Grass

Grass is a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) built on Solana that lets anyone monetize idle internet bandwidth while powering a distributed web-scraping pipeline for AI data. Users install a lightweight app — available on Android, desktop (Windows and Mac), and as a browser extension — which routes a portion of their unused connection through the Grass network. That bandwidth is used to fetch publicly accessible web pages at scale, and the resulting structured datasets are sold to AI developers and enterprises as training data. Contributors earn GRASS tokens or USDC for every byte of traffic they relay.

The Problem Grass Solves

Large AI models require enormous volumes of fresh, diverse web data for training and fine-tuning, but scraping public internet data at meaningful scale demands a globally distributed set of IP addresses that commercial proxies struggle to supply cheaply or verifiably. Grass addresses both sides of this equation: it builds a supply-side pool of real residential bandwidth that websites treat as legitimate traffic, and it creates a demand-side marketplace where AI companies can purchase structured, provenance-verified datasets. Users who previously left their bandwidth idle receive a share of that commercial revenue in return.

How the Network Works

Grass operates as a sovereign Layer 2 data rollup on Solana, with four tiers of infrastructure working in concert.

Grass Nodes are the user-facing layer: lightweight clients running on mobile, desktop, or in the browser. When a data request enters the network, nodes relay encrypted outbound traffic to publicly available websites. Because the relay uses end-to-end encryption and digital signatures, nodes cannot read or modify the content they carry; they also have no access to the device owner's browsing history or local files.

Routers sit above individual nodes as geographically distributed relays. They measure bandwidth throughput, latency, and node uptime, reporting real-time metrics on stake distribution and network compliance. Routers are required to maintain at least 75 percent connectivity to remain in good standing and must stake GRASS to participate; malicious or underperforming routers face slashing.

Validators form the trust layer. They checkpoint every web request using zero-knowledge proofs, producing a permanent, cryptographically verifiable provenance record for each data point. This record tells downstream buyers exactly when and where each piece of content was collected, which is critical for AI training pipelines that require clean data lineage.

Traffic types give network participants and buyers a choice between two encryption schemes: Partially Encrypted Traffic (PET) for provenance-critical jobs where a verifiability record must be produced, and Fully Encrypted Traffic (FET) for maximum privacy at a higher protocol gas cost.

Rewards and Earning

Contributors accumulate two categories of points. Uptime Points are earned passively for staying online and connected, and through referrals; Android devices earn three times the Uptime Points rate of other platforms. Network Points are earned when a node's bandwidth is actively handling live traffic. Both categories feed into a reputation score that takes into account data completeness, quality consistency, response timeliness, and sustained availability. Points convert to GRASS tokens or USDC based on contribution level, bandwidth usage patterns, and geographic location. Users in jurisdictions subject to significant regulatory restrictions are ineligible for GRASS token rewards under the protocol's compliance rules.

Scale and Revenue

As of mid-2026, the Grass network claims more than 8.5 million monthly active nodes across approximately 190 countries. The protocol has collected 4.36 billion data rows sourced from 109 million distinct IP addresses, indexed roughly 20 percent of YouTube, and processed over 7,000 terabytes of public web content. The commercial data business generated approximately $17 million in revenue in 2025, with a projected $65 to $75 million for full-year 2026 based on first-half performance. Monthly operating costs run between $2 million and $3 million.

The GRASS Token

GRASS has a fixed maximum supply of one billion tokens. The distribution is structured as follows: 30 percent (300 million tokens) to the community, 25.2 percent (252 million tokens) to early investors, 22.8 percent (228 million tokens) to the Foundation and Ecosystem, and 22 percent (220 million tokens) to core contributors. Investor tokens complete their vesting by late October 2026; core contributor tokens are subject to a one-year cliff followed by three-year linear vesting.

The token generation event took place on January 10, 2025. Prior to that, Grass distributed 100 million tokens in an inaugural Season 1 airdrop on October 28, 2024, reaching more than 2.8 million eligible users. Nearly 1.5 million Solana wallet addresses claimed tokens — making it the most widely distributed airdrop in Solana's history at that time. As of mid-2026, approximately 680 million tokens (65 percent of total supply) are in circulation. GRASS trades on Solana under the contract address Grass7B4RdKfBCjTKgSqnXkqjwiGvQyFbuSCUJr3XXjs.

Team and Funding

Grass was built by Wynd Labs, founded in 2023 by Andrej Radonjic (CEO), Connor White, and Chris Gordon. The project raised a $1 million pre-seed round in July 2023, followed by a $3.5 million seed round in December 2023 led by Polychain Capital with Solana Labs participating. A subsequent $10 million bridge round, again co-led by Polychain Capital and Tribe Capital, funded infrastructure expansion and early commercial data partnerships.

The software carries AppEsteem certification, a third-party audit that checks behavior disclosure, clean uninstallation, and data access practices, giving users an independent verification of what the app can and cannot observe on their device.

Solana Ecosystem Fit

Grass is among the most prominent DePIN projects on Solana and a direct beneficiary of the network's low transaction costs and high throughput, which are prerequisites for settling millions of micro-reward events across a globally distributed node base. The project's framing as an AI data infrastructure layer positions it at the intersection of two themes — DePIN and AI — that have driven considerable developer attention on Solana since 2024. Its Season 1 airdrop, which reached nearly 1.5 million Solana addresses, set a network record for the breadth of distribution at that time. With revenue scaling and an architectural shift toward a sovereign data rollup, Grass is iterating from a bandwidth-sharing app into a full-stack data marketplace settled on Solana.