Author: Starpower
Against the backdrop of the rapid development of DePIN, Starpower Laser and Kuleen, head of DePIN at the Solana Foundation, discussed why Solana will focus on supporting the energy DePIN project in the coming year.
The audio transcript and translation are generated by GPT, so there may be some errors. Please listen to the full podcast:
https://x.com/starpowerworld/status/1859052683950518654
Opening Introduction
Starpower's Vision and Positioning
Laser
Hi Kuleen, I think it is a great honor for us to have you as the first guest for our first DePIN Power blog today. We named it DePIN Power because Starpower is an energy project, so we think the name DePIN Power makes sense. To start this podcast, I think it would be best for both parties to do a round of introductions for the listeners, and I will start first.
For those who are interested in Starpower, we are an open distributed energy network protocol. In simple terms, you can think of us as the Web3 version of Tesla. Unlike Tesla's proprietary route, we are more like Android, open source, just like the comparison between iOS and Android. We strive to connect third-party energy devices, especially energy storage batteries. By horizontally integrating third-party manufacturers and vertically using DePIN to stimulate network growth, Starpower expects to exceed Tesla's number of energy device connections within 5 years.
Starpower is developing our mainnet, which is expected to be launched in the first quarter of next year. We are now conducting an airdrop before the mainnet launch. I personally worked at Hashkey before, and have been building Starpower for the past two years. I am very optimistic about the development of DePIN in the energy field. Kuleen, you are our first guest on the podcast, and we want to learn about you and your work at the Solana Foundation.
Solana Foundation’s Mission and Kuleen’s Role, the Intersection of DePIN and Energy
Heat up
First of all, I'm really honored to be on this podcast and I'm really interested in the intersection of DePIN and energy. I think energy DePIN is going to be one of the most active and interesting trends going forward. Not just in the short term over the next three to six months, but also in the longer term. I think the world's energy infrastructure is going to change dramatically in the next 10 years. So this is really great, and I think it's a privilege to be at the starting line of this journey!
About myself, I am part of the Solana Foundation team. I have been working at Solana for about four years, mainly working with teams within the ecosystem to help them succeed. I lead several internal teams, but the most relevant for this conversation is that I lead the DePIN work of the Solana Foundation, and I am honored to work with some of the OG projects in the DePIN field such as Helium, Hivemapper, and now more and more with the next stage DePIN project teams, especially in the energy field like Starpower. Before joining Solana and the crypto field, I worked in the finance and quantitative trading field, which is actually one of the reasons why I am very interested in energy. Energy not only has technical elements, but also the way its market works is very interesting. For example, energy prices can be negative, and electricity is also very volatile in the intraday market. It is really a very unique field. So in addition to its importance in society, I also think it is also an interesting intellectual game.
Solana’s Latest Updates in DePIN
Laser
I remember when we met in New York in August, you mentioned a professor's point that was impressive, saying that moving electrons in electricity is like moving bytes in the Internet. But before we dive into the DePIN energy industry, we can talk more about Solana. Solana's market value has just reached $100 billion, so I thought you could share some of your thoughts on Solana DePIN recently, what new projects excite you, and talk about Solana's next layout in DePIN.
Heat up
As for Solana or Sol's market cap, I think it's good for the entire ecosystem, but it's not what I focus on every day. My primary goal when I wake up every day is to help people build great products on Solana. Regarding DePIN, I think some of the things we are watching and excited about will drive the next stage of growth for the entire crypto ecosystem.
DePIN is a very broad concept that encompasses different types of problems or industries to which the DePIN model can be applied, such as energy, which is obviously one of them. Applying the DePIN approach to the energy industry can solve many problems, and even break down these problems from multiple angles. But I'll stop here, this direction is very interesting to us.
The second historically very important DePIN sub-sector is the telecommunications industry, and obviously this includes Helium. But there are also many layers to the telecommunications space, like providing wireless 5G coverage, providing IoT coverage through LoRa, or some of the products we're seeing now that are trying to provide broadband internet. There are a lot of different ways to do this through the DePIN approach. For example, in addition to the Helium team we mentioned, there are teams like XNET that recently moved from Polygon to Solana, and these teams are solving this problem in different ways. I think telecommunications is a great problem set for DePIN, so I expect to see a lot of projects.
