In this episode of the Lightspeed Podcast, host Danny is joined by co-host Carlos, Blockworks research analyst and DePIN expert Nick Carpanito, and Joe from the Blockworks advisory team. The panel gathers to analyze major structural shifts in the crypto landscape, beginning with Blockworks' acquisition of Messari and upcoming international DAS conferences.

The hosts dive deep into the momentum behind tokenized spot equities on Solana, comparing Backpack's highly liquid SpaceX and Micron listings to Base's emerging volume. They also evaluate the social trading app FOMO, analyzing its recent seventy-five million dollar Series B funding round and its twenty million dollar annualized revenue run rate.

Finally, Nick Carpanito provides expert analysis on Noble Mobile's acquisition of Helium Mobile. He explains the critical distinction between the carrier and the network, details the upcoming HIP 149 proposal's impact on HNT emissions, and contrasts traditional DePIN bootstrapping models with successful outliers like GeoNet.

Tokenized Spot Equities Gain Traction on Solana

Backpack kicked off a major wave of on-chain equity trading by listing a redeemable SpaceX token that can be moved directly to a brokerage account.

Carlos notes that Backpack's structure is superior to previous iterations because "you actually have a claim on the equity in the sense that you can move it between your brokerage account and your token." - Carlos

The SpaceX tokenized equity on Backpack has traded at a tight 0.5% premium to its mark price, whereas pre-IPO SPV variants trade at a 33% discount due to post-IPO lockups.

Coinbase is bringing tokenized equities to Base, which has already seen daily volumes scale from nothing to low millions of dollars.

Social Trading App FOMO Raises $75 Million Series B

Social trading application FOMO raised $75 million at a $550 million valuation, representing a 20-25x sales multiple on its current revenue.

Danny calculates that FOMO is "running at like a $20 mil annualized revenue rate, which is pretty good" based on its past 30 days of activity. - Danny

Unlike legacy wallets like Phantom or MetaMask, FOMO targets active traders by weaving high-velocity assets and social profiles directly into a TikTok-like user experience.

While Solana trading platform revenues have declined from a weekly peak of $100 million to $4 million, FOMO has maintained steady upward growth.

Noble Mobile Acquires Helium Mobile Carrier Business

Andrew Yang's Noble Mobile acquired the Helium Mobile retail carrier, inheriting tens of thousands of active subscribers and 700,000 total signups.

Nick emphasizes the distinction between the carrier and the network, noting that "the Helium Mobile carrier was not owned by the DAO" but was a separate for-profit entity. - Nick

Helium's daily network revenue dropped from $50,000 to $10,000 because the team reduced its data transfer subsidization from $0.50 per gigabyte to a $0.10 floor.

Despite the drop in dollar-denominated revenue, actual data transfer volumes and daily active users on the Helium network continue to grow.

HIP 149 Proposes Major Changes to Helium Tokenomics

The controversial HIP 149 proposal bundles four major decisions, including establishing a hard $0.10-per-gigabyte floor for hotspot earnings.

The proposal introduces a growth supplement that would mint 141 million HNT over 36 months to fund operations managed by a community-elected council.

HIP 149 plans to retire proof of coverage rewards—which currently make up 25% of HNT emissions—and reallocate those tokens to data transfer incentives.

Nick reports that Helium's CEO identified the network's North Star as "roughly 7 to 10x current traffic" to gain real leverage in carrier relationships. - Nick

Shifting Paradigms and Simple Tokenomics in DePIN

Nick argues that the traditional DePIN model of frontloading token emissions to bootstrap physical networks is no longer viable for new projects.

"The idea of frontloading emissions to bootstrap a physical network seems to have not been a winning bet." - Nick

Emerging networks like Daylight and Dawn are exploring capital-origination models similar to USDAI to fund and manage physical installations.

GeoNet stands out as a major DePIN success, eclipsing competitors to become the world's largest RTK network using highly simplified tokenomics.

Resources Mentioned

team and Joe from the Blockworks advisory team

odcast. This week and today, I'm joined by Carlos, as per usual, as well as Nick Carpanito from the research team and Joe from the Blockworks advisory team. How's everyone doing today? Doing great. Oh

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essari. And a few team members from Messari as well have come over to Blockworks. So, you know, the research team, some of the other teams have picked up some new members from Messari. Uh, it's not go

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e some fresh faces, you know, if the, the new Blockworks members have great takes or are doing some research or digging into a topic that, uh, we cover here. Um, you might see them join us on the show