Case Study : How NVIDIA Boosted DePIN and AI Altcoins in 2024

In March 2024, the tech world witnessed a massive financial milestone—NVIDIA’s market cap crossed $3 trillion. The surge wasn’t just a win for the chipmaker but also sent ripples through the cryptocurrency ecosystem. This unexpected crossover between a traditional tech giant and emerging crypto sectors triggered a bull run in an unlikely niche: NVIDIA and DePIN Altcoins.

Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) had already been carving a path in the blockchain world, offering decentralized solutions for physical systems like wireless networks, data storage, and energy grids. But NVIDIA’s dominance in AI and GPU tech acted as a catalyst. It created a halo effect that boosted not just AI coins but also infrastructure-based blockchain projects closely tied to AI hardware requirements.

This article dives deep into how NVIDIA’s 2024 breakout affected DePIN altcoins, why it led to an explosive—but short-lived—rally, and how the relationship between hardware innovation and decentralized infrastructure is shaping the future of crypto.

NVIDIA’s Meteoric Rise in 2024: A Catalyst for DePIN and AI Tokens

NVIDIA didn’t just rise—it skyrocketed. In the first quarter of fiscal 2025, NVIDIA reported a revenue of $26.0 billion, a staggering 262% increase from the previous year. This was fueled largely by demand for AI and large-scale machine learning, where NVIDIA’s GPUs are the industry standard.

AI was booming and long term projections for the AI market caps were insane. But for strong AI models, we need strong processing powers.

The stock’s meteoric rise—paired with media hype and analyst confidence—triggered a chain reaction in adjacent sectors. This included:

• AI-driven cryptocurrencies like Render Token (RENDER), SingularityNET (AGIX), and Fetch.ai (FET)
• DePIN projects like Filecoin (FIL), Helium (HNT), and Grass that either directly or indirectly depend on GPU-intensive computation

By March 2024, NVIDIA had become more than a tech stock. It was a market signal. A signal that told investors AI is here to stay—and infrastructure around it, both centralized and decentralized, will play a pivotal role in its expansion.

When NVIDIA posted its February 2024 earnings (surpassing expectations at $22.1 billion in revenue), the combined market capitalization of AI tokens alone jumped past $16.5 billion. The DePIN sector followed closely, with tokens exceeding a total market cap of $22.5 billion.

While the connection between NVIDIA and AI is obvious, the tie-in with DePIN altcoins may seem less clear at first glance. Let’s unpack how these two very different worlds became intertwined.

DePIN and NVIDIA: A Synergistic Relationship Built on Infrastructure

At its core, DePIN is about decentralizing infrastructure: data centers, energy networks, bandwidth, and physical networks. These are all crucial layers that allow AI and Web3 systems to function efficiently, and, more importantly, independently of centralized entities.

What makes DePIN and NVIDIA so interconnected?

1. Hardware Dependency: DePIN projects often require GPUs or other high-performance computing units. For example, decentralized rendering services or machine-learning marketplaces need computational power—power often delivered by NVIDIA hardware.
2. Decentralized Compute Networks: Projects like Render Token (RENDER) or Akash Network (AKT) offer compute power in a distributed way. These platforms essentially crowdsource unused GPU power—most of which is NVIDIA hardware—and resell it to users needing rendering, AI inference, or training tasks.
3. AI and Physical Data: Many DePIN networks, such as Helium and Grass, collect physical-world data—like wireless signals or browsing activity. This data is often used to train or enhance AI models. Again, the training often happens on NVIDIA’s GPUs.
4. AI Model Hosting and Scaling: With the rise of open-source AI models, decentralized hosting and serving of these models becomes critical. This is where DePIN networks step in, offering cost-efficient, globally distributed infrastructure.

So, while NVIDIA doesn’t build on blockchain, its influence permeates it. The company provides the silicon muscle that allows these decentralized ideas to scale. Investors who understood this synergy early jumped into both NVIDIA stock and DePIN tokens, expecting a new wave of AI-blockchain fusion.

One standout project was GRASS, a Solana-based DePIN protocol that incentivizes users to share unused bandwidth. The data collected was reportedly used to improve AI models. Between late October 2024 and early 2025, GRASS’s token surged by 140%, highlighting how investors saw DePIN as a key puzzle piece in the AI expansion narrative.

The March 2024 Boom: Peak Excitement for NVIDIA and DePIN Altcoins

The hype reached a crescendo in March 2024.

On-chain activity, trading volumes, and retail interest in NVIDIA and DePIN Altcoins all surged. Altcoins like Akash Network (AKT), Flux, and Grass saw double- and even triple-digit percentage gains within weeks. It felt like a mini-altseason specifically centered around infrastructure and compute coins.

There were several contributing factors to this frenzy:

• NVIDIA’s record-breaking earnings and forward guidance gave traditional investors confidence in the longevity of AI.
• Social media influencers and crypto research accounts began drawing parallels between NVIDIA’s performance and the need for decentralized compute solutions.
• Narrative overlap became clear: if AI was the megatrend of the decade, DePIN was the foundation on which it could operate trustlessly and at scale.
• Token unlocks and airdrop announcements from DePIN projects added fuel to the fire.

