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Wayru and Peaq Bring WiFi Hotspots En Masse to South America

Daniela Kirova
Daniela Kirova
Daniela Kirova
Author:
Daniela Kirova
Writer
Daniela is a writer at Bankless Times, covering the latest news on the cryptocurrency market and blockchain industry. She has over 15 years of experience as a writer, having ghostwritten for several online publications in the financial sector.
February 6th, 2024
  • Wayru is a decentralized physical infrastructure network working to close the digital divide
  • It has established strategic partnerships with the UN/UNHCR
  • Wayru will build a hotspot firmware version with peaq ID support

One in every three people in Latin America and the Caribbean doesn’t have internet access. Regrettably, it’s usually the most vulnerable communities that are left out — even though they stand the most to gain from going online.

Incentivizing internet sharing

Wayru is a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) working to close the digital divide, with a special focus on the disconnected in LATAM and the US. It is joining peaq, the blockchain for real-world applications, to decentralize Internet access by incentivizing people to share their hotspots with others for rewards in tokens.

The milestones

The Wayru network currently boasts over 500 hotspots. Wayru has established strategic partnerships with organizations such as the UN/UNHCR. In the past year, the network catered to over 250,000 unique users, with 50,000 unique monthly active users worldwide. Over 3 million GBs were utilized on the network during this period.

Tapping BNB Chain, Solana-compatible IDs

Building on peaq as its layer-1 backbone, Wayru’s will tap peaq’s multi-chain IDs, compatible with Binance Chain and Solana, and peer-to-peer payments. It will also enable hotspot operators to migrate their devices to peaq and join the Economy of Things running on the network.

Non-Fungible Nodes

To join its network, people can either purchase its Genesis hotspot or install WayruOS on any compatible hotspot. Either way, the next step is minting the device as a Non-Fungible Node (NFN). The NFN works as a track record of their hotspot, tracing its uptime and quality of service, with their rewards based on its performance.

Wayru will build a hotspot firmware version with peaq ID support, enabling users to migrate on peaq if they choose so, and officially launch on peaq.

Charvel Chedraui, CEO at Wayru, said:

We are building more than a DePIN. The end goal is to make the Internet more decentralized and give the people more ownership in it. This vision is fully aligned with peaq’s values, which will greatly boost the project’s ability to build and scale.

Till Wendler, co-founder of peaq, added:

The global digital gap is a crucial hurdle for our progress as a society. The DePIN model is perfect for resolving the crisis, as it gives everyone more ownership in the infrastructure the global web runs on.

Contributors

Daniela Kirova
Writer
Daniela is a writer at Bankless Times, covering the latest news on the cryptocurrency market and blockchain industry. She has over 15 years of experience as a writer, having ghostwritten for several online publications in the financial sector.