Also, we're seeing a similar but different trend, which is the rise of decentralized CDN (content distribution network) infrastructure. Teams like Pipe Network or Gradient are basically building DePIN networks to store content locally. They're trying to get some cost benefits out of it. I think this CDN type of DePIN infrastructure is awesome, and the interesting thing is that this is actually happening without encryption technology.
As far as I know, especially in China, there are already some services that operate DePIN networks to some extent. However, their payment method is not through tokens, but through someone manually paying them on WeChat. For example, in a WeChat group, someone will make a payment. That is, the core of the product is already there, and now we just need to introduce the token incentive mechanism and the elegance of crypto infrastructure to this problem. I think it will be very interesting.
In addition, there are some other problems. I'll try to be brief, there are a lot of other problems that I think are also very suitable for DePIN, such as sensor networks, which require very wide sensor coverage. There is a group in discussion that they want to apply to drone safety, so they need sensors to measure drone activities, and initially they did drone safety work at some very high-profile events like Taylor Swift concerts. But now they want to expand their drone safety capabilities over a larger geographic area and longer time frame. So they are now considering using DePIN's approach to achieve this goal.
I think this is really cool. There are so many problems that require distributed hardware to solve, and DePIN is an effective way to solve these problems. We are seeing a lot of related experiments now. So, in general, you asked me what I am excited about, and I probably said everything, but it is true.
Deep integration of Solana and DePIN
Laser
At present, many DePIN projects are emerging, some of which have migrated to Solana, and some have been born on Solana from the beginning, such as us. After communicating with so many projects, what do you think is the main reason why so many projects choose to build on Solana? Perhaps there are three most important reasons.
Heat up
You know, there's some interesting history here. I actually think there are two reasons why teams like Hivemapper, Helium, or Render initially chose Solana. The first is cultural fit, I mean, in my experience, DePIN founders tend to be the most pragmatic kind of founders in crypto. They just want to build a great product, and for them, the DePIN network is a means to an end, it needs to work well, be fast, be cheap, get the job done, and provide a good experience for the users who participate.
If you have this very pragmatic engineer mindset, I think you'd be inclined to like Solana because Solana is very pragmatic culturally and as a system, it's designed that way: how to do it cheaply, fast, and high quality. I think that's actually one of the things that attracted some of the early DePIN founders to Solana, it was almost a cultural fit. Of course, I think it's also related to the fact that Solana as a network is really different. If you look at any data about on-chain activity, Solana has orders of magnitude more on-chain activity than all other active public chains, and it has been rigorously tested at that scale.
So even early on, a lot of people noticed that, hey, man, Solana is really fundamentally designed differently and in a superior way. There was this cultural element and the appeal of Solana as a technology that attracted a lot of people early on. Two years ago, these were the main reasons people were attracted to Solana, and they still hold true today. But there are also some new features about Solana. Especially now that Solana is arguably one of the largest economies in crypto, at least by some metrics, if you look at activity on DEXs and those are where especially new users are getting their first exposure to crypto, they are increasingly choosing Solana.
So for new DePIN projects right now, when they look at this space, Solana has great technology and a deep economic foundation. People ultimately want their projects to succeed, and I think one element of building a successful token economy is to be in the strongest on-chain economy, and Solana is gradually becoming such an economy. Finally, I would say that the element of Solana as a community is also attracting DePIN projects. Now, if you are a DePIN founder on Solana, you will find that there are a lot of other very outstanding founders on Solana who can communicate with you, learn from you, and provide help. This is a community that has grown a lot recently, but it is still small enough and close-knit that people know each other.
And they tend to be very open and helpful. Right now, we're at a great point in time where Solana's technology is very scalable and the economy is the best economy. And I can lean on other DePIN founders, and sometimes not just on the founders, but on the ability to combine these protocols, like Helium and Hivemapper, Hivemapper can now use Helium nodes for location verification. If you're a Hivemapper driver, you can use Helium to prove that you took this photo at a certain location. Because everything is built on this single base layer of Solana, there's no fragmentation, which makes it easier to combine protocols.
In general, the early appeal was cultural fit, and now it has appeal at the technical, economic, and community levels. Now Solana has become a place where other applications can be combined with each other.
