DePIN Tokenomics Part 3: What Drives Valuations? DRNs vs. PRNs, Fundamentals, Liquidity Premiums, Scalability, and More

Key Insights

We analyzed the value capture mechanisms and valuations of 80 Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePINs) with publicly available data.

Our findings:

– Digital Resource Networks (DRNs) exhibit median fully diluted valuations (FDVs) that are more than three times higher than those of Physical Resource Networks (PRNs). Several key factors help explain this valuation gap:

• Revenue: DRNs tend to be older and generate higher revenues than PRNs, though this gap has narrowed in recent quarters. While higher revenue levels typically correlate with elevated FDVs, the majority of high-FDV DePIN projects have not yet disclosed revenue data publicly. This lack of transparency complicates efforts to evaluate the sustainability of current valuations.
• Cost of Supply: DePINs that require specialized, high-cost hardware (e.g., Render, Aethir, and Livepeer for compute or GEODNET’s RTK correction stations) tend to exhibit higher valuations than those with more generalizable setups (e.g., storage networks such as SCPrime). This trend is more pronounced for DRNs than for PRNs.
• Scalability: DRNs achieve higher valuations than PRNs, particularly when their networks support concentrated scaling (supply-sides that can be densely and efficiently scaled).