Within the newest SlateCast episode, XYO co-founder Markus Levin joined CryptoSlate’s hosts to unpack why decentralized bodily infrastructure networks (DePIN) are shifting past area of interest experiments—and why XYO constructed a purpose-built Layer-1 to deal with the form of information AI and real-world functions more and more demand.
Levin’s ambition for the community is blunt: “First, I feel XYO is gonna have eight billion nodes,” he stated, calling it a stretch aim—however one he believes matches the place the class is headed.
DePIN’s “each nook of the world” thesis
Levin framed DePIN as a structural shift in how markets coordinate bodily infrastructure, pointing to speedy development expectations for the sector. He cited a World Financial Discussion board projection that DePIN may broaden from roughly immediately’s tens of billions to trillions by 2028.
For XYO, scale isn’t hypothetical. One of many hosts famous that the community has grown “with over 10 million nodes,” setting the stage for a dialog centered much less on “what if” and extra on what breaks when real-world information quantity turns into the product.
Proof of origin for AI: the information downside, not simply compute
Requested about deepfakes and the collapse of belief in media, Levin argued that AI’s bottleneck isn’t solely computation—it’s provenance. “Whereas DePIN, what you are able to do is you possibly can, uh, show the place information comes from,” he stated, outlining a mannequin the place information might be verified end-to-end, tracked into coaching pipelines, and queried when techniques want floor fact.
In his view, provenance creates a suggestions loop: if a mannequin is accused of hallucinating, it might test whether or not the underlying enter is verifiably sourced—or request new, particular information from a decentralized community slightly than scraping unreliable sources.
Why a data-native Layer-1 issues
XYO spent years attempting to not construct a sequence, Levin stated—working as middleware between real-world alerts and good contracts. However “no person constructed it,” and the community’s information quantity pressured the problem.
He defined the design aim merely: “Blockchain can’t bloat… and it’s simply constructed for information actually.”
XYO’s strategy facilities on mechanisms reminiscent of Proof of Good and “lookback” fashion constraints supposed to maintain node necessities light-weight, whilst datasets develop.
COIN onboarding: turning non-crypto customers into nodes
A key development lever has been the COIN app, which Levin described as a approach to remodel cellphones into XYO community nodes.
Moderately than pushing customers into instant token volatility, the app makes use of dollar-tied factors and broader redemption choices—then bridges customers into crypto rails over time.
Twin token mannequin: aligning incentives with XL1
Levin stated the twin token system is designed to separate ecosystem rewards/safety from chain exercise prices. “We’re extraordinarily enthusiastic about this twin token system,” he stated, describing $XYO because the exterior staking/governance/safety asset and $XL1 as the interior fuel/transactions token used on XYO Layer One.
Actual-world companions: charging infrastructure and mapping-grade POI information
Levin pointed to new partnerships as early “killer app” momentum contained in the broader DePIN ecosystem, citing a take care of Piggycell—a big South Korean charging community that wants proof-of-location and plans to tokenize information on XYO Layer One.
He additionally described a separate proof-of-location use case involving point-of-interest datasets (hours, pictures, venue information), claiming a serious geolocation companion discovered points in its personal dataset “in 60% of the instances,” whereas XYO-sourced information was “99.9% right,” enabling downstream mapping for big enterprises.
Taken collectively, Levin’s message was constant: if AI and RWAs want reliable inputs, the subsequent aggressive frontier could also be much less about sooner fashions—and extra about verifiable information pipelines anchored in the true world.