Laser
Great sharing, culture, technology and economy, these three points are not only the reasons why DePIN chose Solana, but also the reasons why Solana has become a leader in this cycle. I also want to share the experience of Starpower, why we want to build on Solana. The first reason is that when we started Starpower two years ago, at that time, Helium and others were migrating from their own chains to Solana, so this was a good reference for us and a good example for us to learn how to build smart contracts on Solana. In addition, because the potential user group in the energy field may far exceed the number of hotspot telecommunications users, we currently have about 20,000 devices, which need to report data on the chain every few minutes, and the daily transaction volume may reach 3 million to 5 million times, so from a technical point of view, I think Solana is not "better choice" or "more suitable", but "must go", there is no other choice for us. So I think the answer is culture, technology and economy, and Solana also has the largest user group.
How to Improve Solana
Heat up
I can just switch the question a little bit and say, is there anything that you wish the experience of developing on Solana could be better? There are a lot of things that are great about Solana, but I always wonder, okay, all of these things are good, so what else could be improved? What could be better?
Laser
Well, I personally have had really good support from you, Kuleen, your support has been outstanding. I think it can be a challenge to keep that culture and community engaged, especially with so many new projects building on Solana.
Heat up
This is something we think about a lot. It's interesting, and for us, one of the things we believe very strongly is that as this ecosystem takes off, Solana will grow exponentially. What should the Solana Foundation look like as an organization relative to this exponential growth? One thing that a lot of people may not know is that the Solana Foundation is only about 50 or 60 people at the moment, so it's not a very large organization. Sometimes people are surprised that there are only these people.
Interestingly, the size has remained roughly the same over the past two years. It hasn't shrunk drastically, nor has it expanded drastically. One reason for this is that we place a lot of emphasis on maintaining a high quality standard for each member, and this is not a place that is suitable for everyone, for many reasons. Also, I think we prefer a "small government" philosophy. We don't want the foundation to swell with the exponential growth of the ecosystem. People are always relying on us. We want to solve common problems, but we don't want to be the object of everyone's validation. So sometimes people will ask you, like "I'm building product X, do you think I should build it?" or "What do you think should be built?" I don't think you should ask me this question, I'm not your customer. Maybe in some cases I am, but usually not. My role is to solve your problem, so you should tell me what you want to build and what resources you need to build it.
So, we have a very clear view of the roles and responsibilities of the foundation, and one of them is to stay small relative to the ecosystem. But we also want to make sure that we serve the people who are building on Solana. As the number of developers grows, we need to find ways to do that. I can't be on Telegram 24/7, even though some people would like me to. So, we're focusing on finding more scalable processes and so on. Yes, I take your feedback, and it's something we think about a lot.
Energy becomes a key area for DePIN
Laser
Yes, I think there can be different approaches. One way is to expand the foundation team, and another more natural way is to have more interactions between the community, as you mentioned, with the exponential growth of the ecosystem, everyone can learn and help each other more.
I have another question. I remember we discussed this topic before. Energy is becoming a leading topic in DePIN. What do you think about this? Is energy the main focus of Solana DePIN?
Heat up
Yes, I think it's fair to say that energy is one of the most exciting things I foresee over the next 6 to 12 months.
There are several reasons. First, at a very high level, the world has recognized that energy infrastructure needs to change. We see climate change really happening. And its impact is quite significant, such as the intensity of hurricanes and so on. These changes are quite bad and dramatic. This is one of them. Second, energy demand is likely to surge in the next few years, depending on the efficiency of energy models and the growth in demand for large language models. Typically, there is a strong correlation between a country's wealth and its energy consumption. So, if we expect more and more parts of the world to become richer, energy consumption will also increase. So all of these factors are going to come into play over the next five to 10 years, and energy infrastructure has traditionally changed very slowly.
Another macro trend is the price of renewable energy sources like solar. For example, the cost of manufacturing solar panels continues to decrease. We know that there is Moore's Law, which predicts how semiconductor power will double quickly, and the cost of solar panels has dropped even faster than that law, so now solar is very cost-competitive. In general, renewable energy is becoming more useful and economically viable, and you see all these factors at work.
Energy is inherently a distributed problem because the transportation and storage of energy is not free, so you need to have equipment or hardware everywhere to solve these problems, and this is exactly how DePIN solves the problem. From this perspective, a large part of my excitement comes from this. We have the right elements, especially governments, like the US government, willing to subsidize or fund these projects on a large scale. So in a way, there is also a financial boost to promote these things.
So, in summary, these are a lot of the reasons that drive my interest in energy DePIN, and I feel like there are a lot of positive factors driving this change. I would like to end by saying that what really made me pay more attention to this space in the last 8-9 months is that now we are seeing the last and perhaps most important element - very talented founders starting to solve this problem, just like you. Without those talented people who can solve the problem, all the other conditions will not work. So now we have all of these conditions, and the talent, everything can start.
