TL;DR Breakdown
- Filecoin and Helium lead Messari’s Web3 Index
- The two protocols generated a combined 96% of protocol revenue in the index
- Other protocols in the index saw massive adoption
Filecoin and Helium have been pulling way ahead of other blockchain platforms providing Web 3 infrastructure. In terms of protocol revenue, Filecoin and Helium generated $9.4 million and $14.5 million, respectively, according to Messari’s Web3 Index.
Filecoin and Helium dominate other Web 3 infrastructure protocol
In its Web3 Infrastructure Q1’22 Revenue Report, Messari stated that after years of effort and intensive building in the Web3 infrastructure ecosystem, several protocols were “starting to experience strengthened network usage.” This has resulted in their early beginnings of revenue generation.
While highlighting protocols that were gaining steam in adoption, Messari revealed that their combined revenue in Q1 amounted to about 4% of that generated by Filecoin and Helium, the clear leaders of the pack.
Filecoin and Helium offer different services that are in high demand in their own right. Filecoin offers decentralized storage and cloud services on a global open market. Already, the protocol has the largest market share in terms of used storage and network capacity among its competitors, according to Messari.
Built on top of the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), Filecoin’s various use cases include NFTs, Web3, gaming, metaverse, and audio/video storage and retrieval.
So far, in 2022, Filecoin has seen an over 7x increase in the number of projects it hosts. From 40 at the start of 2021, the protocol hosts around 330 projects at the moment.
Helium, which is a crypto-powered distributed network of long-range wireless hotspots, has also traced a similar exponential growth path. In two years since its launch, Helium has amassed over 500k miners (Hotspot operators) globally and is projected to cross 1 million in the next six months.
Helium Hotspot is a device that plugs into a regular electric outlet, taps into existing internet service, and provides long-range connectivity to the Internet of Things (IoT) devices. The exciting real-world use case has earned the protocol partners like Microsoft’s IoT division.
Meanwhile, the native tokens of the Filecoin and Helium protocols – FIL and HNT, respectively – have traded significantly differently from the rest of the crypto market. FIL is down 2.26% in the last 24 hours, trading at around $18.93. HNT is also down 2.54%, trading at $20.58.
Other Web 3 protocols gaining ground
Asides from Filecoin and Helium, Arweave, Sia, Livepeer, Akash, and The Graph protocols were shown to have also been generating increased protocol revenue through increased adoption.
Arweave, which is a data storage network like Filecoin, saw a 977% YoY growth in its use. This led to it generating $740,000 in revenue. Similarly, Livepeer, a computation-focused protocol, generated $340,000 in protocol revenue after.
Protocol revenue generated by Akash reached a new all-time high in Q1. While the Graph dragged in around $2000 in revenue due to the protocols subsidization of its query service. Messari noted that the Graphs revenue does not match its adoption.
