Grass Rising: The New Star in the Integration of DePIN and AI Data Fields

Grass Depth Research Report: A Rising Star in the DePIN Field, The Rise of AI Data Banks

Key Points

The core factor that makes Grass stand out in the DePIN project is the zero-threshold participation method. The user base is key, while other factors play a leveraging role.

Grass has broken through the competition in the DePIN field through technological and model innovation:

  • Use zero-knowledge proofs and Solana Layer2 architecture to ensure data authenticity and solve the "dirty data" problem in the AI industry.
  • Adopting the "bandwidth mining → points reward" model to convert 2.5 million users into data nodes, forming an advantage on the supply side.

With the growth of AI data demand, the development of the Solana ecosystem, and reasonable operational strategies, Grass has become a leading project in the AI data DePIN field.

Key factors to pay attention to for the future development of Grass:

  • Short-term: Will the decentralized transformation be successfully completed by 2025?
  • Mid-term: Actual data procurement scale of AI enterprises
  • Long-term: The evolution of data privacy and ownership-related regulations

The biggest risk currently lies in "the token craze masking the lack of actual demand". If large-scale growth in AI customer orders cannot be achieved in the future, the perfect business cycle may degenerate from a positive loop of "data-capital" to a supply-side bubble.

Grass Depth Research Report: DePIN Shining Star, Expanding AI Data Bank

1. Industry Background

DePIN integrates global idle resources ( such as computing power, storage, and bandwidth ) through token incentives to build a distributed infrastructure network. Meanwhile, the AI industry faces data shortages, monopolies by giants, privacy controversies, and data silos, resulting in 80% of data value being unreleased.

The essence of future AI competition is a dual game of data acquisition efficiency and compliance, and DePIN provides a technical solution. The innovation of Grass lies in the integration of these two fields.

1.1 DePIN: A Global Paradigm for Restructuring Infrastructure

DePIN( is a new economic model that integrates globally distributed physical resources through blockchain technology to create a decentralized physical infrastructure network. The core logic is to utilize token incentives to encourage community contributions of idle resources, constructing a decentralized infrastructure network that replaces the high-cost, low-efficiency model of traditional centralized service providers.

Compared to centralized models, DePIN has advantages in cost structure, governance models, network resilience, and ecological scalability.

DePIN encompasses physical infrastructure ) such as wireless networks, energy networks (, and digital resource networks ) such as storage and computing (, divided into two main categories. Typical cases include:

  • Physical Infrastructure: Helium ) Decentralized Wireless Network (
  • Digital Resource Network: Filecoin) Decentralized Storage(, Aethir) Distributed Computing(

According to Messari data, by 2024, the number of DePIN devices worldwide has exceeded 13 million, with a market size reaching 50 billion USD, but the penetration rate is less than 0.1%. It is expected to grow 100 to 1000 times in the next decade.

In 2024, the total market value of the DePIN sector reached 50 billion USD, including over 350 projects, with an annual growth rate exceeding 35%. The core driving force lies in the bilateral effects of resource efficiency improvement and demand explosion.

![Grass Depth Research Report: DePIN Shining Star, Expanding AI Data Bank])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-53ff22e3333759cdc38081bea3e4148f.webp(

) 1.2 AI Data Demand: Explosive Growth and Structural Contradictions

The acquisition and processing of AI data are the core driving forces behind the development of artificial intelligence. The performance of AI models largely depends on the quality and quantity of the training data. High-quality, diverse, and geographically representative data is crucial for AI models.

Data demand scale and characteristics:

  • Magnitude leap: Taking GPT-4 as an example, training requires more than 45TB of text data.
  • Cost proportion: The data collection, cleaning, and labeling costs in AI development account for more than 40% of the total budget.
  • Scenario differentiation: Different AI applications have varying requirements for data types.

Traditional data supply pain points:

  • Data Barriers: Core enterprises control data sources, and small to medium developers face high thresholds.
  • Data silos: Data is dispersed across different institutions, making it difficult to share and circulate.
  • Data Privacy: Data collection involves privacy disputes
  • Inefficient circulation: global data utilization rate is less than 20%
  • Value chain disruption: Data creators are unable to profit from subsequent use.

