, Shaga achieved 4,500 interactive game live streams, totaling 50,000 hours, allowing viewers to control and participate in the streamer’s games in real time.

Hivello

Hivello, as a DePIN aggregation platform, is used to monetize idle resources, with online duration in April doubling compared to March, and more nodes joining to contribute to the network.

Nosana

Nosana is a decentralized GPU computing network built on the Solana blockchain, focusing on providing a distributed computing power market for AI inference workloads. In April, the job completion volume and contributor rewards for Nosana saw a slight increase, with GPU nodes remaining stable. The newly launched Gaianet AI collaboration project allows AI agents to operate on the Nosana infrastructure, which is expected to drive job growth.

Sallar.io

Sallar is a platform that connects the idle computing power of devices such as smartphones to the network, forming distributed computing nodes to support high-performance computing needs. In April, Sallar's dollar rewards increased by 27% month-on-month, reaching $11,800, while the number of active wallets remained stable.

Grass

Grass connects users' idle internet bandwidth to the network, providing a foundational data source for AI training, data scraping, and proxy services, while rewarding participants in the form of on-chain tokens. In April, Grass's data collection reached a new historical high of 34.5 million GB.

Wingbits

Wingbits is a decentralized physical infrastructure network project based on the Solana blockchain that collects aircraft data in real time through ADS-B hardware deployed by users worldwide. Since November 2024, the number of flights tracked by the Wingbits network has increased to 150,000, with daily data points collected rising to 9 billion, representing increases of 7% and 29%, respectively; the number of contributing sites has also increased by 43%, reaching 3,000.

Hivemapper

Hivemapper is a decentralized mapping network where users collect street-level images through dashcams to earn token rewards. In April, Hivemapper's monthly mapping mileage remained stable, and its AI-driven platform for fleet management, Beekeeper, officially launched that month, expected to bring new growth momentum. Since February, the number of active map contributors for Hivemapper has remained stable at around 5,000.

NATIX Network

The NATIX Network aims to collect street view and geographic data through smartphones and dedicated devices, providing high-precision positioning and imaging support for map making, autonomous driving, and physical AI. The ecosystem remained stable in April, with user-driven mileage consistently at 11 million kilometers for the third consecutive month.

Sourceful Energy

Sourceful Energy is centered around a decentralized virtual power plant, integrating distributed energy resources into the Solana blockchain network. In April, Sourceful Energy's power output increased by 30%, and with the newly launched Zap smart energy efficiency analysis devices receiving 500 pre-orders, this growth trend is expected to continue.

AmbiosNetwork

Ambios Network has built the world's largest environmental monitoring DePIN by deploying low-cost air quality and environmental sensors to provide real-time, hyper-local environmental data. In April, Ambios Network's cumulative user ecological data check-ins exceeded 2 million times, with a 12% growth in ecological data check-ins; the total number of platform users increased to 45,000, a year-on-year growth of 2%.