Wayru Network
In the past 3 years I spent well over 100 hours analysing DePin projects, and if there is one thing that I have learned, that is: you have to be early! In this article I’ll show you EXACTLY how early we are with this new DePin adventure.
We have a problem
Imagine a world where there are 650 million WiFi networks, but you can only access a few. Well, guess what … that’s the world we live in. Despite living in a hyper-connected world, we are all paying high prices to be connected and most of the times the quality of the connection isn’t even that great. And this while underutilized WiFi networks are all around us.
Looking at the current internet infrastructure, we can see 3 major challenges:
Traditional telcos aren’t motivated to do any big investments to upgrade the current infrastructureSmall players can’t compete with big telecommunications companies due to high infrastructure costsExisting networks are isolated, leading to wasted resources and limited access
This results in expensive services, poor connectivity, or sometimes no internet access at all.
Helium.com
Projects like Helium already tackle part of this problem with Helium 5G which introduced CBRS radios to offload mobile traffic from carriers in the US.
If you want to learn more about this, be sure to check out my video on Helium 5G. But please don’t buy a CBRS radio anymore, that’s a waste of money as they recently also launched a Wifi solution.
Say hello to Wayru
Wayru is taking things a step further and is not limited to the US, nor does it limit itself to the carrier offloading use case. Just as Helium, Wayru is a DePin project, that leverages blockchain technology to motivate people to add their resources to a global network.
What’s really game-changing is their DIY approach. If you already have a compatible router, you can transform it into a Wayru hotspot using their WayruOS firmware, which is based on OpenWRT.
Example — TP-Link AC1200 Archer C6 v3
Looking at Amazon you can see you can probably find a compatible model for as low as $34, making it one of the most affordable ways to start with Crypto DePin mining.
What’s also interesting to know, is that Wayru uses open standards like OpenRoaming & Passpoint, allowing you to seamlessly move between one Wayru hotspot to another. And this without you having to log into each network individually. Which mean you are transforming all these individual networks in one big network.
I do have to note that this DIY approach requires some technical know-how and there are benefits to buying one of the official Wayru hotspots.
The first benefit is that with an official Wayru hotspot you can get started right away, because it comes with an NFN licence pre-installed. In contrast: when you self-onboard you’ll have to burn 20$ worth of $WAYRU tokens to buy a licence and then pay $10 annually. Luckily, there is good news: until the token is released, this requirement is dropped.
The second benefit is that you don’t have to mess around with the firmware when you buy an official hotspot.
And the last benefit is that these official hotspots now come with bonus rewards for the first year.
For example: the Genesis miner, which is sadly sold out, gives you a 3x boost.
Luckily it has been confirmed that the new Prometheus and Apocalypse hotspots will also give a 1.25x and 2x boost respectively.
The outdoor model “Prometheus”, although more expensive, is probably the better option as it has a longer range and will therefore most likely earn more rewards in the longrun. On top of that you now have a 2x bonus which will allow you to make the difference pretty fast.
I also know that the official website is sold out on all devices, but I know HeliumDeploy is getting in drops on a regular basis for both the Prometheus and Apocalypse miners.
The last thing I have to add is that during this launch period there is an $50 activation fee and applies to both the official hotspots and the DIY solution. This fee is designed to ensure network quality and some commitment from every participant that joins the network. Personally I also think this is just a nice way for the project to get some extra cash.
After TGE this fee structure will change and all these fees will be paid in $WAYRU tokens. You’ll also be pleased to know that all of these tokens will be burned, which is good for the tokens price.
We are early … so early
Which brings me to how early we are with this project:
Token hasn’t launched yetMining only started 3 months agoOnly 700 devices are online
They are also still working out several details of the project as you can see in their documentation.
In the menu, we also see “Hex Mapping”, which means that Wayru will use a similar system as Helium to map out the coverage. The fact that the details are missing also means that the location of the hotspot isn’t that important right now, which makes it easy to stack up rewards in the short term.
Diving a bit deeper we see under the eligibility page what will be important to earn maximum rewards and that is, not surprisingly:
SpeedLatencyUptimeUsageHexesOvercrowdingProximity
Like most DePin projects, it’s safe to assume the bulk of the rewards will initially go to incentivize people to build the network and get as many devices online as possible. Later this focus will shift to optimizing the quality of the network and lastly the focus will shift to data usage.
Interesting fact: during the first 6 months after TGE there is no “overcrowding” or “proximity” penalty if you stay below 3 devices per location. That means stacking up 3 units per location is the optimal strategy.
As usual: moving fast is key. Because the more people that join the network, the more people have to share the same rewards.
