In a world racing toward decentralized everything, infrastructure remains a bottleneck. In this episode of the DePINed Podcast, host Tom Trowbridge sits down with Arthur Sabintsev, CEO of Grove, the team building POKT Network (POKT), one of the earliest and most resilient projects in the DePIN ecosystem. What started as a decentralized blockchain access protocol is now evolving into a global network for inference and intelligent agent access. Here’s what you need to know.

What is Pocket Network?

Pocket Network (POKT) is a decentralized data transport protocol built to provide censorship-resistant access to blockchains and beyond. Today, it offers decentralized RPC infrastructure for over 60 chains. Tomorrow, it may serve as the gateway for AI agents needing inference access to LLMs, permissionless data, and more.

The Pocket Network protocol is supported by node operators who provide infrastructure — many of whom have migrated from cloud services to owning data centers and hosting bare-metal servers across regions like Germany, Singapore, and the US East Coast.

The Expansion of DePIN Use Cases

Sabintsev shares how Pocket is expanding from just blockchain access to supporting open-source LLMs, speech protocols like Nostr, and even integrations with Signal and Tor. This isn't about scraping data or mining tokens. It's about performance and reliability in permissionless access infrastructure—a higher bar that Pocket is uniquely positioned to meet.

"Pocket is not just a decentralized RPC provider. It's a smart load-balancing, quality-filtered network of nodes optimized for performance," explains Sabintsev. "And it will become the access layer for agents"

How It Works: Supply, Demand and Tokenomics

Pocket Network is a two-sided marketplace. On the supply side, DevOps engineers run nodes. On the demand side, gateways like Grove, Liquefy, and Chainstack aggregate user requests. These gateways connect to the most performant nodes via a quality filter.

Key to its tokenomics: Pocket is shifting to a “mint = burn” model. Requests cost POKT tokens, which are burned, while nodes mint new tokens as rewards. This creates a deflationary loop and a strong incentive for high-quality node operation.

Pricing starts at $2.50 per million relays — already competitive with centralized RPC providers, but with the added benefit of resilience, redundancy, and access to long-tail chains.

Metrics That Matter

Forget vanity metrics. The Pocket team is now focused on decentralized demand from distributed providers. The more unique gateways using Pocket to relay traffic, the stronger the protocol becomes.

Grove, the core development team spun out from Pocket, is currently the largest gateway. But their goal? To be replaced. “Decentralization means more sovereign providers using Pocket directly,” says Sabintsev.

DePIN Infrastructure for Agents

Perhaps the most visionary part of the episode is Sabintsev's belief that Pocket's future lies in powering AI agents. He envisions a world where agents access LLMs and on-chain data, make decisions, and execute actions — all via Pocket’s permissionless rails.

"The real user of Pocket isn’t a person,” he says. “It’s an autonomous agent"

Shannon Upgrade and Stablecoin Integration

Pocket recently launched a major protocol upgrade, Shannon, built on the Cosmos SDK. This opens up IBC compatibility, easier bridging, stablecoin integration, and a new foundation for growth.

Grove is also exploring using stablecoins as the medium of exchange, decoupling token volatility from network payments. This would turn the POKT token into a network share (for staking/security), while stablecoins power actual relays.

Pocket Is Building the Future of Intelligent Access

As LLMs scale and agent-based systems emerge, Pocket is carving out a new category: decentralized access for machine-to-machine coordination. The network already supports billions of monthly relays and is gearing up for 10x growth.

With a focus on service quality, economic sustainability, and long-term decentralization, Pocket Network is no longer just part of the DePIN conversation — it’s helping define it.

About DePINed Podcast

DePINed is a podcast exploring the frontier of decentralized physical infrastructure, hosted by Tom Trowbridge, co-founder of Fluence. Each episode features in-depth conversations with founders, builders, and investors who are shaping the future of real-world Web3 networks.

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