Zinger Key Points
- Current staking-heavy DePIN security models over-prioritize financial slashing and undervalue real-time performance metrics like uptime.
- DePIN interoperability should balance common standards with flexibility to enable cross-network compatibility without limiting innovation.
- See how Matt Maley is positioning for global volatility, sector rotations, and macro shifts—live this Wednesday, June 25 at 6 PM ET.
As decentralized infrastructure shifts from cloud-based nodes to real-world deployments, the traditional reliance on staking to guarantee network trust is being called into question.
Naman Kabra, CEO and co-founder of NodeOps, says the future of decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) will depend less on how much capital is locked and more on provable, real-world performance.
"DePIN makes infrastructure tangible again," Kabra said in an interview with Benzinga. "It shifts the focus from simply running validator nodes in the cloud to physically anchoring networks in the real world — through bandwidth, compute, sensors, and storage."
NodeOps, which Kabra describes as building the "operating system" for the next generation of decentralized infrastructure, is targeting a key gap in the current ecosystem: trust.
Many DePIN protocols still depend on staking as their primary security model, but Kabra believes this approach has become a form of “security theater.”
"Slashing assumes bad intent — but what about poor performance?" he said. "Uptime service-level agreements, latency reports, and usage logs should carry more weight than the amount of capital at stake."
Instead of rewarding abstract security work, Kabra believes DePIN's next phase should prioritize "service-based tokenomics," where real-world contributions, such as bandwidth delivered or data relayed, drive rewards.
"This marks the rise of service-based tokenomics, where performance and reliability directly drive revenue. In the long run, this model aligns economic incentives with end-user demand more effectively than staking or mining ever could," Kabra added.
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NodeOps is tackling another significant challenge: how to build trust in a decentralized system where participants are pseudonymous and infrastructure is physically distributed.
The company's focus includes building decentralized verification tools, behavioral analytics, and Sybil-resistance mechanisms to fairly coordinate large-scale infrastructure without centralized oversight.
For Kabra, meaningful decentralization in DePIN networks extends beyond node counts and token distribution.
It means ensuring geographic diversity, hardware variety, and operator independence, avoiding overreliance on hyperscalers or large capitalized entities.
"Users need verifiable performance, not just claims," he emphasized, noting that transparent uptime, location, and sybil-proof mechanisms should be part of the base infrastructure.
While DePIN projects continue to grapple with interoperability and performance trade-offs, Kabra advocates for modular shared standards without restricting protocol-specific innovation.
"A middle ground makes sense," he said, pointing to common tools like proof-of-coverage or uptime attestations that can enhance multi-network orchestration.
NodeOps was launched to solve what Kabra called a “growing trust problem” in DePIN ecosystems.
"Decentralized infrastructure was scaling, but trust wasn't. There were too many fake participants, opaque metrics and misaligned incentives," he said.
The company's mission now is to empower real-world infrastructure builders, from weather sensors to GPU clusters, with transparent, fair, and scalable systems.
"The next big winners in crypto will be applications that leverage the infrastructure we already have," Kabra said. "Crypto-native products that solve real problems for users will become some of the most capital-efficient businesses in the world."
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