Roam

Roam is a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) on Solana that turns internet connectivity into a community-owned resource — rewarding anyone who shares, validates, or expands WiFi and eSIM coverage worldwide.

Background

Roam was founded in fall 2021 under the name MetaBlox by a team with backgrounds in telecommunications and cryptocurrency. The company secured a landmark partnership with the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA), becoming its exclusive Web3 partner — a relationship that gives Roam access to the WBA's OpenRoaming standard, an enterprise-grade protocol used by carriers, airports, and venue operators for seamless cross-network roaming. In 2024, MetaBlox rebranded to Roam and migrated its network to the Solana mainnet. By early 2025, the network had grown to over 1.7 million active devices across 189 countries and the $ROAM token launched on major exchanges in March 2025.

The Problem Roam Solves

Public WiFi is fragmented, insecure, and commercially controlled. Most hotspot networks require per-provider login credentials, and the economics flow entirely to telcos and ISPs rather than the people or businesses hosting the infrastructure. Simultaneously, global connectivity remains unaffordable or unavailable in large parts of the world. Roam's thesis is that a token-incentivized DePIN can aggregate the world's dispersed WiFi infrastructure, add a cryptographic identity layer for secure passwordless authentication, and redistribute economic value to the participants who make the network function.

Core Mechanism

Roam combines two connectivity pools: the WBA's OpenRoaming network (over 4.5 million enterprise-grade hotspots) and a self-built layer of community-deployed nodes (over 3 million Roam miners and user-contributed hotspots). Users connect to either pool through the Roam app, which handles automatic authentication using Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) and Verifiable Credentials (VCs) — eliminating manual login while preserving privacy.

Network participation is validated through a Proof-of-Location (PoL) protocol. Devices generate on-device cryptographic proofs of physical presence, combined with network triangulation, which are anchored immutably on the Solana blockchain. This creates a tamper-resistant record of real-world coverage contributions. Rewards are distributed according to two complementary models: Proof-of-Service (rewarding connectivity provision) and Proof-of-Validation (rewarding network integrity verification). Token emissions follow an exponential decay curve — starting at 0.6% of remaining supply per month — with a Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment that modulates issuance based on network activity and hardware participation rates.

Key Products

Roam App — The primary user interface, available on iOS and Android. It connects users to OpenRoaming hotspots and community nodes, accumulates Roam Points (the pre-token reward unit, convertible 1:1 to $ROAM), and manages eSIM provisioning. The app has been downloaded by over 2.3 million registered users.

Roam Rainier MAX60 — A WiFi 6 mining router designed for home and venue operators. Beyond extending Roam network coverage, it is engineered to support on-device AI agent workloads, positioning it within Roam's stated roadmap of serving edge AI devices requiring persistent, distributed connectivity.

Roam Baker MAX30 — A compact access point targeted at operators who want to expand coverage footprint with a lower-profile hardware form factor.

Global eSIM — Roam offers eSIM roaming across 180+ countries, directly integrated with the app. This gives the network a cellular fallback and a revenue-generating service layer independent of WiFi availability.

$ROAM Token

$ROAM is a Solana-native token with a fixed total supply of 1 billion. The TGE occurred on March 6, 2025, with simultaneous listings across eight major centralized exchanges. Token allocation: 600 million (60%) distributed via network mining over time, 280 million (28%) for investors and community airdrops, and 120 million (12%) to the team under a six-year vesting schedule.

Roam introduced a Pilot Buyback Program post-TGE to manage circulating supply and provide price stability during early distribution. Mining emissions are dynamically adjusted via the network's difficulty algorithm, preventing hyperinflationary rewards during periods of rapid hardware onboarding.

Network Scale and Recognition

As of mid-2025, Roam's network spans 189 countries with over 1.7 million active devices — ranking first on DePINScan for hardware node count. Messari's 2024 DePIN report placed Roam fourth among all DePIN projects with more than one million active nodes. The @weRoam account has over 229,000 followers on X, and the network reports 6.2 million social impressions.

Solana Ecosystem Fit

Roam chose Solana for its migration from an earlier chain due to Solana's throughput characteristics and low transaction costs — prerequisites for anchoring millions of daily Proof-of-Location attestations on-chain affordably. The $ROAM token is a standard Solana SPL token, compatible with the full Solana wallet and DeFi ecosystem. Roam's infrastructure model — physical hardware generating on-chain proofs — aligns with the broader Solana DePIN thesis pursued by projects like Helium, Hivemapper, and GEODNET, situating Roam within Solana's growing physical-world data layer.