Dabba Network

Dabba Network is a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) built on Solana that crowdfunds the deployment of WiFi hotspots across India, rewarding infrastructure operators with its native DBT token while using live broadband revenue to buy back and burn those tokens—creating a feedback loop between real-world connectivity and on-chain economics.

Background and Founding

Dabba Network traces its origins to 2016, when Bengaluru-based entrepreneurs Karam Lakshman and Shubhendu Sharma set up a Raspberry Pi-powered hotspot at a local tea shop frustrated by poor connectivity. That informal experiment grew into Wifi Dabba, which was formally incorporated and accepted into Y Combinator. The company has since raised $5.32 million from fourteen investors including Multicoin Capital, Borderless Capital, Soma Capital, and Y Combinator itself.

Karam Lakshman serves as CEO. Before co-founding Dabba he led the internet and mobile fund at the Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship at IIM Ahmedabad and founded Mildly Classic, a software logistics company he took to exit. Shubhendu Sharma, COO, brings more than fifteen years in operational and product roles across technology and consumer businesses. Both are Y Combinator alumni. The company is headquartered in Bengaluru, India.

The Connectivity Problem Dabba Addresses

India presents a stark connectivity asymmetry: the country has only around 30 million fixed-line broadband connections serving a population of 1.4 billion, against 112 million in the United States and 612 million in China. Nearly half of India's population lacks any internet access. India's data traffic grew 3.2 times over five years, reaching 14.4 exabytes in 2022, signalling surging latent demand that existing infrastructure has not been able to meet.

Dabba targets this gap through a demand-led model: it installs hotspots where confirmed subscriber demand already exists rather than building speculatively and waiting for adoption, optimizing capital deployment against actual usage.

How Dabba Works

At the center of Dabba's model is the Dabba Lite hotspot — proprietary hardware priced at $199, running a custom Dabba OS on an MT762AT processor and supporting IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax (Wi-Fi 6) standards. Purchasers pay an additional $100 equivalent in DBT tokens as an onboarding fee, then hand the hardware to one of Dabba's network of Local Cable Operators (LCOs). LCOs — independent broadband entrepreneurs who together number more than 100,000 across India — handle physical deployment, maintenance, and subscriber acquisition in exchange for token rewards. An average LCO currently serves around 300 connections, with Dabba projecting 10x growth potential per operator as the network scales.

The stakeholder structure divides into connectivity enablers (LCOs, hardware manufacturers, hotspot owners, location owners, and backhaul providers) and connectivity users who pay for data access. Hotspot owners track deployment status and earnings through a network explorer dashboard that surfaces real-time statistics on hotspots sold, bandwidth consumed, and token burn metrics.

Token Economics: DBT on Solana

The DBT token launched on Solana on April 15, 2026, with a maximum supply of 10 billion tokens and a fixed emission schedule that decays 10% annually. Solana's throughput underpins the settlement layer.

Dabba's token model operates through a mint-and-burn-with-revenue-buyback structure:

Minting: 37% of each epoch's total DBT emissions flow to infrastructure operators — LCOs and bandwidth providers — as rewards for maintaining active coverage.

Buyback and burn: Dabba commits 75% of all fiat revenue from broadband subscriptions to purchasing DBT on the open market each epoch. Within that 75%, the allocation is:

• At least 45% of revenue buys DBT on behalf of LCOs and burns it when buyback capacity exceeds operator emissions.
• At least 30% of revenue goes to bandwidth provider settlement and is also burned.
• 5% is reserved for hotspot owners (bought but not burned).
• 20% is retained for operating costs.

This formula anchors the token's buyback demand to real subscriber revenue rather than speculation. When the network grows, fiat revenue rises, buybacks increase, and the burn rate accelerates — compressing supply against a fixed emission schedule.

Internet Capital Markets: The Broader Vision

Dabba frames its long-term positioning around what it calls Internet Capital Markets (ICMs) — the idea that connectivity infrastructure can be tokenized into tradeable on-chain assets, allowing anyone with an internet connection to own a stake in the networks that deliver it. Hotspots are real-world assets represented on-chain, generating verifiable revenue that flows back to token holders via the buyback mechanism.

Dabba describes itself as "Layer-0 DePIN," meaning its connectivity backbone can be used by other decentralized infrastructure networks as their underlying data transport layer. Wingbits (flight tracking) and WeatherXM (weather sensors) already deploy over Dabba's infrastructure, expanding revenue sources without requiring separate builds.

Network Metrics (as of April 2026)

• Over 130,000 active hotspots deployed across 4 states and 25 cities in India
• 129,000+ paying subscribers
• $600,000 in monthly recurring revenue
• 647,000 monthly active users
• 2,000 terabytes of cumulative data consumed (milestone reached December 2024)

Season 1 hotspots sold out; Season 2 launched 10,000 additional Dabba Lite units, which also sold out by Q1 2025. Mainnet went live in April 2026 with a "fully functional, onchain ecosystem."

Partnerships and Ecosystem

A collaboration with BONK (April 2025) linked the meme token community to Dabba's network expansion. Wingbits integrated in September 2025. WeatherXM expanded sensor coverage in emerging markets through Dabba's infrastructure. Dabba also co-hosted the first Solana DePIN and Hardware Summit in April 2025.

On the regulatory side, Dabba participates in India's PM-WANI (Prime Minister Wi-Fi Access Network Interface) program, giving its operator network official recognition and policy tailwinds for deployment.

Solana Ecosystem Fit

Dabba represents one of the more substantive real-world DePIN deployments within the Solana ecosystem, combining verifiable physical infrastructure — hotspots generating actual subscriber revenue in a country of 1.4 billion people — with on-chain token mechanics tied directly to that revenue. Its Layer-0 positioning as a shared connectivity service for other DePIN projects gives it a potential multiplier role within the broader Solana DePIN stack.