Every DePIN project claims you can “earn passive income.” Here’s what the math actually looks like — broken down by device, location, investment, and realistic token prices.

Let me save you three hours of reading breathless Medium posts about “earning $300/day from DePIN.”

You won’t earn $300 a day. Most people won’t earn $300 a month. Some will earn $300 a year. A smaller number, the ones who did real research, picked the right hardware, positioned it correctly, and got in at the right time, are genuinely building meaningful income streams.

The difference between those DePIN groups isn’t luck. It’s information.

This guide exists because honest income breakdowns for DePIN are genuinely hard to find. Every project has an incentive to make their numbers look as attractive as possible. Every affiliate blogger has a referral code riding on your optimism. Nobody is doing the work of laying out the actual inputs, the actual variables, and the actual realistic ranges.

That’s what this is. A calculator in article form. Walk through each project, input your situation, and come out the other side with a real expectation — not a fantasy.

Before We Start: The Three Numbers That Actually Matter in DePIN projects

Every DePIN income calculation comes down to three inputs. Get these right and you can estimate your earnings for any project, regardless of what their marketing says.

Number one: Net monthly token earnings. Not gross. Net. After electricity costs, hardware depreciation (spread across the realistic device lifespan), any subscription or hosting fees, and the gas/transaction costs of claiming your rewards. DePIN projects almost never show you this number. They show you gross token emissions and let you fill in the blanks optimistically.

Number two: Token price at the time you sell. This is the one nobody wants to talk about because it’s unknowable. But you need to model three scenarios: current price, a 70% drawdown from current price (which happens routinely in crypto), and a 2x from current price (possible but not guaranteed). Your income plan needs to survive the 70% scenario or you’re going to be disappointed.

Number three: Your real exit costs. Converting DePIN tokens to money in your bank account involves: DEX or CEX swap fees (0.1–1%), network transaction fees (varies wildly by blockchain), potential withdrawal fees, and tax treatment in your jurisdiction. In the US, crypto earnings are typically taxable as ordinary income at the time you receive them, not when you sell. That’s a detail that surprises a lot of first-time DePIN participants.

With those three numbers in mind, let’s go project by project.

Helium: The Original DePIN — And What It Really Pays Now

What it is: Crowd-sourced wireless networks. Deploy a hotspot, provide coverage, earn tokens.

The honest history: Helium’s early adopters in 2021–2022 were earning hundreds of dollars per month in hotspots positioned correctly in dense urban areas. That era is over. The halving cycles that govern HNT emissions have steadily reduced inflationary rewards, and the network matured from a growth-phase bonanza into something more sober and, arguably, more sustainable.

What the numbers look like today:

A well-placed IoT hotspot in a city with decent but not crowded coverage can expect somewhere between $0.10 and $1.50 daily. That’s a monthly range of $3 to $45. The majority of operators in early 2025 are landing in the $4–$8 per month range. That’s honest.

But here’s what that misses: the August 2025 halving cut new HNT minted annually from 15 million to 7.5 million. This matters for two reasons. First, earnings from token emissions dropped again. Second, if HNT price rises in response to scarcity — as Bitcoin has historically done post-halving — the dollar value of those smaller token amounts could increase. That’s a bet, not a guarantee.

The more interesting Helium opportunity in 2025 is Helium Mobile 5G, where operators deploy outdoor radio hardware to provide cellular coverage. These hotspots generate $MOBILE tokens and have higher earning potential than IoT hotspots — but the hardware cost is also higher ($249–$499+ for indoor/outdoor WiFi units, substantially more for CBRS radios), and the strategy requires placement in genuinely high-traffic areas: shopping malls, transit stations, dense downtown corridors.

