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

The cell provider is offloading data to XNET’s Wi-Fi network

article-image

Jonathan Weiss / Shutterstock.com and Adobe modified by Blockworks

share

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.
Tags

Upcoming Events

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research

article-image

Documents and sources suggest Neon Machine is running out of cash and has laid off nearly all its employees — and struck a deal with the Chinese government to stay afloat

article-image

The network is at a “pivotal juncture,” Blockworks Research’s Marc-Thomas Arjoon said

article-image

Altcoin trade volume has returned to pre-FTX levels, but with a shrinking pool of market leaders

article-image

Solana Foundation’s former head of strategy proposes increasing the disinflation rate

article-image

With much of the bitcoin mining supply chain based in Asia, US-based operations now face higher equipment prices

article-image

Anticipating an economic downturn, venture firms may be less likely to invest