Welcome to Slate Sundays, CryptoSlate’s new weekly feature showcasing in-depth interviews, expert analysis, and thought-provoking op-eds that go beyond the headlines to explore the ideas and voices shaping the future of crypto.

Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) has become one of the crypto industry’s darlings, among the fastest-growing sectors in web3. According to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Technology Convergence Report, DePIN is set to snowball from its current ~$30 billion valuation to a seismic $3.5 trillion by 2028.

That’s an increase of approximately 11,576% (just ask ChatGPT).

On paper, DePIN is certainly a heavyweight. But is it ready to go round-to-round and actually power the world?

Understanding the DePIN landscape today

The magic of DePIN lies in making physical infrastructure (think bandwidth, cloud storage, smart cars, and microgrids) community-owned and open for anyone to contribute. Regular people can plug in their idle devices, whether it’s a sensor, a car, or a phone, and get rewarded for their part in keeping the network alive.

The DePIN world is buzzing with blockchain-based, community-owned networks that support real-world infrastructure in all kinds of ways, and the use cases keep growing.

The WEF estimates more than 1,500 active DePIN projects out there, opening physical infrastructure to the masses and letting individuals and communities join ecosystems that were once reserved for big corporations and centralized players.

By harnessing blockchain, DePIN boosts transparency, security, and efficiency in how resources get used, and contributors receive tokenized rewards for getting involved.

Why the hype is real

One of the primary drivers for DePIN’s rise is its convergence with AI, especially the emergence of decentralized physical AI (DePAI), enabling machine learning models to harness data and compute from a diverse, distributed, and global network.

Unlike some other areas of web3, like memecoins or perpetuals, DePIN is not just about financial speculation; it’s about blockchain mass adoption and making users active participants in digital economies.

And in a world that’s powered by data, DePIN really shines; not just knowing what the data is, but where it comes from, who validated it, and whether it’s been faked or phished.

As the need for AI training data explodes, the value of high-quality, trustless proof-of-origin data rises in step, making DePIN essential not just for crypto, but for global digital infrastructure as well.

From home internet to IoT

XYO is a company that verifies and moves real-world information on-chain for DePIN, AI, and RWA apps. Launched in 2018, XYO has over 10 million nodes and ranks as the fourth-highest-earning DePIN project to date. Cofounder Marcus Levin explains:

“We act as a trustless oracle, verifying and validating the real-world data that powers AI, web3, and enterprise use cases. 80% of the people in our network are non-crypto users. They can be truckers and Uber drivers, joggers, and people who move a lot. They’re able to earn more. People want to earn money on this side and get crypto for free.”

Althea Network brings blockchain-enabled internet to thousands of homes with dynamic, pay-as-you-go pricing. The team reports four petabytes of traffic routed across 12 states and multiple countries, directly addressing the issue that $100 billion in U.S. government spending has made less than a 1% dent in connectivity. As cofounder and CEO Debora Simpier put it:

“About one in four people in the U.S. don’t have adequate internet.”

Another example of a DePIN network is Sentinel, which offers a decentralized VPN infrastructure, boasting 359,000 users and 7,500 volunteer-operated nodes worldwide. Sentinel also builds custom SDKs to enable VPN features for popular applications, even in highly censored regimes like Turkmenistan.

The DePIN sector isn’t just about location data or supply chain oracles, either. Its reach is far broader, stretching deeper into the physical fabric of the connected world.

The Crypto Investor Blueprint: A 5-Day Course On Bagholding, Insider Front-Runs, and Missing Alpha

Nice Your first lesson is on the way.

Please add [email protected] to your email whitelist.

Helium, for example, started in 2019 as a grassroots mesh network for IoT sensors, and has exploded into a community-powered wireless movement, with tens of thousands of hotspots deployed globally.

Instead of relying on telcos and corporate towers, Helium lets everyday people become the network, earning tokens by providing wireless coverage for smart sensors, scooters, and asset trackers, and turning idle hardware into crypto-powered utility.

And when it comes to data storage, Filecoin’s DePIN network enables decentralized storage, which not only circumvents centralized actors but translates to better privacy, lower costs, and a radically reduced risk of censorship or downtime.

These projects span home internet, censorship-resistant communications, mobility, and storage infrastructure, highlighting the diversity and scalability of the DePIN model.

Is DePIN ready for prime time?

Despite the hype and growing adoption, scaling decentralized physical infrastructure remains DePIN’s biggest hurdle. One of the hardest challenges of integrating real-world hardware is economies of scale.

Traditional blockchains struggle to process vast numbers of transactions and data uploads in real time, especially as DePIN networks connect thousands, or even millions, of physical devices across the globe.

