#DePIN Now vs. Then – Part 2:
@Acurast
Time for the next breakdown of how key DePIN projects evolved over the past year. Today: Acurast. Turning old smartphones into distributed, institutional-grade compute infrastructure.
I got hooked on the idea of monetizing my old devices instead of letting them gather dust, largely inspired by insights from
@0xEl9ar9ni.
Here is my personal journey alongside Acurast’s massive network evolution.
THEN (Mid 2025):
→ In June 2025, I onboarded my very first device as a Lite Processor. By October, I upgraded and added my first Core Processor.
→ The primary focus back then was building momentum: CoinList held the
$ACU Token Presale in May 2025, laying the groundwork for what was to come.
→ The network was a rapidly growing fleet of distributed mobile devices, showing the world that you don't need expensive data centers to provide serverless, trustless computation.
It was the ultimate proof-of-concept for mobile DePIN.
NOW (May 2026):
→ My personal setup has scaled significantly: I’m now running 1 Lite Processor alongside 5 Android devices acting as Core Processors. My current balance sits at 857.15
$ACU and 11,128
$MIST.
→ The network stats have gone absolutely nuclear: Acurast has scaled to 255,000 phones distributed across 175 countries.
→ Following the official TGE on January 20, 2026, the economic layer is thriving with over 157,000,000
$ACU already staked to secure the network.
→ Activity is skyrocketing: The protocol clocked an incredible 750,000,000 on-chain transactions as of late April 2026.
Conclusion:
Acurast has successfully transitioned from an ambitious alternative for cloud computing into a battle-tested, hyper-scaled DePIN giant. Watching an old phone in your drawer become part of a network processing hundreds of millions of global transactions is exactly why DePIN is the future.
The transformation over the last 12 months is unreal.
Part 3 soon.
#DePIN #Acurast #CloudCompute #Web3 @peaq