I read the white papers first and check the token distribution to make sure not too much is going to their team etc…

I join the projects discord to just see the activity going on. Some of them are huge red flags full of bots to fake engagement it’s pretty obvious.

There are some things to keep in mind reading discords, first off almost every project server removes “fud” comments so it’s an extremely biased source of information unfortunately. If someone even voices a negative concern half the time you are banned or comment removed so just keep that in mind.

I also hang out in several voice chats for DePIN where people just argue all day about projects and it’s nice to hear rants vs only positive stuff.

If the project makes no sense in my head I’m out. Like if I can’t understand how they plan on generating revenue or I think it’s a bad model I just move onto the next. For example all these AI projects claiming to destroy existing cloud infrastructure with their decentralized hardware without any GPUs (bunch of these projects) or projects that want to replace Cloudflare cdn, I don’t by it unfortunately.

Going through my lists here I think the last thing so check are, is the team publicly doxed? If not it’s huge red flags full for me. Why hide? And the social media accounts like x I check followers to activity ratios. If you have 500k followers and getting 20 likes per post something’s up. So I check the interactions to see if it’s fake bot accounts, which it normally is.

One last thing I hope. Hardware markup cost. If I see a esp32 being sold for 300$ I just think the whole things a money grab. Like the btc miners that are esp32 selling for 100$. It’s just junk.

My first DePIN was helium iot. Simply because it was printing money. I try not to “fall in love” with projects and not connect emotionally. I just extract and move on.

4DSKY is one on my radar to compete against Wingbits.

I used to get DePin ideas from YouTubers. DYOR included researching a projects white paper and mission, how they were making or going to generate revenue, and how much the projects hardware cost vs building it myself.

Now I mostly learn of new projects from HD/Moken and collaboration between projects.

Green flags for me:

• Current revenue stream (excluding VC backing)

• Active, constructive discourse between DevOps and the community

• Re-purposable hardware

Red flags for me:

• No white paper or clear tokenomics, no deflationary or burn mechanism

• Mission is a solution looking for a problem

Fry Networks was my OG project. Pioneering and ambitious business plan and great ROI when I got in. But turned out to be a bit too ambitious and development is slowed.

GEODNET was next and is my first solid DePin. Focused mission, active revenue generation, and a token-burn model that Was solid for deployers.

I was a new comer too earlier last year. And I paid a lot on learning lessons.

To look back, one thing I could do better is don’t rush on purchasing decisions (esp. when the fancy website saying it’s running out soon w/ limited stocks), instead:

• Observing a few days to see if the purchasing numbers ever change. Read their whitepapers to see how the tokenomics were designed. What is their team’s priority (eg. some prioritize VC’s view, some prioritizes miners, and some prioritize users on the demand side)? DYOR.

• The other thing is to engage with the community more. And hey! you are making the right move of posting here, a lot smarter than I was! I’d say join a couple of Discord channels too to see how different teams manage the communities, and also check out other people’s opinions on different projects.

  • But be very careful with scammers, never provide your secret phrase or PK. I’ve been scammed myself, there were only tears and blood.

Regarding the first DePIN project, mine was Helium. But given that there was a halvening event 8/1, it makes sense to check out a few others (I mean Helium is still good and I am holding on to it … it’s just the reward is shrinking …). How about starting from ROVR instead if you have a car?

Helium first years ago when it had awesome potential (RIP Helium). But now I’m messing with Entropy (ENT). The latter has been a lot of fun.

I jumped into Apps first because they were free and I could get up immediately. My first miner is the Wingbits/Geod device I just got and struggled a little last night trying to set up. I’d also like to know how to easier spot a poor project. There are so many out there. However, this forum gives us the best way to measure with everyone’s active projects publicly viewable. Next device will likely be an Aethir.

Helium because the idea was impressive and I was seeing already hundreds of devices deployed in my area!