Unlike purely financial networks, every new sensor, router, or contributor adds not just another wallet, but a new stream of bandwidth, compute, or storage that must be securely tracked and rewarded.

As network scale grows, congestion and latency can spike, with longer transaction confirmation times, unpredictable fees, and the risk of outages in high-throughput environments.

This challenge is amplified as DePIN seeks to power real-world infrastructure that demands seamless response, reliability, and ultra-low delays. Current infrastructure, while promising, often falls short of these demands.

Mass participation also brings regulatory scrutiny around consumer protections, KYC/AML, and data privacy. DePIN’s physical touchpoints, such as routers, vehicles, and storage, are inherently more exposed to security breaches than purely digital systems, necessitating strong defenses against hacking, Sybil attacks, or hardware vulnerabilities.

And despite 1,500+ live projects and valuations in the tens of billions, only a handful have proven themselves over years of operation.

The path to an open digital economy

DePIN’s projected 70-fold market expansion in three years seems like a tall order. But powered by AI growth and global demand for resilient, community-owned infrastructure, the tailwinds are blowing in DePIN’s favor.

As the WEF points out, DePIN’s convergence with decentralized AI could fundamentally change the global computing landscape and lead to a more open, secure, and accessible digital economy.

And as the number and diversity of DePIN projects continue to rise, so will those that move beyond hype and deliver real infrastructure and inclusion at a truly global scale. So perhaps one day soon, everyone on the planet, from Tennessee to Timbuktu, will be able to plug in, contribute, and own a slice of the new digital infrastructure.

Coinbase has crossed a significant milestone, reaching a market capitalization of over $100 billion amid renewed momentum across the crypto sector.

According to Google Finance data, shares of Coinbase (COIN) reached a new all-time high of $398.50 during trading hours on July 14. However, the stock’s value ended the day at around $394, reflecting a 2% increase during the period.

Considering this performance, Kylie Reidhead, co-owner of the crypto media outlet Milk Road, suggested that Coinbase could grow into a trillion-dollar company.

He likened Coinbase’s trajectory to the rise of Amazon in retail and Netflix in entertainment, adding that the US-based crypto exchange is positioning itself as a pillar of “upgrading” the current financial system.

Reidhead noted that this positioning could help the Brian Armstrong-led firm overtake traditional banking giants like JPMorgan as crypto infrastructure becomes more integrated with mainstream finance.

Why Coinbase stock is rallying

The Coinbase surge is, in part, due to improving macro conditions for the crypto industry, rising digital asset prices, and the company’s expanding role in merging traditional finance with the emerging industry.

Its inclusion in the S&P 500 Index earlier this year signaled growing confidence in the exchange’s fundamentals and profitability. The move is also expected to increase institutional ownership as index funds adjust their portfolios.

The COIN stock rally also coincided with rising crypto prices, particularly Bitcoin, which surged to an all-time high of more than $120,000 on the same day.

Is Coinbase overvalued?

Despite the positive outlook, some analysts believe Coinbase’s valuation may be inflated.

Analysts at 10x Research have warned that Coinbase might be overvalued, particularly as institutional investors prefer large-cap Bitcoin miners as proxies for the top crypto asset.

According to the firm, Coinbase is still trading at a premium relative to Bitcoin, despite both assets experiencing gains.

The firm stated:

“Coinbase remains overvalued relative to Bitcoin, though both have gained. Only a few assets, including Circle and Robinhood, show stronger momentum than Bitcoin.”

Notably, HC Wainwright recently downgraded Coinbase from Buy to Sell, citing its 150% rally over the past quarter and a price-to-earnings ratio that may not reflect underlying fundamentals.

Mentioned in this article

The investment banking arm of TD Bank believes the market cap of JPMorgan will soar to $1 trillion as it leverages artificial intelligence (AI).

In a new CNBC interview, TD Cowen bank analyst Steven Alexopoulos says investors are currently positioning in tech stocks to capture the upside potential of AI.

The analyst notes that investors are likely underexposed to stocks that he thinks will rally once AI becomes widely adopted for commercial use.

“When you think about where we are right now with AI, we’re at the builder level. The focus is Nvidia, the focus is OpenAI, the builders. I believe we’re inside of two years, maybe one, where the focus will widen out from the builders to who is going to use this technology to unlock massive economic value. 

That’s exactly what we saw on the internet. As the internet was being built, the focus was on Cisco, IBM, and as the layer was built, it moved to Google with search and Amazon selling commerce. When you think about the S&P 493… You need to focus on sectors that are reliant on people, knowledge workers, that is what will be disrupted by artificial intelligence.” 

According to the TD Cowen analyst, banks are poised to be major beneficiaries of AI advancements, with JPMorgan expected to lead the charge.

