XYO’s Markus Levin: Why a data-native L1 could become AI’s “proof of origin” backbone

In the newest SlateCast episode, XYO co-founder Markus Levin joined CryptoSlate’s hosts to unpack why decentralized bodily infrastructure networks (DePIN) are transferring past area of interest experiments—and why XYO constructed a purpose-built Layer-1 to deal with the type of information AI and real-world purposes more and more demand.

Levin’s ambition for the community is blunt: “First, I feel XYO is gonna have eight billion nodes,” he stated, calling it a stretch objective—however one he believes matches the place the class is headed.

DePIN’s “each nook of the world” thesis

Levin framed DePIN as a structural shift in how markets coordinate bodily infrastructure, pointing to speedy development expectations for the sector. He cited a World Economic Forum projection that DePIN could broaden from roughly at present’s tens of billions to trillions by 2028.

For XYO, scale isn’t hypothetical. One of the hosts famous that the community has grown “with over 10 million nodes,” setting the stage for a dialog targeted much less on “what if” and extra on what breaks when real-world information quantity turns into the product.

Proof of origin for AI: the info downside, not simply compute

Asked about deepfakes and the collapse of belief in media, Levin argued that AI’s bottleneck isn’t solely computation—it’s provenance. “Whereas DePIN, what you are able to do is you may, uh, show the place information comes from,” he stated, outlining a mannequin the place information might be verified end-to-end, tracked into coaching pipelines, and queried when techniques want floor fact.

In his view, provenance creates a suggestions loop: if a mannequin is accused of hallucinating, it could possibly verify whether or not the underlying enter is verifiably sourced—or request new, particular information from a decentralized community somewhat than scraping unreliable sources.

Why a data-native Layer-1 issues

XYO spent years making an attempt to not construct a chain, Levin stated—working as middleware between real-world alerts and sensible contracts. But “no one constructed it,” and the community’s information quantity compelled the problem.

He defined the design objective merely: “Blockchain can’t bloat… and it’s simply constructed for information actually.”

XYO’s method facilities on mechanisms similar to Proof of Perfect and “lookback” type constraints meant to maintain node necessities light-weight, at the same time as datasets develop.

COIN onboarding: turning non-crypto customers into nodes

A key development lever has been the COIN app, which Levin described as a technique to remodel cellphones into XYO community nodes.

Rather than pushing customers into speedy token volatility, the app makes use of dollar-tied factors and broader redemption choices—then bridges customers into crypto rails over time.

Dual token mannequin: aligning incentives with XL1

Levin stated the twin token system is designed to separate ecosystem rewards/safety from chain exercise prices. “We’re extraordinarily enthusiastic about this twin token system,” he stated, describing $XYO because the exterior staking/governance/safety asset and $XL1 as the inner gasoline/transactions token used on XYO Layer One.

Real-world companions: charging infrastructure and mapping-grade POI information

Levin pointed to new partnerships as early “killer app” momentum contained in the broader DePIN ecosystem, citing a cope with Piggycell—a massive South Korean charging community that wants proof-of-location and plans to tokenize information on XYO Layer One.

He additionally described a separate proof-of-location use case involving point-of-interest datasets (hours, images, venue data), claiming a main geolocation accomplice discovered points in its personal dataset “in 60% of the circumstances,” whereas XYO-sourced information was “99.9% right,” enabling downstream mapping for big enterprises.

Taken collectively, Levin’s message was constant: if AI and RWAs want reliable inputs, the following aggressive frontier could also be much less about quicker fashions—and extra about verifiable information pipelines anchored in the true world.

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