Wayru Free WiFi Hardware + New DePIN Reward Tools
This week’s DePIN roundup leads with Wayru free WiFi hardware connecting underserved communities across the Americas. We also cover Hivemapper’s new funding, a technical 4DSKY hardware deep dive, Solana DePIN growth insights, and Moken’s expanding reward calculators.
In this issue
- Wayru Foundation rolls out free WiFi hardware
- Solana DePIN: October highlights and growth trends
- 4DSKY deep dive: why better antennas and hardware matter
- Solana Ventures invests in Hivemapper
- Moken’s growing suite of reward estimators
ROI recap of the week
- Helium WiFi: ~ $0.94/day — ROI 264–746 days
- WeatherXM: ~ $0.09/day — ROI 4,444 days
- GEODNET: ~ $1.56/day — ROI 445 days
- Aethir Edge: ~ $0.39/day — ROI 3,589 days
- Entropy: ~ $0.36/day — ROI 571 days
- Nubila Marco: ~ $0.06/day — ROI 4,983 days
Estimates are directional only and can change with token prices and network activity; this is not financial advice.
Wayru Foundation rolls out free WiFi hardware to connect underserved communities
The Wayru Foundation has launched an initiative to bring Internet access to underserved areas across the Americas. As part of the program, the foundation is giving away 1,000 Prometheus Outdoor WiFi Miners to individuals, organizations, and community leaders who want to offer free or low‑cost connectivity. Hardware is free; recipients cover shipping and device minting. Rewards generated are shared 50/50 between the operator and the foundation.
How the program works
The devices are designed for long‑range outdoor coverage. Operators place hotspots in commercial districts, schools, rural regions, underserved neighborhoods, or busy community spaces to maximize impact.
Who should apply
Ideal applicants can place hardware with good elevation or visibility that serves multiple households or a broad public area. The goal is to empower local operators to deploy free hardware where it will have the greatest impact and close the connectivity gap.
Solana Ventures invests in Hivemapper
Hivemapper secured a strategic investment from Solana Ventures in its latest round, reinforcing support for decentralized mapping infrastructure. Hivemapper has mapped 36% of the global road network—over 650 million km—fueling enterprise deployments with live, global road intelligence. Source
4DSKY for the nerds: hardware, antennas, and precision
DePIN_Daddy sits down with James from Neuron / 4DSKY to dig into antennas, accuracy, and how the team plans to scale. The discussion covers why cheap antennas fall short and how aviation‑grade hardware delivers superior precision compared to competitors.
If you’re deploying 4DSKY, consider the aviation‑grade Airsquitter (4DSKY) receiver. For added tracking accuracy, regional antennas like the UAT 978 MHz Antenna (USA) and the FLARM 868MHz Antenna (EU) are designed to boost signal quality.
Solana DePIN: October highlights and growth trends
Solana’s DePIN ecosystem continued strong performance in October. Major networks—Helium, Render, Hivemapper, UpRock, NATIX, and GEODNET—maintained over $2M in combined monthly revenue for a second straight month. Year‑to‑date, Helium led with a 787% increase. October deployer rewards reached $3.6M ($81M YTD) as FDV‑to‑revenue ratios normalized with real usage.
Helium Mobile surpassed 500k subscribers and $1.7M in October revenue; Dabba hit 5k TB consumed; Roam rebounded with 40k new users. On mapping, NATIX and Hivemapper topped 350M km mapped and 430k drivers YTD; Hivemapper doubled monthly revenue to $77k and announced a RICOH integration. In compute/AI, Nosana hit a record 229k jobs, and io.net revenue rose to $931k, supported by AiMo. Source
Moken expands DePIN reward calculators
Moken’s growing suite of reward calculators helps estimate earnings across top DePIN networks based on your location.
- Nubila
- 4DSKY
- Wingbits
- ASICs (Bitaxe, Avalon Q, Nano 3S, Goldshell BYTE and more)
- GEODNET
- Helium WiFi
- ROVR
- Entropy
- Aethir
- WeatherXM
Exploring ASICs from the list? Consider Goldshell BYTE (DG + XT) and Bitaxe Gamma – GekkoScience Edition Plus.
New calculators are added weekly.
JD’s take
It was a rocky week for crypto overall, but the Wayru update stands out—giving away Prometheus units makes sense if inventory is stuck. Each free unit still triggers a small token buy to onboard it, though that alone likely won’t move price.
Hivemapper’s Solana Ventures investment is a positive for the company. Token holders are still frustrated with price action; the open question is how low token incentives can go before mapping participation is affected.
On 4DSKY, James from Neuron shared great detail on antennas, accuracy, and how their device compares to other DePIN competitors—worth a listen in the first ~40 minutes of the call.
Finally, Moken’s estimators are handy for quick, rough earnings checks across projects—far better than old videos with outdated tokenomics. They aren’t perfect, but they’re useful and improving.