Why MapMetrics Is Migrating from Solana to peaq - Co-Founder Explains

Migration is hardly an everyday occurrence in Web3. More often than not, projects prefer to gradually expand to more ecosystems without necessarily leaving the blockchain where they started building. Still, in April this year, MapMetrics announced the decision to leave Solana and migrate to peaq, the layer-1 blockchain to DePIN. The rationale behind the company's move comes down to the fundamentals of how a DePIN chooses its layer-1. According to Brent van der Heiden, CEO and co-founder of MapMetrics, this story could indicate where the wider DePIN movement will go. In this article, he will explore the factors to consider when choosing a blockchain and explain the rationale behind MapMetrics' decision to transition to peaq.

How to pick your blockchain

MapMetrics, the Web3 drive-to-earn project, was founded in late 2021, a long time before DePINs even got their name. When choosing what layer 1 to build on, we were looking for a set of specific features. Firstly, we needed the blockchain to be easy to use and developer-friendly, for obvious reasons, both to be able to build fast and to have a wide developer community to tap into. 

The blockchain would also have to feature fast and inexpensive transactions, as the navigation app is quite transaction-heavy. In fact, most DePINs will be, as providing real-world services via connected devices often implies thousands of microtransactions, not huge bulks. As an example, when sharing your navigation data, you probably want the rewards to tick in as you go, not to get it all once a month. So would everyone else, and that’s how you end up with thousands of live traffic transactions, as we did. 

At the time, Solana was actually a solid choice — a developer-friendly chain with stable transactions, great for a DePIN like ours. But you can probably see how things went wrong. Yes, it was Solana’s infamous transaction struggles this spring.

Looking back, it is ironic that the strain on the network came down to Solana struggling with its own success. As a rapid and low-cost chain, Solana was a perfect place to launch memecoins — including those of the lowest kind, deprived of any value or utility and driven only by the devs’ desire of a quick and easy profit. Transactions were flooding in, and a ton of those came from bots trying to peddle those memecoins. It was a mess, and while the team behind Solana did their utmost to brave the storm, we saw the writing on the wall. 

DePINs need stable transactions; otherwise, their key selling point — real-world services on Web3 rails — falls flat. People want convenience; nobody would buy coffee from a Web3 robo-cafe if it takes hours to pay for it.

Why we decided to move to peaq

Just to address the elephant in the room, while peaq isn’t in the mainnet stage yet, we’ve seen the pre-launch network and we’re more than satisfied with what we saw. It offers the same, if not better, cheap and fast transactions as Solana, but has a bunch of added benefits that make it a better fit for DePIN. First of all, it’s the Modular DePIN Functions, pre-made building blocks that we are now integrating into the app — decentralized device IDs, first and foremost. This saves us developer hours, which is an important factor for any Web3 project, but also allows for seamless composability with other machines and DePINs building on peaq. We see this as the standard for the Web3 “machine economy”.

Another great thing about peaq IDs is that they help us filter out the bot traffic, making sure no spoofed data is added into real data streams. With our data encryption in Special Position Trackers (SPTs), this gives us the best security we can hope for, and peaq is working on expanding its array of tools for data security. 

Equally important is the ecosystem factor. peaq is laser-focused on the DePIN sector and has multiple projects in the industry joining every month. This makes it inherently synergistic, with every new project adding new opportunities for collaboration. Being with people who share your mentality, vision, and goals is a huge boost, as it inspires everyone to push one another further and support each other along the journey. It’s good to share a common growth-oriented mentality within the network and the ecosystem, as it fosters knowledge sharing, data stream integration, and community sharing. This is a tremendous boost to any DePIN, as such synergies are really beneficial for everyone involved. Not to mention that this makes peaq’s community essentially a community of DePIN users – a great audience to launch into.

Besides the Web3 ecosystem, another key factor was peaq’s enterprise collaborations. peaq works with Bosch and other major industry names, which makes it easier to build bridges with the Web2 business world. For DePINs, this is beyond important, because one way or another, enterprise collaborations are their bread and butter. In our case, this makes for a prospective monetization avenue for the crowdsourced anonymized mobility data and a driver for the ad engine. The “demand side”, so to speak.

All in all, the DePIN segment has its own unique needs. Secure and stable transactions are one thing — even more important with DePINs, as they have to offer the convenience of Web2 rivals — but so is the ecosystem and builder support. A blockchain that is specifically focused on the sector’s needs is thus logically a better choice than a general-purpose chain, working as a power multiplier that helps the project to grow faster.

About Brent van der Heiden

Brent van der Heiden is the co-founder of MapMetrics, a mapping platform with users in over 167 countries. Focused on protecting user privacy and giving control back to its community, MapMetrics empowers users by rewarding them for their data contributions. With a background as a data analyst, Brent combines his expertise with blockchain technology in the DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) space, where he has been involved since before it was officially named. His mission is to demonstrate the true value of data and incentivize users to crowdsource information, ensuring they are treated as valued contributors. Brent’s approach is reshaping how people engage with data, encouraging transparency, and fostering user control in the digital space.