Solana intends to deploy Firedancer in 2025 amid increasing DePIN activity

by Eve Adams

2 years ago

DePIN Solana Foundation leader Kulin Nimkar stated that Solana plans to release the full version of the Firedancer update in 2025, with "lite versions" available beforehand.

The update aims to enhance the reliability and scalability of Solana (SOL) as the activity of decentralized infrastructure protocols continues to grow.

We see a lot of promising deep projects that do everything, Kulin said about DePIN activities at DEFICON on May 23.

DePIN, or decentralized physical infrastructure networks, involves using blockchain to manage and operate physical infrastructure systems.

According to Kulin, the use cases for DePIN in the Solana ecosystem include protocols working on decentralized energy solutions, such as homeowners creating interconnected virtual power plants, as well as GPU networks and data collection. For example, some projects incentivize users to install browser extensions that scan the internet and collect data for training large language models.

Protocols driving DePIN activity on Solana include Helium (HNT), Hivemapper (HONEY), and Render (RNDR). Dune Analytics data shows the number of Hivemapper "cartographers" grew from about 30,000 connected drivers to nearly 67,000 in May 2024.

Total users

As node operators for the Hivemapper protocol, cartographers use dashboard-mounted cameras to capture video of streets and intersections while driving. These video data are then used to create maps for various purposes, including navigation. Cartographers are rewarded with the protocol's native token for their contributions.

Each of us has probably experienced looking at Street View and thinking, 'This is not at all what my neighborhood looks like.' The reason is how Street View is created, mainly with a fleet of cars owned and operated by Google. But owning and operating a fleet is really expensive. It's much cheaper to pay people who are already driving to collect this data, Kulin noted.

It is said that Solana's high transaction speed and low cost are incentives for DePIN projects, but network congestion and outages continue to create problems for developers. On February 9, the Solana network experienced another prolonged outage, causing nearly five hours of downtime.

One important thing is that we are paying a lot of attention to launching Firedancer, Kulin said about the independent validator client being developed in collaboration with Jump Crypto.

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