The breakthrough path of DePIN:

  • Distributed Data Collection: Reduce costs, improve efficiency and scale
  • Improve data quality and diversity: Attract more participants through incentive mechanisms.
  • Decentralized cleaning and labeling: Community collaboration to complete data preprocessing
  • Tokenized incentive closed loop: forming direct matching of supply and demand

The Grass project is positioned at the intersection of DePIN and the AI data industry, innovatively applying the DePIN concept to the field of AI data collection, constructing a decentralized data scraping network to provide a more economical, efficient, and reliable data source for AI model training.

![Grass Depth Research Report: DePIN Shining Star, Expanding AI Data Bank]###https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-5a5dc433d77affb341f2409a4573ace1.webp(

2. Project Basic Information

Grass builds a decentralized data scraping network through the DePIN architecture, providing cost-effective and diverse data sources for AI training. Users only need to install the client to contribute bandwidth and earn token rewards. In its first year, it attracted over 2.5 million nodes, and the token increased over 5 times in value within 10 days of its launch, validating its business logic.

The project has received investments from top-tier capital such as Polychain and Hack VC, relying on the high-performance Solana chain to achieve data ownership and circulation.

The current anonymity of the team is controversial, and the progress of decentralized data processing needs to be followed up.

) 2.1 Scope of Business

Grass is a DePIN project that collects and verifies internet data through the idle bandwidth of user devices, providing support for AI development. Its core is a residential proxy network that allows companies to access data from different geographic locations using users' internet connections, which is very useful for the diverse data needed for AI model training.

The problem solved by Grass: Traditional web scraping is usually done by centralized systems, which are inefficient and prone to errors. Grass aims to provide reliable, verified internet data through a decentralized approach.

Vision and Mission: To create a decentralized internet data layer that collects, validates, and structures data in a trust-minimized way. Empower users to contribute to the data layer and incentivize participation through a reward mechanism.

User Participation Method: Simply visit the Grass official website, install the extension/client, connect and start earning Grass Points.

Key features and advantages of Grass:

  • The cost of data retrieval from decentralized networks is low, and the diversity of data is richer.
  • Users earn rewards by contributing bandwidth, realizing the return of data value.
  • Use blockchain technology to verify data, ensuring transparency and reliability.

2.2 Development History

  • Mid 2022: Wynd Labs proposed the concept
  • Early 2023: Start product development
  • 2023: Completed $3.5 million seed round financing
  • End of 2023: Launch Chrome browser extension and start user testing
  • April 2024: Over 2 million connected node devices
  • October 21, 2024: Announce the first airdrop, distributing 100 million GRASS tokens.
  • October 28, 2024: Listed on exchanges like OKX, the price rose from $0.6 to $3.89 within 10 days.
  • Current: Continue to expand, carry out the second phase of user hanging incentive; plan to launch a mobile application.

![Grass Depth Research Report: DePIN Shining Star, Expanding AI Data Bank]###https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-8593de2d2e4360b40bef787e7bb9844f.webp(

) Team Situation 2.3

Grass is developed by Wynd Labs, founded by Andrej Radonjic, who is the CEO of Wynd Labs and holds a Master's degree in Mathematics and Statistics from York University.

The team members are all from Wynd Labs, focusing on the development of blockchain and AI technologies, but specific member information has not been widely disclosed.

Wynd Labs was founded in 2022, and its core product is Grass.

The team's background demonstrates professional competence, but insufficient transparency of information may affect the trust of investors and users.

2.4 Financing and Important Partners

Investors and Support:

  • Seed Round: Completed $3.5 million financing in 2023, led by Polychain Capital and Tribe Capital.
  • Series A: Completed in September 2024, led by HackVC, with participation from Polychain, Delphi, Lattice, and Brevan Howard.

Partners:

  • Built on the Solana network
  • Currently, there is no specific mention of cooperation with AI companies.

