Grass launched in 2024 as a DePIN protocol that pays users to share their unused internet bandwidth. Users install a browser extension or desktop app that routes web requests through their connection, and earn GRASS tokens in return. The data collected — publicly available web content — is processed and sold as training data for AI models. The pitch combined two hot narratives: DePIN infrastructure and AI data supply chains.
Grass grew explosively. Within months of launch, over 2 million devices were connected to the network, making it one of the fastest-growing DePIN projects in history. The barrier to entry was near zero — no hardware purchase required, just install an extension. This made it accessible to users worldwide, including in developing countries where even small token earnings represented meaningful income.
The GRASS token airdrop in October 2024 was one of the largest of the year, distributed to users based on their bandwidth contribution and referrals. Some power users who had been running Grass on multiple devices received airdrops worth thousands of dollars. The token launched on major exchanges and briefly exceeded a $1 billion fully diluted value.
Grass’s business model — aggregating residential bandwidth for web scraping — raises questions about privacy and terms of service. Users share their IP addresses with whatever requests the network routes, which could theoretically include requests that violate websites’ terms of service. Grass maintains that all data collection targets publicly available content and that user privacy is protected through encryption. Whether this model sustains regulatory scrutiny as it scales remains an open question, but the demand for AI training data is real and growing, and Grass is one of the first protocols to successfully tokenize that demand.
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