Solving Last Mile Internet Connectivity with Wicrypt

Leverage DePIN to bridge the digital divide and become your own internet service provider

I’m sitting here in my home office with a fast and stable internet connection. I’ve built my entire freelance business around this one fiber optic cable. With all the calls and collaboration I do, the internet is the single, most important aspect of the flexible career I’ve built for myself. The internet took me out of my corporate 9-5 and changed the entire trajectory of my professional life. But if the internet goes down, so too does my livelihood. 

I live in a European capital city. Ok, we might get occasional drops (a few minutes), but life without the internet doesn’t cross my mind. It’s just something we take for granted, like morning traffic jams or rain clouds on your day off.

The internet is a global phenomenon, an accelerator of productivity and creativity, but onboarding is far from perfect. From high access costs, to extensive dead zones, connecting the unconnected is a very real and persistent issue. 

So what about Sub-Saharan Africa, or other areas that have yet to see the level of infrastructure investment Europe has had over the past few decades? Today we’ll take a look at Wicrypt, a Nigerian startup that’s laser focused on leveling the connectivity playing field, both at home and away.

But first, let’s consider what connectivity (or lack thereof) really means for people in the developing world.

Crossing the last mile

Solving the last mile of internet connectivity may seem trivial, but it’s arguably the most impactful, yet most challenging aspect of a solid and reliable network. 

Before we think about the world wide web structure that the internet provides us with, consider the anatomy of a simple tree. You have the main trunk, several branches and numerous twigs and leaves.

Hauling in a giant trunk of data into a territory and tapping off into various branches is one thing, but continuing to scale that out into twigs and leaves is another thing altogether. In the case of internet connectivity, you could say that shops, offices, cafes and apartments are the twigs while individual users are the leaves. You can have the fastest, most secure trunks of data rushing through your country’s mainland but without those branches and twigs, the leaves will simply dry up and fall off.

Lack of connectivity is the great digital divide, an invisible barrier separating the connected and unconnected worlds.

From a structural point of view, internet service providers (ISPs) are not incentivized to expand to rural areas and deploy additional infrastructure. The cost of setup is high and once that’s achieved, the eventual subscription costs required to monetize their infrastructure are usually far too expensive to expect a decent ROI. 

Compared to more developed parts of the world, Sub-Saharan Africa has the world’s most expensive mobile data rates. It’s beyond comprehension, especially for a region that pretty much bypassed the initial desktop phase and went full steam ahead on mobile connectivity.

But it's not purely an African issue. There are plenty of places in the US that to this day still have poor internet access. A 2023 ITU report estimates that approximately 2.6 billion people are still offline. While this number is witnessing a slow but steady decline, it’s that all-important last mile of connectivity that remains the biggest barrier to climb.

Why is this so important? 

Well, it’s obvious isn’t it… With each passing year, our planet is developing into a much more connected place. Every product and service imaginable is coming online, and being left out of the internet puts people and their regions at a severe economic disadvantage.

A shared aha moment

In 2018, following an internet cut at an inopportune moment (when is it ever opportune?), Nigerian startup founder Ugochukwu Aronu was in urgent need of a fast and reliable connection. After asking around to see if someone could share their data with him, it soon became apparent that this was a complicated procedure, with an even more complicated data bill to split.

This led Ugo on a search for a data sharing solution, but no matter where he looked, the option wasn’t readily available to him. Eventually, this sparked the idea for Wicrypt, a side project that quickly outgrew Ugo’s initial requirements and expectations. Having founded multiple projects in the software and tech industry, such as Xend Fiance, a Binance-backed DeFi project, Ugo could sense he was onto something big.

Wicrypt’s focus and mission

Wicrypt’s mission is to make the internet available everywhere in the world. To do this, the project presents itself as a Share 2 Earn project, and to paraphrase Ugo, Wicrypt is perfectly tailored for young individuals in developing countries who are interested in earning passive income.

The project is built upon several philosophical pillars pertaining to internet access:

• Affordability
• Accessibility
• Decentralization
• Demonopolization
• Incentivization

By rewarding hotspot owners to share their connectivity, internet data suddenly becomes available in the underserviced areas neglected by ISPs. And all this at a fraction of the typical subscription price.

The rewards themselves are paid in the project’s native $WNT token (more on that below). What’s innovative about this solution is that the hotspot guests can also earn token rewards just for connecting (in smaller quantities of course).

Providing connectivity could be as simple as setting up a hotspot in a local shop, cafe, hotel or apartment block. It empowers the owners with customizable WiFi options, allowing them to set their own data sharing limits and fees (including free access), collect customer feedback and even display ads to their connected guests.

In order to help expand the coverage of their network, Wicrypt is incentivizing deployments in so-called Special Economic Zones (SEZ), regions (typically rural) that do not have good internet connections. Hotspot owners can expect to earn more rewards for providing internet access in these areas.