The honest income calculator for Helium:

Scenario A — IoT hotspot, average placement:

• Hardware cost: ~$300 (amortized over 3 years = $8.33/month)
• Electricity: ~$2/month
• Gross earnings: $6/month at current average
• Net earnings: ~negative $4.33/month at current emission rates

Scenario B — IoT hotspot, optimal placement, mid-tier HNT price:

• Hardware cost: $300 (same amortization)
• Gross earnings: $25/month
• Electricity + fees: $3/month
• Net: ~$13.67/month

Scenario C — Helium Mobile WiFi hotspot, high-traffic location:

• Hardware: $499 (amortized over 3 years = $13.86/month)
• Gross earnings: variable, higher MOBILE emission potential
• Net: requires detailed location-based simulation (use hotspotrf.com’s free calculator for your specific address before buying anything)

The verdict: Helium is real infrastructure with real usage — over 461,000 Helium Mobile account signups by end of Q3 2025, with daily active users surging past 1.7 million. That’s legitimate network traction. But the “easy money” hotspot era is gone. The people making Helium work in 2025 are either running strategic multi-hotspot deployments in carefully researched locations, or they’re running the 5G Mobile network and earning off actual data offload rather than coverage rewards alone.

Helium is worth pursuing if: You can get a hotspot into a genuinely optimal location (high elevation, surrounded by but not saturated with other hotspots, real IoT device density in the area). Don’t buy the hardware and hope for the best — simulate your location at hotspotrf.com first.

Hivemapper: Drive Your Routes, Get Paid for the Map

What it is: A dashcam in your car that captures street-level imagery as you drive. The data feeds into a decentralized mapping network. Lyft, TomTom, HERE, and Mapbox are actual paying customers for this data.

Why this one is different: Most DePIN earning models are purely about token inflation — you earn because the protocol is minting new tokens to incentivize participation. Hivemapper has a genuine commercial loop: enterprise customers pay Map Credits (denominated in HONEY) to access the map data. When those credits are spent, 75% of the HONEY is burned permanently. This burn mechanism is real deflationary pressure tied to actual demand, not just speculation.

The hardware situation changed dramatically in October 2025. Bee Maps (Hivemapper’s enterprise brand) replaced the original $589 upfront Bee dashcam purchase with a $19/month subscription model covering the device, LTE connectivity, and fleet software. This lowered the barrier to entry considerably. The subscription model makes the monthly math cleaner, too.

What the income looks like:

HONEY is currently trading around $0.003–0.005 per token (as of early 2026, having come down significantly from its $0.33 peak in 2025). Your earnings in HONEY depend on:

• The region you’re driving in (high-weight regions earn more — dense urban areas with lots of road volume)
• How often you cover the same routes (freshness bonus rewards the first coverage of a road segment in a given period)
• Whether your routes are in a HONEY Burst zone (targeted bounty areas where specific map data has been requested by an enterprise customer)

A typical active Hivemapper contributor driving 20–30 miles of mixed urban/suburban roads daily in a medium-weight region might earn 200–800 HONEY per week. At $0.004/token, that’s $0.80–$3.20/week — roughly $3.50–$14/month in fiat terms at current prices.

Where the real opportunity is: HONEY Burst zones. When an enterprise customer has specifically requested mapping of a geographic area, the rewards for covering those routes jump significantly. Monitoring Hivemapper’s Explorer to identify Burst zones in your area and prioritizing those routes can meaningfully increase earnings. This takes the income from “nice bonus while commuting” territory into something more deliberate.

The honest income calculator for Hivemapper:

Casual contributor (drives existing routes, no Burst strategy):

• Subscription cost: $19/month
• HONEY earned: ~500 tokens/week = ~2,000/month
• Value at $0.004: $8/month
• Net: approximately negative $11/month at current token prices

Active contributor (25+ miles/day, Burst zone awareness, high-demand urban area):

• Subscription: $19/month
• HONEY earned: ~2,000–5,000 tokens/week = ~8,000–20,000/month
• Value at $0.004: $32–$80/month
• Net: $13–$61/month

The upside scenario (if HONEY recovers toward its 2025 peak):

• Same 20,000 tokens/month at $0.10/token: $2,000/month
• At $0.33 (2025 peak): $6,600/month
• These numbers are why the Hivemapper community still has active participants despite the current low price

The verdict: At today’s HONEY price, Hivemapper is paying casual contributors less than their subscription cost. That’s the honest truth. The investment case is a bet on: (a) enterprise demand growing as Lyft, TomTom, and others scale their use of Bee Maps data, (b) HONEY price recovering as that demand drives more token burns, and (c) your geographic position being in a high-demand area. For someone who would drive those routes anyway and is comfortable holding HONEY tokens, the subscription cost is a speculative investment as much as it’s a service fee. For someone who needs income now, at today’s prices, the math is challenging.

