Exclusive: Wi-Fi DePIN XNET announces AT&T partnership

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe . XNET, a Solana-based project building a decentralized network of Wi-Fi hotspots, has partnered with US telecom giant AT&T. The collaboration will enable AT&T to offload mobile data traffic onto XNET’s network, the team told Lightspeed exclusively. XNET sells Wi-Fi hotspots that businesses and public spaces can deploy in exchange for XNET token rewards. Together, the patchwork of hotspots makes up a distributed wireless network. XNET partners with cell carriers to offload mobile data onto its hotspots where available, easing network congestion and improving coverage — while the cell carriers pay XNET for the data. Under the agreement with AT&T, which has been live since September 2024, AT&T wireless customers connect to XNET’s Wi-Fi network where available. AT&T pays XNET in dollars for the data usage, and XNET passes tokens along to its node operators. According to a Dune dashboard , XNET currently has 688 active nodes, and around 9 million users have connected through its Wi-Fi offloading network. The handoff between AT&T’s coverage and XNET’s Wi-Fi is seamless, and most users have no idea it’s happening, XNET co-founder Richard DeVaul told me. He added that bootstrapping a business like XNET would have been difficult without a token. “XNET is the poster child for DePIN. We financed millions of dollars of equipment on our network using our token, without conventional equity or debt financing,” DeVaul said in a text. XNET has a similar feel to Helium Mobile, a popular DePIN company building a nationwide cellular network through token-incentivized hotspots. But while Helium lets individuals install hotspots at home, marketing lead Chris Banks said that XNET focuses exclusively on B2B services and restricts deployments to “high-value locations to the carriers.” “We see Helium as a potential customer, not a competitor. But [Helium Mobile CEO Amir Haleem] may have different ideas,” DeVaul said, adding a tongue-wagging emoji. Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters: Blockworks Daily : The newsletter that helps thousands of investors understand crypto and the markets, by Byron Gilliam. Empire : Start your morning with the top news and analysis to inform your day in crypto. Forward Guidance : Reporting and analysis on the growing intersection of crypto and macroeconomics, policy and finance. 0xResearch : Alpha directly in your inbox. Market highlights, data, degen trade ideas, governance updates, token performance and more. Lightspeed : Built for Solana investors, developers and community members. The latest from one of crypto’s hottest networks. The Drop : For crypto collectors and traders, covering apps, games, memes and more. Supply Shock : Tracking Bitcoin’s rise from internet plaything worth less than a penny to global phenomenon disrupting money as we know it.