Infrastructure Case Study丨Roam: Gather Grain, Build High Walls

In mid-month, I wrote about Roam's DePIN network, focusing on its node devices and the series of network service products provided.

In the recently disclosed 2025 roadmap, higher-dimensional infrastructure planning is also involved.

In simple terms: Gather grain, build high walls, and wait to become king.

Currently, Roam can be said to have completed the first phase, where a series of products listed earlier, hardware + software, have constructed a sufficiently large community base and network foundation through a single-point incentive strategy.

Currently, it still has the highest number of DePIN devices, exceeding a million, which is the first in the DePIN track and is also why it defines itself as a physical Layer 1.

The upcoming plans will introduce richer ecosystem expansions based on the existing physical nodes and supporting products (no longer limited to DePIN).

1. Ecosystem Plan: Roam Discovery

This is an ecosystem built around infrastructure, similar to most Layer 1s, introducing cooperative ecosystems to achieve sustainable expansion and mutual benefits.

Roam provides the ecosystem with users, data, and supporting facilities, while the ecosystems entering will reciprocally stimulate the retention of Roam's original users, enhancing the economic value of the tokens themselves.

-Platform Airdrops and Token Rights

Under this framework, users participating in Roam and partner projects can receive exclusive airdrops.

When users lock tokens on Roam, Roam issues equivalent tokens and provides incentives to cooperative projects.

At the same time, these projects entering the Roam ecosystem need to airdrop tokens to Roam's stakeholders, who will distribute the tokens to those who have locked tokens on Roam or participated in activities.

This design can be seen in many infrastructure protocols, where the ecological niche of infrastructure serves as a layout planner, and the relationship between the infrastructure and the ecosystem is mutually beneficial.

Take the popular Solana as an example; even though its development experience is not as good as Ethereum's, market liquidity is concentrated on Solana, which makes developers willing to build on Solana.

-Incentive Curve

In the official document's description, there is mention of ecosystem [dual mining] which is linked to the airdrop event.

When users lock tokens on Roam, Roam issues equivalent tokens and provides incentives to cooperative projects. The number of tokens acquired by the cooperative project depends on how many real users it brings to the Roam ecosystem.

For users, generally, the earlier one participates, the higher the airdrop share they will receive; this design and the airdrop event are viewed as Roam platform's 'Launchpool'.

2. Ecosystem Cases

Currently, more than 20 ecosystem projects have been preliminarily deployed. Taking one lending project, Huma Finance, as an example:

(1) Huma lowers the threshold for users to participate in the network by providing lending funds to Roam users;

(2) For example: You can operate Roam's mining machine with just a 30% down payment;

(3) At the same time, when repaying borrowed assets, users can also use mining rewards to repay loans.

The revenue algorithm here is: mining output > lending interest rate

With Huma's promotion, it can be anticipated that Roam's device scale will further increase until the relationship between mining output and lending interest rates reverses, and the arbitrage space gradually returns to the mean level.

The reason for mentioning this example is to say that promoting Roam to develop towards infrastructure, transforming from an [entrant] to a [planner], is supported by the project's massive network fundamentals.

Only then will other ecosystems be willing to enter this 'situation'.

3. Token Economy / Infrastructure / Product Extension

-Token Economy Flywheel

As a key point not mentioned in the previous tweet, this chapter is necessary to focus on.

$ROAM itself has a platform points design. During the TGE stage, I think it differs from most protocols in direct mapping because Roam issues tokens through point destruction.

Moreover, the platform points obtained after the TGE will also serve as proof of rights.

The maximum total supply is 1 billion; among these 1 billion tokens:

(1) 600 million as Roam Growth incentives (mining rewards, staking rewards, and community grants)

(2) In the burning exchange of $ROAM tokens and Roam Points, a dynamic difficulty adjustment mechanism is introduced to ensure the long-term stability of $ROAM's value;

(3) Mining machine owners have exclusive Roam Points burning pools, which have a higher conversion rate of $ROAM compared to zero-stake users with the same Points in the exclusive burning pool.

(4) Roam's mining machine users and MetaBlox NFT users will receive a total of 20 million $ROAM tokens airdrop before the TGE.

Ideally, when the calculations are made, as the network scales, future node earnings will come from the secondary market + the ecosystem's 'LaunchPool' earnings, ultimately forming: scale expansion → ecosystem entry → positive feedback of earnings.

This is also why the development of infrastructure ecosystems is best tied to tokens; otherwise, it can easily fall into a downward spiral during downturn periods.

-Interoperability

This is part of the latest roadmap, as developing the ecosystem is not solely about native protocols; many collaborations are with other L1 or L2 projects.

Therefore, promoting an interoperability network built around DePIN is very necessary; however, there are currently not many details available, and it is unclear whether third-party protocols or native ones are adopted.

-eSIM

This is a part mentioned in the previous report but not elaborated on: a globally universal network.

This is the architecture envisioned for Roam WIFI devices + eSIM. Because I've traveled to several countries for business this year, I noticed in the details of Roam's product description that wherever we go, we only need one eSIM card that supports over 160 countries. Moreover, Roam's global eSIM uses a top-up mechanism where users can recharge first and then be charged according to their specific data usage, offering better cost-effectiveness than traditional monthly or data package plans, avoiding data loss or the situation where users pay more and use less.

The overseas roaming plan I had this year basically didn't have one that was used up locally... Roam's mechanism can help me effectively avoid waste.

4. Summary

Currently, there are not many players excelling in WiFi business in the DePIN market; Roam's sub-category in this track has laid a very large scale due to its hardware.

It feels a bit like the early days of FIL, where the community base was expanded significantly as it entered a hot phase.

Moreover, Roam's latest products, especially the details about eSIM, really impressed me, and I will continue to track its performance for a while after it completes the TGE.