Hey folks, in today’s article I’m going to be doing a deep dive into one of the most up-and-coming #DePIN projects known as Hive Mapper and their native token $HONEY, which has exploded in price action over the last couple of months.
In a nutshell, Hive Mapper is a crowd-sourced mapping builder that recruits people to record their driving (up to two cameras per car) by incentivizing them with $HONEY.
Ending January 31st, there’s a current promotion that allows you to get 1,000 $HONEY as a rebate awarded to you if you buy one of their dashcams, which at today’s prices ($0.20 per $HONEY), essentially means that you can get a dashcam at less than a third of the price of what is costs normally— a $200 dollar $HONEY token rebate and also the coupon code “ 2024JAN” to take an additional 10% off at checkout:
(Editor’s note: The 1,000 $HONEY promotion for January has ended but you can still get 10% off by using the coupon code “ 2024FEB”)
We’ll break down the potential earnings, risks, etc. in a bit, but let’s start with the basics first…
What is DePIN?
#DePIN, or Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network, is currently one of the top-trending crypto narratives, that fuses web3 and cryptographic technology into a serviceable product. Perhaps the most popular DePIN project from last cycle was Helium miners, which was a crowd-sourced network where people could mine $HNT if they setup personal network hotspots. If you asked me last year whether or not $HNT mining was worth it, I probably would have told you ‘no’, however given the recent 4x that its done, it looks like I may be proven wrong:
With Hive Mapper, instead of providing a network per se, you’re instead providing data in the form of maps which Hive Mapper packages and sells as a product — a product that has a great number of different use cases, whether it be for logistics, auto-pilot/AI driving, etc.
Earning $HONEY
With Hive Mapper, one can earn $HONEY in one of two ways — AI training or Map Building.
AI Training is by far the safest (yet least lucrative) option as there’s no upfront costs (except time), and you can earn small amounts of $HONEY by identifying different pictures such as this one:
By performing more tasks correctly with increasing difficulty, one can gain more reputation and level up in tiers that will allow to you to earn more and more $HONEY:
It’s not publicized as to what your reputation score may be, but a sign that your reputation has decreased is if you get demoted down a tier — a measure that you can see at the top of the Map AI Trainers page:
Rewards are calculated on a weekly basis, with distributions going out to your connected Phantom wallet.
Map Building is conducted through the act of actually driving, with either 1 or 2 cameras mounted on your car. Currently there are two different camera options you can purchase, either the Hivemapper Dashcam or the Hivemapper Dashcam S, which differ significantly in price:
From what I’ve gathered, it’s not really recommended to buy the more expensive Dashcam S, as both cameras have the same rebate incentive of 1,000 $HONEY, and the difference of $HONEY each camera will earn you is marginal. Compared to AI Training, due to the actual cost of the camera, there’s obviously greater sunk-cost risk if you were to buy a camera (as opposed to not), but this can also be offset if you join a fleet (more on that later).
How much can you actually earn with Hive Mapper?
The bottom line is that no matter where you’re driving you’ll earn rewards, however there are several criteria that can effect exactly how much. These include…
Regions vs. Non-Regions
In general, the more mapped a region is, the higher multiplier you can gain for mapping out the remaining region:
The rational behind this is that data from urban areas with greater traffic tend to have greater utility and value, thus generally will provide increased multipliers and incentives that can earn more than if you were driving around rural roads. That being said, there are additional 1 $HONEY/km incentives for mapping out uncharted roads in “non-regions,” however it’s still far more lucrative to be going after the multipliers.
In case if you’re curious about how regional or non-regional your neighborhood can be, Hivemapper.com/explorer offers not only a highly detailed map of what’s mapped out and what’s not, but also gives you detailed information about each region:
Base Rewards
The regional multiplier is applied to your “base reward” which is split among all the drivers that are in your region. Therefore if there are a ton of Hive-mapping drivers in your region, your base reward might be lower, or conversely you’d get a higher share if there’s not as many.
Freshness
One of the ways that Hive Mapper really differs from bigger competitors like Google Maps, is that there’s a greater emphasis placed on up-to-date data. In other words, drivers will get less rewards if they’re re-mapping something that’s been mapped out recently — a multiplier that grows since the last time a route has been mapped, and then resets back to 0 as soon as it gets remapped:
Bursts
Based on customer demand, a “burst” might go into effect where multipliers are added for certain regions in limited timeframes:
The idea of bursting can provide near-real-time data and visuals for potential customers, something that might not be obtainable from other competitors like Google Maps:
Image Quality
Visibility is key, so drivers will realistically only earn $HONEY if they are driving during the day when quality pictures/video can be taken of the driver’s surroundings.