Alexopoulos says that while JPMorgan’s head of consumer banking, Marianne Lake, expects the division’s headcount to decline by about 10% over the next five years, he believes that projection is conservative and anticipates a 20% reduction instead. According to Alexopoulos, JPMorgan’s growth will continue despite the significant drop in employee count.

“[JPMorgan] is only richly valued relative to history, and that history did not include the most transformational technology of our lifetimes. Banks will break to a new valuation paradigm…

By the end of next year, [JPMorgan] will be a trillion-dollar market-cap company.”

As of Monday’s close, JPMorgan’s market cap stands at $811 billion.

Follow us on X, Facebook and Telegram

Don’t Miss a Beat – Subscribe to get email alerts delivered directly to your inbox

Check Price Action

Surf The Daily Hodl Mix

&nbsp

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any losses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.

Generated Image: Midjourney

The world is Netflix‘s (NFLX -0.14%) oyster. That is what it has felt like over the past few years as the company has sucked all the oxygen out of the video streaming market.

Its global presence and huge catalog of content give it a competitive advantage over streaming rivals, which is why viewers flock to the service. Revenue continues to march higher, while profits are soaring.

Management does not think the growth party is over just yet. According to reporting from The Wall Street Journal, Netflix is aiming to reach a market cap of $1 trillion by 2030, which would be around double its current level at $500 billion. Here’s the math behind the analysis and whether the company can hit these targets by the end of the decade.

Global expansion and pricing power

Video streaming processed through the cloud has turned the media sector into a truly worldwide game. Netflix has taken advantage of this global pie, investing to produce video specifically in markets such as Europe, Latin America, South Korea, and India.

This global expansion is why it eclipsed 300 million total subscribers at the end of 2024, making it the largest pure-play premium video streamer in the world. With a global population of 8 billion and rising use of the internet every year, there is plenty of room to expand its total subscribers in the years to come.

Another factor for Netflix’s success is pricing power. In the U.S., its premium subscription tier has gone from $11.99 a month in 2013 to $24.99 currently. This more than doubling in monthly subscription fees has helped revenue grow by close to 600% in the last 10 years.

More importantly, it has helped the company gain some operating leverage over its cost base, with operating income inflecting higher to $11.3 billion in the last few years. Free cash flow is now positive at $7.5 billion over the last 12 months, giving the company the flexibility to keep pushing for more growth globally.

Image source: Getty Images.

Sports and advertisements

By 2030, Netflix wants its advertising tier to generate around $9 billion in global ad sales, up from an estimated $2 billion currently. This advertising tier was launched in 2023 and is a huge driver of new sign-ups for Netflix.

As it rolls out globally, it will hopefully see even more customers sign up. Advertising has historically been a huge revenue driver for the media industry that Netflix decided to lay off of for a long while. Now, it is turning on this new revenue stream and hopes to see huge growth in the years to come.

An easy way to connect with advertisers is by adding sports content. Sports leagues are one of the biggest draws for large advertisers because they bring in millions of live viewers for games, something that is not happening with traditional TV shows or movies anymore.

Netflix is starting to invest in sports such as licensing World Wrestling Entertainment, which has weekly live events. Investors should track Netflix’s investments into sports streaming rights in the years to come. They may have a large impact on the advertising revenue for the business.

NFLX Operating Margin (TTM) data by YCharts; TTM = trailing 12 months.

The math to a $1 trillion market cap

According to the reporting, Netflix aims to double its revenue to $80 billion in 2030 and triple its operating income to around $30 billion. Advertising revenue of $9 billion will be a large part of that equation.

How will the company do it? It hopes to grow its total subscribers to 410 million compared to 300 million at the end of 2024. However, that would only lead to about 30% growth in revenue assuming no changes to subscription pricing.

What this means is that Netflix will need to continue increasing the price of its subscription service while simultaneously growing advertising sales if it hopes to double revenue in the next five years. This is a tall task, but one it is poised to achieve.

Operating income tripling to $30 billion feels doable as well. Expanding operating margins is not something a company can do indefinitely, but Netflix has consistently pushed up its operating margin in the last 10 years, hitting 28% in the last 12 months. I think the company can keep expanding its profit margins as it scales up to greater heights in the years to come.

That $30 billion in operating income likely equates to $25 billion in net income when factoring in corporate tax rates. Should Netflix be valued at a trillion-dollar market cap if it generates $25 billion in net income? Maybe. That is a price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) of 40, which is well above the average for stocks, even durable growers like Netflix.

It is possible, but not a guarantee, that the market cap will double to $1 trillion in the next five years. We have no idea what the stock’s future P/E will be.

It still remains a good hold for investors who have bought the stock in the past. However, I don’t think Netflix is a strong buy today.