On top of that, we can see in this official sheet that the emissions will go down over time. Which means less rewards for more miners.
Being early of course comes at a risk: as we saw, a lot of things are unknown and we have no idea if the launch of the token will be a success or even when the token will launch. Luckily we do know that the team is aiming for December, but again, this is subject to change.
How much can you earn
This brings us to the most important question and the one thing we all really care about: how much can we earn? To calculate this we need a token price.
When it comes to the token price at TGE, I found out that one of the admins shared in Telegram that the launch price will be $0.005.
When we then look at the documentation, we can see that the project will have 10B tokens. Multiply that by a token price of $0.005 and you get fully diluted market cap of 50M.
Looking at competitors that seems to be a very viable number they launch they’ll launch at a valuation between have raised capital between 20M and 100M.
DIMO for example did their IDO at an FDV of 30M, Helium launched at a 50M evaluation and Aethir did their seed round at 150M FDV.
Diving deeper, we see that 50% of the tokens are pre-mined, but have a cliff of 12months, followed by 36 months of vesting. The only ones who will be able to sell on launch are the miners.
Using that information we can make our own educated guess. About 700k tokens are being released daily. So if only 700 devices are online, you’ll be mining 1K $WAYRU per day, which at a price of $0.005 means $5 per day.
However, the $0.005 is the IDO price, it’s very likely that if the launch is somewhat successful that the market price will be higher. Especially when there is a low supply at launch. Assuming Wayru gets a similar FDV as eg DIMO, then we arrive at a price of $0.015 per token, which brings the daily rewards to $15 or a monthly return of $450. Add to that a 2x boost if you buy the Prometheus and you have $900 per month.
This is of course not sustainable and very quickly more devices will come online, turning 700 into 7000 devices and 7000 into 70.000. Such growth and success will naturally boost the token price as well, balancing things out. Therefore I think that in the next 6 months and average return of $150 per month is realistic.
That’s why I’m planning to order 6 x outdoor miners and 6 x indoor miners. Every time stacking 3 at the same location. The reason why I also take the indoor ones is because they are easier to set up than outdoor ones. Sadly the drops are limited, so I doubt I’ll be able to get all the units I want. Plan B is to buy 10 x DIY miners as soon as I can onboard them.
Risk analysis
As with any project, there are always risks and the earlier you are, the bigger the risk.
At the time of writing, several details are missing on the project. Therefore the lowest risk approach is you wait until TGE an hope that your current router is compatible with WayruOS or buying a compatible router on Ebay for cheap.
But even if you buy an official Wayru router, the risk is limited as you can always use it as a regular router.
Currently the project only has 700 devices online, which is great on one hand but if it stays at 700, then the project will fail and the token will tank.
We also can’t forget about the competition. Helium is just one of them and they are sitting on a big pile of cash to make things work. We can also assume that Helium is not the only one and that more projects like this will pop up. All of this can affect the token price and therefore your rewards.
I do think the risk is limited as the amount of Wifi networks worldwide is insane and the demand keeps growing.
Other than that: we don’t know what the price of the token will be and the IDO date of December hasn’t officially been announced yet and can therefore always be pushed back.
And lastly: you’ll be locking up 50USDC per device. So if the project is a total scam, you’ll lose 50 bucks, but at least you still have a fully functional wifi hotspot once you reset the firmware.
Fallout Boy
All-in-all a pretty limited risk. But as always: you have to decide what risks you are comfortable with, this is not financial advice, I’m just sharing what I’m doing and what my reasoning is.
Conclusion
Wayru has a lot of potential and I think they are well positioned to take on this market by leveraging open standards. Yes, this also means that anyone else can do the same. But the market is so big that it doesn’t make much sense to worry about that now.
The barrier to entry is also super low, if you already have a compatible router and you don’t mind playing around with the firmware, you can get started for $50. And even if you don’t have one, you can probably buy a compatible router for $30 or less on Ebay, which brings the total to $80.
If you are like me and you don’t like all the hassle then you are set for $150 with the Wayru Apocalypse at $99 + 50$ activation fee.
However, if you guys want me to make a video on a DIY miner, please post a comment in the description.
If you enjoyed this article, be sure to give it a clap and post a comment.
And in case you want to support me, please use one of these affiliate links:
Prometheus ($299): https://heliumdeploy.com/products/wayru-prometheus?sca_ref=2796820.ZvFvhf0TgE&sca_source=youtubeApocalypse ($129): https://heliumdeploy.com/products/wayru-apocalypse?sca_ref=2796820.ZvFvhf0TgE&sca_source=youtube
See you in the next one
Bren
Turn your own WiFi router into a $400/Month miner was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.