![Grass Depth Research Report: DePIN Shining Star, Expanding AI Data Bank]###https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-442ddae78916efb3c3998ddaa1e5a21b.webp(

3. Project Technical Analysis

Grass aims to redistribute the value of data from big tech companies to ordinary users. The node network, ZKP processing innovations, and data ledger in its technical architecture form a closed-loop workflow that supports its decentralized vision.

However, the current centralized operations need to be resolved, and it still needs to be tracked whether the technical implementation can land smoothly.

) 3.1 Core Technology Architecture: Sovereign Data Rollup

Grass is building the first sovereign data aggregation, simplifying data procurement and transformation through a globally distributed network of nodes. The infrastructure is supported by a dedicated data Rollup on Solana, managing the complete lifecycle of the data.

Core Components:

Node Network:

  • Composed of three layers: validators, routers, and Grass nodes.
  • Users install browser extensions/desktop applications to share bandwidth, forming Grass nodes.
  • There are already over 2.5 million nodes, covering more than 190 countries, capturing about 100TB of data daily.
  • The router connects nodes and validators, responsible for network management and bandwidth relay.
  • Validators receive, verify, and batch process transactions, generating ZK proofs.

Zero-Knowledge Proof ### ZK ( Processor:

  • Use ZKP to verify data sources, ensuring privacy and integrity
  • Generate on-chain proof, verify data source and trace lifecycle

Data Ledger:

  • Connect the captured data with the L1 settlement layer
  • Record data through Solana's Layer 2 network to form "sovereign data volume"
  • Ensure data transparency and traceability

![Grass Depth Research Report: DePIN Shining Star, Expanding AI Data Bank])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-7234794b226811c632e2152fbdf5ef91.webp(

) 3.2 Technical Breakthroughs and Rationality

Technical Highlights:

  • Apply the DePIN concept to network data scraping, filling the decentralized gap in AI data collection.
  • Use ZKP to verify data sources, solving privacy and trust issues of traditional centralized scraping.
  • Build Layer 2 networks to handle high throughput data transactions, leveraging Solana's advantages.
  • Plan to launch "real-time context retrieval" technology to enhance real-time data provisioning capabilities.

The technical design forms a complete solution, supporting the vision of a decentralized data layer:

  • The scale of the node network supports diversified data source provision.
  • ZKP ensures user data security and enhances trust.
  • Layer 2 networks enhance efficiency and scalability

Currently still in the testing phase, data collection is handled by a centralized system, which may limit the full realization of decentralization. Attention should be paid to the deployment progress of Layer 2 networks.

![Grass Depth Research Report: DePIN Shining Star, Expanding AI Data Bank]###https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-fba326f9cd60d13800de2342a94fb6fe.webp(

4. Business Model Flywheel

Grass has presented an almost perfect business flywheel, but while the flywheel can drive supply, it cannot support demand.

Supply Side: 2.5 million nodes capture an average of 100TB of raw data daily, forming a compliant dataset after ZK verification.

Demand Side: AI companies purchase as needed, and the revenue is fed back into the ecosystem through tokens, completing the transformation of "bandwidth → data → cash flow." ) The demand side has not yet been verified; it remains to be seen whether AI companies will pay for decentralized data, which still needs to be proven by scaled orders. (

) 4.1 Business Model Closed Loop: Fully Utilize Token Incentives

Business Model Overview: Users contribute bandwidth to earn Grass Points rewards → Scrape public web data → AI companies purchase data → Revenue is distributed through token allocation to form a closed loop.

User Contribution Bandwidth:

  • Install extensions/Desktop application to share bandwidth, recommend friends to earn rewards
  • Grass Points are calculated based on factors such as bandwidth usage, geographical location, and more.

Crawl public data from the web:

  • Grass
GRASS7.94%
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ApeEscapeArtistvip
· 07-15 19:13
A new project is up again to Be Played for Suckers.
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EyeOfTheTokenStormvip
· 07-12 20:14
Hastily did a technical analysis... a project completely ahead of the market cycle, don't be fooled by FOMO.
View OriginalReply0
GateUser-00be86fcvip
· 07-12 20:05
Another zero-threshold one
View OriginalReply0
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