So how exactly do you get the internet into these places?

How does Wicrypt work?

It all comes down to the advanced routers that Wicrypt offers to their customers. These devices are both location and ISP agnostic, meaning they can receive internet anywhere in the world and be used as the central hotspot to feed any community. 

Currently they have 3 hotspot models: the Lynx, the Spider and the Gigabit router, retailing at $180, $240 and $500 respectively. Let’s take a look at the Spider model.

This router has a few features that set it apart from a typical WiFi router. First of all it has a SIM card slot to complement the standard WAN Ethernet port. This enables the hosts to receive internet over the air, especially useful in regions where the cables have not been laid yet.

The router also has specific cryptographic functions built in, enabling it to encrypt data to keep user traffic secure, but also allowing for the mining of Wicrypt’s $WNT token.

The model is GPS enabled, which gives Wicrypt the ability to populate their network explorer map, no matter where the hotspots are located.

In addition, the hotspot has a USB port in anticipation for future interconnectivity with decentralized storage provider Filecoin. Not only can hotspot owners share their data bandwidth and become their own ISPs, they will also be able to offer cloud storage solutions to their peers.

And as far as connectivity goes, this specific router enables up to 70 concurrent guests to connect to the network and can cover a distance as far as 200m. 

The hotspots can be managed through Wicrypt’s dashboard, where additional features such as VPN and agent earnings can also be accessed. Agent earning is an innovative feature allowing hotspot owners and deployers to share the rewards from installations in rural areas at an agreed ratio, similar to how Axie Infinity took the Philippines by storm with its manager/scholar partnerships.

This high-level flowchart gives an idea of the relationship between the original network source, the hotspot owner (host), the connected guests (users) and the flow of $WNT token rewards:

The use cases aren’t limited to individual users though. Wicrypt offers discounts to businesses who purchase their devices in bulk and even provides third party manufacturers the option to license the Wicrypt OS, as seen in their partnership with JDI (previously Bobcat miner, one of the largest manufacturers of Helium devices). Another Wicrypt OS integration that has been hinted at involves a rumored partnership with one of Africa’s largest Teclo companies.

The possibility to leverage the Wicrypt OS to display adverts to users before they connect to their WiFi network is something that could appeal to small businesses like coffee shops and restaurants. The recently launched Wicrypt Ad System enables hotspot owners to increase their earnings by tapping into a network of advertisers.

But beyond focusing on individual users and business as target clients, Wicrypt has also been working at the local authority level and has developed an interesting WiFi mesh network solution. Wicrypt City WiFi ramps up the coverage area provided by a single hotspot to a more expansive installation, ranging from 200 concurrent users within a 1km street, to 500 concurrent users within a 2km street.

A deeper look into the Wicrypt white paper will show you that the project goes far deeper than what meets the eye. From minting hotspots as NFTs, to decentralized storage integration with Filecoin, NFT-based router recovery and even leveraging the $WNT token for stimulus loans, Wicrypt has plenty of ambitions to keep their network attractive to investors and consumers alike.

The network effect of Wicrypt’s success

Since starting in 2018 as a side project with no external funding, the project has been on an impressive streak of wins. 

An initial purchase of 70 hotspots in 2019 by Omnicbranches gave Wicrypt some runway to further develop their offering. This was followed up by a significant purchase of 400 hotspots by the Enugu state government to boost their Enugu Wifi project.

2019 also saw Wicrypt placing 2nd in a technological innovation competition organized by the Nigerian Communications Commission. This provided the Wicrypt team with a reward of 2 million NGN (Nigerian Naira).

These successes quickly turned Ugo’s side project into a profitable business, complete with the operational headaches that can be expected from such rapid growth. But by 2021, the project had caught the attention of key players in the blockchain industry, leading to a $1.5 million funding raise led by AU21 Capital. 

The growing list of achievements was met with a $150,000 grant and 1st place in the Into New Worlds category at the 2023 LEAP tech event in Saudi Arabia.

By now, Wicrypt has expanded operations to include regional teams in China, the UK and the US. Most recently, distribution partnerships with Kansi Solutions in Germany and Onega Ventures in China, demonstrates Wicrypt’s potential to reach a more global market.

With Ugo and Wicrypt on the radars of Binance and other blockchain ventures, coupled with the optimism surrounding the broader DePIN sector, Wicrypt’s fortunes appear poised to continue trending upward. And it’s not as if people aren’t hungry for internet access. 

The project’s steady growth is visible on their explorer through the expansion from Nigeria out into further regions across the globe. You can see that Sub-Saharan Africa has some of the densest coverage so far, but there are promising pockets of activity sprouting up around the globe, such as in Europe and in China.

The strong sense of optimism around the project is expressed in their Growth Projection plans for 2024, including aspirations to build upon their penetration of the Asian market and further expand operations in Europe, the US and Canada.

