Decentralized Physical Infrastructure (DePIN) tokens have experienced a 30% decline over the last six months despite the sector reaching a market capitalization of $20 billion in the past 12 months, according to a report by MV Global.
The downturn comes after strong performances during the fourth quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of this year, when many projects in the space achieved new all-time highs. As of Sept. 1, there are roughly 2,365 active DePIN projects in the industry, based on DePIN Ninja data.
HNT bucks trend
According to MV Global, DePIN token prices are influenced by a combination of fundamental performance indicators, web2 use case-related factors, and speculative narrative-based demand.
However, the report acknowledged that the relationship between these factors and token prices is not always clear or consistent. Nevertheless, it added that DePIN tokens remain a good allocation for a portfolio despite the recent corrections due to their low correlation with the broader crypto market.
Listed DePIN projects saw an even larger average price decline in the last three months, tanking nearly 37% over the period. The only token to buck this trend was Helium’s native token, HNT, which gained 70% over the last month.
The price leap coincides with Helium’s announcement of progress on its roadmap and surpassing 100,000 mobile subscriptions.
Different results for different verticals
The report also highlighted varying performances across DePIN subverticals. Despite showing smaller drawdowns over the recent months due to HNT’s performance, connectivity-oriented projects have underperformed compared to other DePIN categories.
Meanwhile, bandwidth-oriented projects outperformed over the six and 12-month period, with AIOZ seeing a remarkable 3278.6% increase over the past year. AIOZ is the native token for AIOZ Network, a decentralized content delivery network.
DePIN tokens related to storage and censor, such as FIL and HONEY, also showed poor performances 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 still fared better than the crypto market average performance of negative 45.7% for the period, according to Artemis data.
Overall, DePIN tokens have performed better than 16 out of 20 crypto sectors over the last six month period.