Starpower

Starpower is an energy DePIN on Solana: a crypto network built from real-world hardware. It is not the dance contest, treadmill brand or chip maker of the same name. Starpower links home devices into one virtual power plant. That means smart plugs, home batteries, EV chargers and air conditioners. Owners earn its STAR token for plugging in. They also earn for letting the network choose when their devices draw or store power.

Starpower sells its own hardware too. The main items are the Starplug smart plug and the GVP01 home battery. STAR first went on sale in September 2025 on BNB Chain. It now trades on Solana as well. Backers include Framework Ventures, Alliance DAO and Solana Ventures.

How Starpower works: a virtual power plant built from home devices

Power grids are built for short daily peaks. So much of their capacity sits idle most of the day. Utilities have long paid big factories to cut use at peak times. Starpower wants to do the same with millions of small home devices that nobody steers today.

Devices join through Starpower's own hardware or through links with device makers. Owners manage them in the Starpower app. The network then picks when each device should charge, discharge or pause. It goes by grid conditions and local prices. A home battery, say, charges when power is cheap and runs the home when prices peak.

STAR is the reward and payment layer. KuCoin's explainer (June 2026) sets out three reward stages:

• Proof of Connectivity: rewards for registering a device and keeping it online.
• Proof of Capacity: rewards for the generation, consumption or storage capacity a device contributes.
• Proof of Response: rewards for responding to grid or virtual power plant signals.

The same source says STAR is used to buy "call services" for distributed energy resources. In other words, the token is meant to be how buyers pay for the flexibility the network aggregates.

Starplug: Starpower's smart plug for mining STAR

The Starplug is the cheapest way in. It is a smart plug that sits between a wall socket and an appliance. It measures energy use, allows remote control and off-peak scheduling, and earns STAR for staying connected. It is a measuring device, not storage, so on its own it gives the grid little flexibility to sell.

Starpower sells the Starplug through its online store. Pricing has moved around with promotions. In April 2026 the company announced on X a 90% discount on bundles of five or more Starplugs, and a 90% code for "Solana supporters". From August to September 2026 it posted updates on X about a new production batch and restock shipments.

GVP01 AI home battery and 1kWh backup batteries

The GVP01 is Starpower's AI home battery. The company pushed it through March and April 2026 and called the launch its move into "physical AI". It said new rewards for battery owners went live at the same time. The battery trades on price by itself: it charges when power is cheap and discharges at peaks. By June, Starpower said it was working to put GVP01 battery data on-chain. That data is meant to drive rewards for battery owners.

In July Starpower began shipping smaller 1kWh backup batteries. On X it named ECACTUS as the maker. Storage like this gives the network real room to shift power. It should also earn owners more than a plug does.

Starpower app and Apple HomeKit

The Starpower app is where owners add and run their devices. It also shows how much power they use and how much STAR they have earned. Starpower asks users to link Apple HomeKit, so their HomeKit gear shows up in the same app. In short, the app is the control room for the whole setup.

STAR token: Solana and BNB Chain, listings and tokenomics

STAR has a maximum supply of 1 billion. It launched on 6 September 2025 in a Binance Wallet token sale on BNB Chain, run with PancakeSwap. The sale raised $125,000. Buyers got 12.5 million STAR (1.25% of supply) at $0.01 each.

The allocation published for that event is:

The token lives on two chains, according to Starpower's website:

• Solana: STARqri3xhy6Pyv1EpgdjkPDVcs9FncKcaEP6527krs
• BNB Chain: 0x8fce7206E3043DD360F115AFa956EE31b90B787C

Holders move STAR between the two chains with a bridge built on Wormhole W$0.010-5.3% Native Token Transfers (NTT), hosted on Starpower's site.

STAR listed on MEXC on 14 May 2026 and on KuCoin on 27 May 2026. KuCoin takes deposits on Solana. A Binance Alpha trading contest followed in June 2026. CoinMarketCap puts the all-time high on 14 May 2026, the day of the MEXC listing. By late October 2026 the price sat near its all-time low. The price widgets on this page show live figures.

Is Starpower legit? Funding, team and track record

Starpower is a real company with known backers. Alliance DAO led its $1.5 million first round in 2024. In January 2025 Framework Ventures led a $2.5 million round, joined by Solana Ventures and Bitscale Capital. The Block reported that this took total funding to $4 million.

Laser Ding is co-founder and CEO. CoinMarketCap lists Darcy Jia as CTO; Jia holds a PhD in solar power engineering. Jia writes about virtual power plants and power markets on the company's Medium.

The growth numbers come from Starpower and don't line up. In January 2025 it reported 1.5 million wallets, 16,000+ active devices and $1 million in revenue.

Its website now claims 1 million device users and $2 million+ in revenue, with a goal of $10 million in 2026. Yet a company video on X in May 2026 cited "100,000+ users". Starpower has not published audited accounts.

What's next: an AI compute and energy storage cabinet

On 29 September 2026 Starpower teased a new product. It is a single cabinet that pairs "the most advanced AI compute chips with high-performance energy storage". The idea is to smooth the sudden power spikes that AI chips cause. Its X bio now opens with "We build to solve the AI energy crisis."

As of 25 October 2026 the cabinet was not out. Starpower had shared no specs or price. Nor had it said how the cabinet ties to STAR or the home device network.

Who Starpower is for

Starpower suits homeowners who are curious about DePIN and own, or plan to buy, a home battery or other large energy device. They can earn STAR on top of the bill savings from automatic peak shifting. The Starplug is a cheap way to try the app and the rewards, but plug earnings depend on STAR's price, and that has been volatile.

It suits people less well if they want predictable income from their hardware. It also suits them less well if they don't want an outside service controlling devices in their home. Traders looking at STAR should know that most trading happens on BNB Chain and centralised exchanges. As of October 2026, our token data showed almost no STAR liquidity on Solana DEXs.

Starpower risks: audits, token price and device control

• No public audit found. We found no published security audit of Starpower's on-chain programs or of the STAR token contracts, as of October 2026. The project's Solana program addresses aren't published either, so we couldn't check who can upgrade them.
• Bridge risk. STAR moves between Solana and BNB Chain through a Wormhole NTT bridge. Starpower's own bridge terms warn of "potential permanent loss of assets" and say the company is not responsible for failures or exploits.
• Token price. STAR fell sharply after its May 2026 exchange-listing peak. Rewards paid in STAR are worth only what the market pays for it, and 15% of supply is reserved for the team and another 15% for investors.
• Unverified traction. User, device and revenue figures come from Starpower itself and differ between its channels (see above).
• Device control. Joining the network gives Starpower permission to steer the charging and power use of hardware in your home.
• Hardware supply. Starplug and battery availability has depended on production batches. Customers waited for restocks through August and September 2026.

Starpower vs Sourceful and other energy DePINs

Sourceful Energy, from Sweden, is the closest rival on Solana. It also pools home solar, batteries and EVs into a virtual power plant. It links gear you already own through its Energy Gateway box. Starpower leans more on selling its own plugs and batteries, and its token trades on big exchanges.

The choice mostly comes down to what you own. Solar owners in Europe should look at Sourceful first. People starting from scratch may find Starpower's plug and battery bundles simpler.