WNT tokenomics

Wicrypt’s incentive layer is supported by $WNT, an ERC-20 token hosted on Polygon and has 5 core functions:

• Hotspot rewards for hosts and users
• Staking rewards
• Governance of the Wicrypt DAO (Wicrypt operates under a hybrid DAO/Managing Team structure)
• Product purchases (alongside stablecoins, such as USDC)
• Internet access purchases (alongside stablecoins, such as USDC)

The allocation of Wicrypt’s 200,000,000 tokens is not perfect (but which crypto project is?). An innovative founder bringing solutions to help his community should be compensated, and the fact that the project rewards participants in developing regions should also be highlighted. 

That said, the token distribution is lopsided towards the team and foundation with only a quarter of the supply set aside for rewards and 1.4% made available for public sale.

This initial allocation lines up more or less with the current token distribution pie chart, but I’m assuming the largest holder is now the Team wallet (blue section below), as it holds 20% of the token’s 200,000,000 supply.

Granted, the team is trying to build an ambitious project and needs the funds to produce and deliver hardware, but we find ourselves yet again in a gray zone between “sufficiently decentralized” projects and hybrid startup company/DAO governance models. Time will tell where the tokens end up flowing to.

This is no criticism of the token design itself. The team has put plenty of thought and effort into this, as shown by the Tokenomics and Token Economy sections of the white paper, but it’s time to execute on these promises now. 

The token distribution could benefit from further rebalancing and is just one of a few challenges currently facing Wicrypt.

Challenges to Wicrypt’s mission

From side project startup, to global internet gateway, Wicrypt’s path to success will not be without its bumps and roadblocks. Here are a few challenges I anticipate for the project and its vision to make the internet available everywhere in the world.

Maintain good operations and keep information up to date. With rapid growth comes operational headaches, so it’s up to Ugo and his team to nail this step efficiently. Shipping delays can play havoc with investor sentiment for example. But this also involves keeping a sharp eye on their marketing material and knowledge bases. Currently, the roadmap on the website stops at 2021 and there are numerous dead links on the website. With so many scams online, crypto projects need to pay extra attention to the presentation and trustworthiness of their marketing materials.

Scale successfully in a global market. The recent success of Helium Mobile’s partnerships has signaled a solid interest in decentralized telecommunications, especially in the last mile segment. How will this grassroots startup from Enugu, Nigeria position itself against the bigger players in more developed regions?

Token distribution. A simple search on Polygonscan will show you that a significant portion of the tokens are controlled by the team and foundation. Ideally this balance should shift more in favor of community token holders over time and let Wicrypt live up to its name as a decentralized project.

Regulation. As with most DePIN projects, they’ll need to watch out for the regulators. Disrupting the status quo is a risky bet, especially in certain parts of the world. That being said, empowering people to expand coverage in the last mile could be the secret sauce that ISPs are looking for, so strategic partnerships might actually work out in Wicrypt’s favor.

How to get connected to Wicrypt?

No matter where you’re situated, it’s quick and easy to hop aboard the Wicrypt network. As a user, you’ll just need to download the Wicrypt app on the Google Play Store or on Apple’s App Store. This is the gateway to the Wicrypt network.

If you fancy taking it to the next level and becoming the ISP for your own community, you’ll want to purchase a Wicrypt hotspot. Here’s the link to their new Shopify store: https://shop.wicrypt.com/?ref=HOTSPOTTY

As for product support and keeping up with the project’s latest developments: take a look at these official resources:

• Wicrypt Discord
• Wicrypt on X (Twitter) 
• Wicrypt Medium
• Wicrpyt white paper

Finally, if you have larger ambitions for your local community or if you work for a local town authority, Wicrypt’s City WiFi mesh network could be an interesting solution for you. Get in touch here to discuss your plans with the Wicrypt team: Wicrypt City WiFi

Final thoughts

“If someone is born in a place where free access to news, information and knowledge is a fantasy, it’s hard to sustain the thesis that ‘everyone starts with equal chances’.” - Wicrypt white paper

It’s incredible how much we take for granted in the developed world and how unaware we can be of those who are less fortunate than us. Learning about the challenges and successes that Ugo and his team have encountered has been heart-warming, but the fact that they find themselves in this situation points to a paradigm that traces its roots back far deeper than the era of fiber optic cables or telephone wires.

Time and again, Africa has turned to other continents for help, and time again they get handouts and charity, not partnerships or respect. It’s time now for Africa to grow and to do so, they’ll need to do it themselves.

The internet is the great equalizer; it offers the pathway for Africa to make significant progress. And it is decentralized projects like Wicrypt that are what’s needed to put power right where it belongs, in the hands of the people.

As a Freelance Tech Writer, I help business owners and project founders transform complex topics into engaging stories and actionable insights. If that’s something you could benefit from, get in touch at: https://jasonglynn.carrd.co