Decentralized physical infrastructure tokens (DePINs) have seen a 30% decline in the past six months, despite the sector reaching a market cap of $20 billion in the past 12 months, according to according to a report by MV Global.
The slowdown comes after strong performance in Q4 2023 and Q1 this year, when many projects in the sector hit new all-time highs. As of September 1, there were approximately 2,365 active DePIN projects in the sector, according to data from DePIN Ninja.
HNT Dollar Trend
According to MV Global, DePIN token prices are driven by a combination of fundamental performance indicators, factors related to Web2 use cases, and demand based on a speculative narrative.
The report acknowledges, however, that the relationship between these factors and token prices is not always clear or consistent. Nevertheless, it adds that DePIN tokens remain a good allocation for a portfolio despite recent corrections due to their low correlation to the broader cryptocurrency market.
Listed DePIN projects have seen an even larger average price drop over the past three months, dropping nearly 37% over the period. The only token to buck this trend was Helium’s native token, HNT, which gained 70% over the past month.
The price increase coincides with Helium’s announcement that it is advancing its roadmap and passing 100,000 mobile subscriptions.
Different results for different verticals
The report also highlighted varying performance across DePIN sub-sectors. Despite smaller declines in recent months due to HNT performance, connectivity-focused projects underperformed compared to other DePIN categories.
At the same time, bandwidth-focused projects have outperformed over the six- and twelve-month periods, with AIOZ seeing a remarkable increase of 3278.6% over the past year. AIOZ is the native token of AIOZ Network, a decentralized content delivery network.
DePIN tokens related to storage and censorship, such as FIL and HONEY, have also performed poorly over the past six months, with average losses of 36.6% and 38.2%, respectively.
Despite the 30% decline over the past six months, the DePIN sector is still performing better than the average cryptocurrency market performance of -45.7% for the period, according to data from Artemis.
Overall, DePIN tokens have performed better than 16 out of 20 crypto sectors over the past six months.