Grass: Turn Your Idle Internet Connection Into Income (Sort Of)

What it is: A browser extension or app that uses your idle internet bandwidth for web scraping and data collection, primarily for AI companies that need current web data. No hardware required. 3 million+ active nodes across 190 countries.

The appeal and the reality:

Grass is the easiest DePIN on-ramp that exists. Download an extension, let it run in the background, earn tokens. The barrier is genuinely zero. That accessibility, combined with the compelling AI narrative (your idle bandwidth feeds AI training data), drove explosive early growth.

The first airdrop in October 2024 distributed 100 million tokens to over 2 million users. One person running Grass since early 2024 reported earning 801 GRASS tokens worth approximately $1,600 at airdrop time. That’s real, verifiable, and the kind of number that gets shared widely — which is why Grass has 3 million nodes.

What’s harder to find: the realistic ongoing monthly income for a typical user in 2026. The honest answer is: it depends enormously on your location and connection quality. Grass distributes 1,000,000 Network Points per day across all participants proportional to their bandwidth usage. With 3 million active nodes, your share is going to be small unless you’re in a high-demand region with a fast, stable connection.

The honest income calculator for Grass:

Average residential connection, Tier 1 market (US/EU/UK):

• Monthly GRASS token accumulation: low and dependent on future airdrop timing
• Current GRASS token value: ~$0.80–1.20 range (volatile)
• Realistic monthly fiat equivalent: $5–$25 depending on usage intensity
• Electricity cost: negligible (browser extension, not mining)
• Net: $5–$25/month, with uncertainty on timing of when tokens convert

High-demand location, fast connection, referral network built:

• Monthly earnings potential: higher, but still requires airdrop events for realization
• Referral income is additive — you earn 20% of your direct referral’s Uptime Points

The important caveat about Grass income: You’re not receiving a regular cash salary. You’re accumulating points that convert to tokens at airdrop intervals, and those tokens have a market price that fluctuates. The $1,600 story above is real, but it reflects an early-adopter advantage and a favorable token price at the moment of claiming. Future airdrops may have different economics.

Grass launched a dedicated hardware device in June 2025 — the Grasshopper — which plugs directly into your router and earns passively without using your personal device. For people who want Grass running 24/7 without a computer staying on, this is the cleaner setup.

The verdict: Grass is worth running if you have a computer on anyway, you’re in a Tier 1 market, and you’re patient enough to hold tokens through airdrop cycles rather than expecting a monthly paycheck. The zero-effort, zero-hardware model means the downside is genuinely minimal. It’s not a primary income source — it’s a background earner with meaningful upside tied to the AI data boom.

##Render Network: Your GPU Is an Asset, Not Just a Gaming Rig

What it is: A decentralized marketplace where GPU owners earn RENDER tokens for processing 3D rendering jobs, AI inference workloads, and visual computing tasks. Enterprise clients — game studios, AI companies, VFX houses — pay for the compute. GPU owners get paid.

Why the numbers have gotten interesting: In January 2026, Render Network generated approximately $38 million in revenue. The evolution from a niche rendering tool into a significant AI inference network has brought substantially more demand and more consistent utilization for GPU contributors.

The burn-and-mint tokenomics are worth understanding here. When clients pay for rendering/compute services, the vast majority of RENDER tokens used are burned — permanently removed from circulation. New tokens are only minted to reward GPU providers. This creates genuine supply-side scarcity as demand grows. It’s not inflationary rewards masquerading as income — it’s a market-clearing mechanism that ties token value to real network usage.

What you need to participate:

This isn’t a “laptop lying around” opportunity. Render rewards GPU providers based on their hardware tier. The higher the tier, the higher the earning rate. To be a meaningful earner, you want:

• NVIDIA RTX 3080/3090 or newer (Tier 3)
• NVIDIA RTX 4080/4090 (Tier 4, substantially higher earnings)
• Enterprise hardware like A100s or H100s (higher tiers, invitation-based)

A gaming PC with an older GPU can participate, but earnings will reflect the lower demand for that hardware class.