In the same vein, cameras mounted on vehicles that are not 4-wheeled and/or are often driving on rough terrain will most likely not have good payouts because just like any photo you take — the pictures/video may not be clear if it’s not mounted onto something solid.
Tokenomics
According to the docs, $HONEY has a fixed maximum supply of 10 billion tokens and is distributed in the following manner:
The $HONEY token circulating supply itself is dependent upon all transactions that are conducted through Hive Mapper, whether you’re a customer wanting to buy map credits (where tokens are burned) versus Map Builders/AI trainers who are getting $HONEY for contributing (where tokens are minted):
My Takes and Other Considerations
You probably won’t know until you try — Trying to factor all the different earning criteria can be quite complicated, and they can be subject to change as the Hive Mapper team readjusted settings in order to incentivize the data that they need for its customers. Therefore from a general standpoint, if you’re already personally driving a great deal on a personal basis my best guess is that you’ll still probably be earning a good chunk of $HONEY, but if you’re not a commuter or a person that doesn’t drive much, this might not be as profitable.
The more drivers, the less lucrative this might be — One of the big factors that disrupted Helium miners was due to mining saturation, or in other words, the supply of $HNT minted for helium miners far out-paced demand. Regardless of $HONEY having a fixed supply, the same deterrent could effect Hive Mapper which could hypothetically cause a mass minting and dilution of the $HONEY token, thus significantly diluting the price.
Fully Refundable — speaking of price dilution, personally I’ll be taking a close look at what happens to the $HONEY price between now and when I actually get my dashcam. Assuming you don't’ buy from a re-seller, the cameras are fully refundable and current orders have an estimated delivery date of June 2024, meaning that you could always decide to cancel your order if the price of $HONEY crashes to 0.
FOMO — In full transparency, I must acknowledge that for me, this is a FOMO play. Given the fact that the 1,000 $HONEY rebate expires at the end of this month, and reading multiple reports about how much people have been earning, personally I figured that this was worth the risk of losing the $270 dollars I spent on a camera:
Fleet driving — As I mentioned before, you could further reduce your sunk cost value if you drive for a fleet. Without paying the cost for a camera, you’ll get a split of the rewards from driving between you and the fleet manager. Or vice versa, you could become a fleet manager yourself, and employ some of the integrated safety measures that Hive Mapper specifically implements for fleets, including single wallet payouts and security settings to ensure that your rewards are protected.
Insurance Benefits — This is obviously dependent upon your jurisdiction, but your Dashcam can also serve as a CCTV in the event that you get into an accident or if your car gets broken into. Furthermore, some insurance companies will give you overall discounts for just having a CCTV in your car!
Conclusion:
It’s pretty well-known that speculation is a big factor into how a token gets priced, especially when it’s tied into a hot-trending narrative. In the case of $HONEY, as novel of a project as it might be, I’m certain that at least a portion of Hive Mapper is hype-driven, and given as we’ve seen with other projects like Helium, the hype will inevitably die down. However if we take Helium’s $HNT as an example, it took nearly a full year for the price to re-trace from pre-hype to post-hype, so I’m willing to take a gamble that we could see a similar hype-timeframe for $HONEY as well — a timeframe that will at least allow me to complete an ROI.
Are you already driving around making $HONEY? I’d love to hear about your experiences (and also how many times you’ve ROI’d in the process) in the comments below.
Are you thinking about apeing into a dashcam as well? If you do, be sure to use the coupon code “ 2024FEB” (referral link included) in order to get a 10% discount, dropping the price of their base model from $300 dollars to $270. Additionally, as I mentioned before, their current airdrop promotion of getting 1,000 $HONEY is only eligible to those who buy cameras before January 31st and who drive 200km.
And as always, thanks for taking the time to read this and be sure to follow me on twitter (https://twitter.com/CryptosWith) to get all my latest updates. Also, looking for a gift for your Crypto-loving/hating friend? Give them a REKT journal to cheer them up!
Disclaimer: And as a final reminder, this is not financial advice and this is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Please as always, do your own research and find what investments are best for you. Cheers everyone!