At the time, AI tokens like RENDER and FET were getting headlines, but DePIN coins offered something unique—tangible infrastructure. These tokens weren’t just speculative; they had utility tied to compute marketplaces, storage, and bandwidth.

For a brief window, DePIN projects felt like the most logical bet in crypto. They aligned with both Web3 ideals and the AI revolution. The fact that many of them relied directly on GPUs, especially NVIDIA units, made the correlation almost inevitable.

Why the Highs Were Never Reached Again: Post-Boom Realities

Despite the explosive rally in early 2024, most NVIDIA DePIN Altcoins failed to sustain their gains. Within a few months, many had retraced 40–70% from their highs. Some, like AKT, held stronger, while others fell below pre-boom levels.

Why did the rally fade so quickly?

1. Narrative exhaustion: The market had priced in the NVIDIA-AI hype quickly. Once the headlines faded, attention shifted to newer narratives like EigenLayer restaking or L2 innovations.
2. Speculative overreach: Much of the March rally was driven by momentum traders and retail hype. Without sustainable user growth or protocol revenue, token prices corrected back to realistic valuations.
3. Tokenomics friction: Several DePIN projects still faced issues like high token inflation, low real-world demand, or limited staking utility.
4. Hardware limitations: While the link to NVIDIA gave narrative strength, DePIN’s hardware-based operations posed logistical challenges. Decentralized GPU sharing or bandwidth resale is still in its infancy and hard to scale reliably.
5. Lack of ecosystem integration: Many AI models are still trained and deployed in centralized cloud environments. Until there’s seamless integration of DePIN into mainstream AI pipelines, usage will remain limited.

The result? Investors moved on. The spotlight turned elsewhere. But for builders and long-term thinkers, this wasn’t the end.

The Future of DePIN and NVIDIA Collaboration

While the initial rally cooled, the long-term outlook for NVIDIA DePIN Altcoins remains promising.

Several factors point to continued synergy between decentralized infrastructure and GPU-based computing:

• Demand for decentralized AI is growing. Centralized platforms like OpenAI and Google dominate, but startups and open-source communities want alternatives.
• New DePIN protocols are shipping faster. We’re seeing innovations in decentralized inference (running AI models), edge computing, and even GPU staking models.
• NVIDIA’s ecosystem is expanding. Through CUDA, TensorRT, and DGX platforms, NVIDIA continues to influence how and where AI runs. If DePIN protocols become compatible with these toolkits, a new phase of adoption could begin.

Projects like io.net are already bridging the gap between AI devs and decentralized GPU compute. It’s not hard to imagine a future where AI developers rent compute from a decentralized network powered by idle NVIDIA cards in homes and offices globally.

In this future, the role of NVIDIA DePIN Altcoins would be to:

• Incentivize GPU and bandwidth providers
• Provide governance for decentralized networks
• Facilitate access to decentralized inference or training environments
• Reward users and node operators who contribute infrastructure

This vision aligns with the broader ethos of Web3—permissionless participation, open-source collaboration, and decentralization of power.

But it won’t happen overnight. Key milestones like better hardware abstraction layers, improved bandwidth reliability, and streamlined AI tool compatibility must come first.

TL;DR:

1. NVIDIA’s GPU dominance is fueling new opportunities in decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN).
2. DePIN altcoins enable sharing of real-world compute, storage, and bandwidth resources on-chain.
3. Many DePIN protocols rely on NVIDIA GPUs to power decentralized AI and compute networks.
4. The AI boom in early 2024 ignited investor interest in NVIDIA and GPU linked DePIN tokens.
5. Tokens like AKT, RENDER, and IO skyrocketed during the March 2024 DePIN narrative surge.
6. NVIDIA’s consistent AI hardware leadership makes it a key enabler of DePIN scalability.
7. DePIN altcoins often reward users for offering hardware resources to decentralized markets.
8. March 2024 was the peak of NVIDIA and DePIN hype, driven by narratives and token unlocks.
9. Social media played a huge role in pushing the NVIDIA and DePIN narrative to retail investors.
10. Many tokens corrected sharply after the hype as fundamentals failed to catch up.
11. Tokenomics, hardware scaling issues, and low real-world adoption caused price drops.
12. Despite the cooldown, long-term potential for NVIDIA-linked DePIN remains strong.
13. NVIDIA’s AI ecosystem expansion creates more integration opportunities for DePIN.
14. Interoperability with AI tools like CUDA and TensorRT could be game-changing.
15. DePIN represents a real use case for Web3 beyond speculation—distributed infrastructure.
16. DePIN altcoins will likely cycle again as AI and Web3 adoption grow.
17. The convergence of AI, crypto, and real-world infrastructure is still in early stages.
18. Long-term winners will blend narrative strength with real-world demand and tech maturity.