How Web3 can attract talents from traditional industries
Laser
I mean, I'm pretty much in the same boat as you are, and I follow the same mindset, looking at the problem at a high level, and then drilling down to smaller, more specific challenges and solutions, and all of these different factors amplify each other. I personally come from the traditional financial industry and knew nothing about energy before, but all of these factors made me interested in this challenge, and I listened to the signals. And then there's the other issue you mentioned, which is talent.
It’s a good time for energy, but we are still a Web3 project, and it’s not easy to attract talent from the Web2 industry to join us. My co-founder, Dr. Darcy, has worked in the renewable energy industry for nearly 10 years. I used to think it was difficult to attract talent from the energy industry to join the Web3 field to solve energy problems, almost impossible. But now because of the previous bull market, people are beginning to understand Bitcoin and blockchain, as well as DePIN projects such as Helium and Filecoin, which let them know what DePIN is, just like Darcy also learned about DePIN in the last bull market and is optimistic about using this method to solve the challenges brought by solar panels.
Heat up
I want to make a quick comment on the question of talent. I think you're absolutely right that it's really hard to recruit certain types of crypto projects because the traditional industry doesn't understand crypto and some even have very negative views. Especially after the FTX incident in December 2022 or January 2023, if you try to attract talent to the crypto field at that time, people may just tell you to get out. But things can change very quickly.
For example, the election results last week, no matter how you look at it, I have a feeling that it will make more people willing to join the crypto space because they now feel that the regulatory risk may be reduced and the token prices are rising. But when the bull market comes, the opposite problem will occur - a lot of people are interested in crypto, but it is difficult to tell who is really serious and who just wants to make a quick buck. So you go from having no suitable talent to having a large source of talent, but the average quality has dropped significantly. Therefore, the challenges of recruiting vary with the changing market environment.
Comparison and future of DePIN and DeVIN
Laser
I totally agree. In addition, I don't know what you think about the global industry trends. I don't have a left or right view, but thanks to Trump, people in the crypto industry feel that the bull market is coming. The last question, some DeVIN projects and DePIN projects, what do you think of them? To me, decentralized virtual DeVIN projects seem to be easier to attract users, while DePIN projects are more difficult. For example, the largest DePIN project Helium only has one million physical device users. What do you think of this issue? Does Solana prefer DeVIN projects or DePIN projects?
Heat up
I don't think there is a preference. I think it just depends on where you make the tradeoffs. DeVIN might be easier to onboard, but staying ahead might be harder. The ease of installation of DeVIN means that users can easily install your software, as well as other competitor software. In some areas, I expect there will be aggregation, such as users who just want to maximize their own benefits, such as bandwidth usage, and they can choose to offer their bandwidth to the highest bidder at any time. So in some areas, there will be tools like Jupiter that provide aggregation for different DeVIN protocols, and there will also be aggregators for DePIN protocols. It's just different tradeoffs, and I think DeVIN projects like Grass really solve certain problems in a very unique and powerful way.
They should exist, but as a business or protocol, they need to think about how to actually retain users. And for DePIN projects, users usually need to invest more, such as installing the equipment, which means that users are more engaged and more likely to stick with it for a long time. If you can cross this hurdle, it also means that they are less likely to install your competitor's equipment, because it requires a lot of extra work and the benefits may be limited. So, in general, this is just to say that both have great prospects, but the challenges they face are different, depending on what problem you are trying to solve and what type of network you are facing.
Laser
It sounds like DePIN users are more loyal to the project.
Heat up
This is also a moat for the DePIN project. If you become the largest player like Helium, it will be difficult to be replaced by competitors in a short period of time.
Laser
Yeah. I think we're getting close to the end. Kuleen, do you have any other insights or comments you'd like to share?
Heat up
No particular insights to share right now. But if you’re listening to this podcast and you’re thinking about building something in the DePIN space, feel free to reach out to me, I’d love to chat. If you’re building something on Solana and you run into issues and think there’s something that needs to be improved, please let me know, that’s the most useful feedback for me. If you have some ideas that you’re thinking about, feel free to share them with me. I can’t claim to have any insights, but I’d really like to hear more feedback.
Laser
Awesome Kuleen, you’re the most awesome person I’ve met at the Solana Foundation, thank you so much for your time.
Heat up
Thanks
