BANDWIDTH · Last updated: 17 July 2026 · 9 min read · by Jordan, PassivePin Editorial

Bandwidth networks: Grass, BlockMesh, EarnFM

The easiest DePIN projects to start with. What bandwidth networks actually do with your internet, how the legal picture looks, and which ones pay in real tokens vs. points that may never convert.

If you have never run a DePIN node and want to start tonight, a bandwidth network is the right entry point. You install a desktop app or a browser extension, sign up, and leave it running in the background. There is no hardware to buy, no tokens to stake, and no technical knowledge required. The payouts are small — typically $5 to $50 per month depending on location, ISP, and how much idle bandwidth you have — but they are real, and they accumulate in the project's native token.

What bandwidth networks actually do

A bandwidth network sells residential internet capacity to enterprise customers. The customers are usually AI startups, market research firms, ad verification companies, or cybersecurity firms that need to make web requests from many different IP addresses. Doing this from a single data center is easy to detect; doing it from a network of 100,000+ residential IPs is much harder.

When you install the network's app, your computer or browser becomes a node in the network. When a customer makes a request, the network routes it through your connection. Your IP appears as the source, and the customer's actual target is hidden. The network pays you a share of the customer revenue, usually in tokens, weighted by the bandwidth you routed and the quality of the connections (geographic diversity, uptime, low latency).

The technology is not new — VPN services have been selling residential bandwidth for years. The innovation is the token: the network pays operators directly, in real-time, without a corporate intermediary taking a cut. Operators can see exactly how much bandwidth they routed and exactly what they earned.

The three networks worth knowing

Grass. The largest bandwidth network by node count, with over 2 million active nodes as of mid-2026. Grass sells bandwidth to AI training companies that need to scrape public web data for model training. The Grass desktop app is straightforward; the dashboard shows daily earnings, total bandwidth routed, and a leaderboard by country. Earnings range from $0.50/day for an idle home connection to $5+/day for a fast fiber line with a desktop running 24/7. Grass pays in points during the current season; tokens are distributed at TGE. The point-to-token conversion is the main risk: nobody knows the exact ratio until TGE, and prior point seasons have varied widely in real value.

BlockMesh. A smaller, more transparent alternative. BlockMesh publishes a real-time earnings rate (in $BMESH tokens) and a USD-equivalent rate based on a reference price feed. The earnings are lower than Grass, but the predictability is higher; you know what you will earn per gigabyte routed. BlockMesh's customer base is smaller and more focused on cybersecurity and ad verification rather than AI training. A reasonable choice if you value transparency over headline rate.

EarnFM. A new entrant focused on transparency and ease of use. EarnFM's mobile app shows daily earnings in USD, not points, and pays in a stablecoin by default. This is a recent shift; earlier in 2025, EarnFM paid in points like everyone else. The stablecoin payout removes the token-price risk for operators but also means the upside is capped at the network's revenue, not at a token price appreciation. A good choice for a risk-averse operator who wants predictable income.

You can run more than one. The networks do not interfere with each other, and your computer can route traffic for all three simultaneously. We do not recommend running more than three because the incremental earnings drop off and the system-resource cost becomes noticeable.

The legal picture

Most residential ISPs allow bandwidth-sharing as long as it does not violate the terms of service. The relevant clause is usually something like "you may not resell or share your internet connection with third parties for commercial purposes." This is a gray area. The bandwidth networks argue that you are not reselling your connection; you are allowing the network to use a portion of your idle capacity. Most ISPs have not enforced the terms against bandwidth network users.

That said, the legal risk is not zero. A handful of US ISPs (Comcast, Spectrum) have sent warning letters to heavy bandwidth-network users. We have not seen anyone get disconnected, but we cannot rule it out. If your ISP caps data, bandwidth networks can also push you over your cap quickly; the apps should let you set a monthly data cap to avoid this.

For users outside the US, the legal picture is generally friendlier. The EU, UK, Australia, and most of Latin America and Asia have no specific restrictions on bandwidth sharing, and ISPs in those regions are accustomed to high-traffic residential users (Plex servers, cloud backups, working from home). If you have specific concerns, read your ISP's terms of service or contact them directly.

Optimization tips

From running Grass and BlockMesh on multiple machines over 18 months, here is what actually matters for maximizing earnings.

Geographic value. US and Western European IPs earn 2-5x more than Asia-Pacific and Latin American IPs, because enterprise customers pay more for those markets. The same gigabyte routed through a US IP earns more.
ISP tier. Fiber connections earn more than cable or DSL, because customer demand is concentrated on fast residential IPs.
Uptime. Most networks weight uptime heavily. A machine that runs 24/7 earns roughly 3x more per month than one that runs 8 hours a day.
Data cap. Set a monthly cap at 80% of your ISP's plan to avoid overage fees. Most networks let you cap in the app settings.
Clean IP reputation. If your IP has been used for spam or abuse in the past, the network will route less traffic through you. A residential IP with a clean history is more valuable.

When to skip

Skip a bandwidth network if any of these are true: your ISP prohibits commercial use of your connection in writing; you are on a metered mobile connection (the data usage will be punishing); you do not trust the network's customer base (some smaller networks have been caught selling bandwidth to questionable buyers, which can lead to abuse complaints on your IP). For everyone else, bandwidth networks are the lowest-risk, lowest-friction way to get started with DePIN.

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