The honest income calculator for Render:

RTX 3090, 8 hours/day available for rendering (off-peak):

• Monthly RENDER earnings: 15–40 RENDER tokens (varies heavily with utilization)
• RENDER current price range: $4–$8
• Gross monthly income: $60–$320
• Electricity cost: $15–$30 for GPU power (250W average)
• Net monthly: $30–$290 range depending on demand

RTX 4090, 16 hours/day, high utilization:

• Monthly RENDER earnings: 40–100+ tokens
• At $6/token: $240–$600
• Electricity (450W): $30–$65/month
• Net: $175–$535/month

The honest caveat: Utilization is the variable that makes these numbers swing wildly. Not every hour your GPU is available will it be processing a job. During periods of high demand (when a major AI inference spike hits or a big game studio is in production crunch), utilization and earnings spike. During slow periods, they drop.

The verdict: Render is the most compelling option for someone who already owns a high-end GPU and is currently leaving it idle during non-gaming hours. The earnings are real, the demand is real (the AI inference market is not going away), and the tokenomics are more sustainable than emission-only models. The math gets better the more powerful your GPU is and the longer you can make it available.

Akash Network: Rent Your Server Capacity to AI Companies

What it is: A decentralized cloud computing marketplace where anyone with server hardware can rent compute to developers, AI startups, and enterprises through a reverse auction model. AKT tokens are the payment mechanism.

The commercial reality in 2025: Akash launched AkashML in 2025, an OpenAI-compatible managed inference layer running across roughly 65 decentralized datacenters. This is enterprise-grade positioning — not speculative DePIN promises but actual infrastructure competing with AWS and Google Cloud. In Q3 2025, Akash processed 27,000 new leases with $851,700 in lease income.

The honest income calculator for Akash:

Small-scale operator (single high-end consumer server, 32GB RAM, 4-core CPU, no GPU):

• Monthly AKT earnings: $20–$80 depending on utilization
• Hardware amortization: ~$30/month
• Electricity: ~$15/month
• Net: roughly breakeven to slightly positive

GPU node operator (consumer GPU like RTX 3090):

• Monthly earnings: $80–$250 (AI inference workloads command premium rates)
• Electricity: $30–$50
• Amortization: $30/month
• Net: $0–$170/month

Dedicated GPU server (NVIDIA A100 or H100):

• Monthly AKT earnings: $500–$2,000+ for enterprise hardware in high demand
• These are the setups that make the numbers compelling, but require $10,000+ in upfront hardware

The verdict: Akash makes sense for people who already have server or GPU infrastructure sitting underutilized. The Provider Console has simplified onboarding significantly, so the technical barrier is lower than it once was. The reverse-auction model means your rates are determined by competitive market dynamics — good hardware in a lean supply environment earns well; commoditized hardware during oversupply earns poorly.

Filecoin: Decentralized Storage That Pays You Per Terabyte

What it is: A decentralized marketplace for data storage. Instead of paying Amazon S3, clients pay Filecoin storage providers — independent operators who earn FIL tokens for reliably storing data.

Who this is actually for: Filecoin is not a casual “extra hard drive” setup. To be a competitive storage provider, you need:

• Multiple terabytes of available, fast storage (NVMe preferred)
• 32–64GB RAM minimum for running proofs
• Reliable, fast internet (symmetric preferred, 1Gbps+ for competitive rates)
• A reasonably powerful CPU or GPU for cryptographic proof computation

This is a business operation more than a side hustle.

The honest income calculator for Filecoin:

Small storage provider, 10TB available, moderate utilization:

• Monthly FIL earnings: $50–$120 depending on deal flow and FIL price
• Electricity + hosting: $20–$40
• Hardware amortization: $25–$50/month
• Net: roughly $0–$55/month at current FIL prices

Established storage provider, 100TB+ available, strong reputation, high utilization:

• Monthly FIL earnings: $500–$2,000+
• This is the scale at which Filecoin becomes a serious income stream

The verdict: Filecoin rewards serious operators with meaningful income, but the economics don’t support casual participation. If you’re already running server infrastructure, it’s worth evaluating as an additional revenue stream. If you’re buying new hardware specifically for Filecoin, model the ROI carefully and run it as a dedicated operation, not a side experiment.

