Using Crypto to Build Real-World Infrastructure

Key Insights

• Proof of Physical Work is a novel token distribution mechanism that rewards participants for completing verifiable physical work in the real-world.
• Numerous protocols are utilizing the Proof of Physical Work framework to incentivize supply-side participation in building hardware networks. These include wireless, mobility, environmental, compute, and storage networks.
• Cryptoeconomic protocols are extremely powerful at incentivizing and coordinating human activity, making them useful for the development of real-world decentralized infrastructure and hardware networks.
• Using the Proof of Physical Work framework, protocols can motivate participants to build out the supply-side of their networks to the point where end users find them attractive to use.

In the midst of the market decline, crypto critics have returned in full force to debate whether the industry has any real use cases. Aside from the innovation in capital formation and the use cases of non-sovereign money, the removal of middlemen and rent seekers, and the break up of monopolies, their argument may appear valid. In reality though, crypto protocols have been so successful at coordinating activity in the digital realm that projects have begun leveraging crypto for real-world physical use cases.

Cryptoeconomic protocols can incentivize the development of real-world infrastructure and hardware networks through the coordinating abilities of blockchain technology. Instead of a single, centralized entity, millions of sovereign individuals can be aligned to deploy and operate infrastructure in a trustless, permissionless, and programmatic manner.