Gold’s sprint to new highs and Bitcoin’s choppy start to the year might look different on the surface. However, both assets are reacting to the same macro script: eroding confidence in fiat money, volatile geopolitics, and deeply negative real yields. A closer read of market data shows that the “digital gold” narrative is firming, with the two stores of value moving in tandem more often and for the same reasons, even if Bitcoin’s price action lags.

Gold entered 2025 at nearly $2,600, adding roughly one‑third to its price and about $9 trillion to its global market cap. Bitcoin opened the year close to $92,000, slipped to an early‑April low near $83,000 on tariff‑driven risk aversion, and now trades around $88,700, roughly a 4% decline year to date.

While that gap is stark, correlation tells another story. The patterns we’ve seen in the 30-day, 90-day, and 365-day rolling correlation coefficients echo prior cycles: gold rallies first as a liquidity hedge, then Bitcoin catches up once capital starts hunting for higher‑beta expressions of the same thesis.

A combination of macroeconomic factors underpins gold’s explosive rally.

Ten‑year Treasury notes hover near 4.5 percent while core inflation sits just under 5%, locking real yields below zero. In this environment, an asset with no coupon suddenly offers relative appeal. Gold’s zero‑yield nature was once a drawback; with money losing value in real terms, that handicap evaporates. Bitcoin, which pays no income either, fits the same playbook.

The Fed’s balance sheet stands above $10 trillion, and large fiscal deficits continue on both sides of the Atlantic. Survey work from the University of Michigan shows long‑run inflation expectations at the highest level since 2013. Investors who fear and expect currency debasement look first to gold, and in turn Bitcoin, whose fixed 21 million‑coin supply echoes gold’s scarcity

War in Ukraine raised the specter of reserve confiscation, prompting central banks in China, India, and the Gulf to accelerate gold purchases. Those official flows totaled 1,136 tonnes in 2023 and another 388 tonnes in the first quarter this year. Bitcoin is not yet a formal reserve asset, but the logic resonates: an apolitical bearer instrument cannot be frozen.

Whenever sanctions or tariff headlines intensify, both assets tend to firm together, even if Bitcoin reacts with extra volatility. The Trump administration’s plans to implement a “crypto reserve” with ample Bitcoin holdings further support this.

Furthermore, swings in the world’s de facto reserve currency, the US dollar, force many investors to turn away from cash and bonds. A weaker dollar magnifies both gold and Bitcoin in dollar terms. The DXY index fell 5% from its February peak to early April as the market priced in fewer Fed hikes and fresh trade friction. Gold set daily records during that slide; Bitcoin rallied nine percent off its tariff‑panic low. Their sensitivity to the greenback is another point of convergence.

Flows into gold and spot Bitcoin ETFs further confirm this thesis. Investment flows prove that institutions group the assets within the same “sound‑money” bucket. Net inflows to gold‑backed ETFs hit $8.2 billion in the first three months, reversing two straight years of net selling.

Meanwhile, spot Bitcoin ETFs, still limited to foreign markets and futures‑based products in the US, drew about $540 million net. The dollar amount is smaller, but the directional alignment is clear: capital searching for inflation insurance is spreading across both metals, one physical and ancient, the other digital and emergent.

However, with these shared drivers, Bitcoin failed to match gold’s pace this year. This could be due to several factors. First, gold’s $13 trillion float dwarfs Bitcoin’s $1.7 trillion. Large allocators can deploy size into gold without shifting price; similar flows into Bitcoin move the tape sharply, prompting traders to stagger entries.

Second, the lack of federal regulation regarding Bitcoin could be keeping many US asset managers and investors on the sidelines, even as they buy gold. Passage of the broader crypto regulatory agenda, or its repeal, could unleash new demand in the second half of the year.

Finally, equity traders still treat Bitcoin as a high‑beta tech proxy during sell‑offs, so tax‑driven de‑risking at quarter‑end weighed harder on BTC than on bullion. Past cycles show that once macro drivers dominate, this equity beta fades.

Correlation alone does not guarantee equal returns, but it does show that investors increasingly perceive both assets through the same lens: limited supply in a world of unbridled issuance elsewhere. Every historical bout of money printing has featured a two‑stage response: gold first, then the harder‑charging alternative.

Silver played that second role in the 1970s, while Bitcoin fulfilled that role in the 2010s. The 2025 setup feels familiar. Negative real returns on cash invite continual demand for immutable stores of value. Central banks keep absorbing bullion; institutions nibble at Bitcoin products.

If gold’s new plateau above $3,000 becomes the market’s reference point, the monetary premium implied by a $9 trillion jump in its capitalization hints at what could flow into Bitcoin once more gatekeepers open.

The post Gold’s trillion‑dollar climb shows Bitcoin has room to catch up appeared first on CryptoSlate.