The Master Comparison Table: Where You Actually Stand

Here’s the honest scorecard for all five projects, organized by the type of participant most likely to earn meaningfully:

You have a high-end GPU and it sits idle half the day: Best option: Render Network (highest demand for GPU compute, sustainable tokenomics) Also run: Akash if you’re willing to set up the provider stack Expected net monthly range: $30–$535 depending on GPU and utilization

You drive 20+ miles a day for work or errands: Best option: Hivemapper (the only DePIN that pays you for driving, not hardware) Expected net monthly range: Currently negative at today’s HONEY price, but strong upside if commercial demand grows Decision point: Are you buying the token story, or do you need fiat income now?

You have a computer that stays on most of the day: Best option: Grass (zero hardware cost, zero friction, background earner) Expected monthly: $5–$25 in token equivalent, with airdrop-driven spikes possible Secondary: Run Render simultaneously if you have a decent GPU

You want to build a hotspot-based wireless income: Best option: Helium, but only after running a location simulation at hotspotrf.com Never buy hardware before simulating your specific address Expected net monthly: Can be negative (bad placement) to $40–$100+ (exceptional placement)

You have server infrastructure already: Best option: Akash (easiest onboarding for existing server operators) Secondary: Filecoin if you have storage capacity and a reliable setup Expected monthly: $0–$500+ depending on hardware quality and utilization

The Five Questions to Ask Before Spending Any Money

1. What is my break-even token price?

Calculate how many tokens you expect to earn per month. Then calculate: at what token price do your gross earnings cover your total costs (hardware amortization + electricity + fees)? If your break-even price is higher than the current market price, you’re betting on the token appreciating before you’ll see a real return. Know this number before you commit.

2. What happens to my earnings if token price drops 70%?

It will happen to some of the tokens you hold. Crypto markets have violent drawdowns. Model this. If a 70% drop in your project’s token wipes out your profitability for 18+ months, size your investment accordingly.

3. Is the network’s revenue coming from real customers or token inflation?

This is the single most important due diligence question. Real customer revenue (enterprises paying for compute, mapping data, storage) supports token demand independently of speculation. Token inflation alone creates a system where early participants extract value at the expense of later ones. The projects with the strongest long-term cases — Aethir, Render, Hivemapper, Akash — all have real commercial revenue from external customers.

4. What is the realistic lifespan of my hardware?

DePIN hardware gets commoditized fast. A hotspot that earns well today earns less as more competitors deploy in your area. A GPU tier that’s in high demand today is in less demand when the next generation arrives. Build hardware depreciation into your math from day one, and think about resale value if you decide to exit.

5. How will you actually convert tokens to money?

Check which exchanges list your project’s token. Check the liquidity (daily trading volume). If the daily trading volume is $500,000, and you’re trying to sell $10,000 of tokens, you’re moving the market against yourself. Understand the exit mechanics before you enter.

The Honest Summary

DePIN income is real. It is not the “$300/day” fantasy that viral posts promise. It is not a get-rich-quick scheme. But it is also not the vaporware that blanket skeptics dismiss.

The honest range for most individual DePIN participants: $10–$200/month in net income, with meaningful variance depending on your hardware, location, and the token market cycle. A small percentage of well-positioned, serious operators — those running multiple Helium hotspots in strategic locations, or managing GPU nodes at scale, or running large Filecoin operations — are earning in the $500–$3,000+/month range. Those outcomes require deliberate investment and active management.

The most compelling near-term opportunities, in terms of real commercial demand supporting real token value:

Render Network if you have high-end GPU hardware — the AI inference market has created genuine enterprise demand that supports the network beyond speculation.

Grass as a zero-cost background earner if you have a computer online and you’re in a Tier 1 market — the downside is literally zero, and the airdrop upside is real.

Hivemapper if you’re a long-term believer in the enterprise mapping data opportunity and willing to hold HONEY through what appears to be a price trough while commercial adoption builds.

The projects to approach with the most caution are those where all income comes from token emissions and there’s no evidence of external commercial revenue. When the only buyers of a token are new participants hoping the price will rise, the math eventually runs in one direction.

Do the math. Simulate your location. Model three token price scenarios. Know your break-even. Then decide.

That’s the honest DePIN income calculator. Nobody else is going to do it for you.

All token prices referenced are approximate and as of early 2026. Cryptocurrency markets are highly volatile. Nothing in this article constitutes financial advice. Do your own research before making any investment.