Grass (GRASS)

Overview

Grass (GRASS) is a decentralized bandwidth-sharing network that turns idle internet connections into useful compute and data pipelines for AI. Often called a DePIN project (decentralized physical infrastructure network), the Grass blockchain stack coordinates millions of lightweight “nodes” run by regular users. Those nodes relay only public web requests, which are then transformed into structured datasets that AI teams can use. As the network grows, participants earn the GRASS token for the bandwidth and uptime they contribute. GRASS is an SPL asset on Solana, giving it fast finality, low fees, and broad wallet support. (grass-foundation.gitbook.io)

At a high level, Grass aims to make web-scale data access community-owned. Instead of a handful of companies controlling web scraping at scale, the protocol distributes the work (and rewards) to users. It also writes cryptographic checkpoints of data sessions to a base chain so that buyers can verify a dataset’s source and integrity. This provenance layer is a key reason Grass is frequently discussed at the intersection of DePIN and AI. Reported adoption has climbed into the multi‑million user range, and the project has executed one of Solana’s most widely distributed token airdrops to date. (grass-foundation.gitbook.io)

History & Team

Grass is built by contributors at Wynd Labs (sometimes referenced as Wynd Network in early press). The project moved from concept in mid‑2022 to active building in early 2023. In December 2023, Wynd raised a $3.5 million seed round co‑led by Polychain Capital and Tribe Capital, with participation from Bitscale, Big Brain, Advisors Anonymous, Typhon V, and Mozaik. In September 2024 the team completed a Series A led by Hack VC, with Polychain, Delphi, Lattice, and Brevan Howard Digital participating. Andrej Radonjic serves as CEO and co‑founder, and engineering leader Christopher Nguyen is cited publicly as a founder/CTO and hiring contact across Wynd’s recruiting materials. (blockworks.co)

A major early milestone was Airdrop One on October 28, 2024. Grass distributed 100 million GRASS (10% of total supply) to early supporters, including point‑earning node operators, GigaBuds NFT holders, and users who installed the desktop node or Saga app before the snapshot. It quickly became the most widely claimed airdrop on Solana by address count at the time. (grass-foundation.gitbook.io)

Technology & How It Works

Grass describes its architecture as a Sovereign Data Rollup. Rather than putting raw content on-chain, Grass uses a modular pipeline: nodes, routers, and validators, plus a ZK processor and a data ledger. (grass-foundation.gitbook.io)

• Grass Nodes: A user installs a lightweight extension or app that safely allocates a slice of their unused bandwidth to the network. Nodes relay only public web requests; personal browsing is not scraped. (grass-foundation.gitbook.io)
• Routers: These hubs connect many nodes to validators, relay bandwidth, and keep nodes accountable. Routers will eventually earn proportional rewards for traffic they facilitate. (grass-foundation.gitbook.io)
• Validators: Validators receive and batch web transactions from routers and generate zero‑knowledge proofs (ZK proofs) to checkpoint session data on a base layer. This creates a tamper‑evident trail that dataset buyers can reference for provenance. (grass-foundation.gitbook.io)
• ZK Processor and Data Ledger: The ZK processor submits validity proofs of session data to a layer‑1 chain and links those proofs to full datasets in the Grass Data Ledger. This couples off‑chain data with on‑chain attestations, letting AI teams verify where data came from without exposing private content. (grass-foundation.gitbook.io)

In practice, this design turns “who scraped what, when, and with whose bandwidth” into auditable records. Third‑party explainers also note Grass’s work on Live Context Retrieval (LCR)—feeding models with freshly scraped, structured context in real time—which helps explain why the network is popular with AI developers who need current information. (kraken.com)

On the compliance side of technical design, Grass states in its privacy policy that it operates as a data controller where applicable and provides GDPR representatives in the EU and UK. The policy explains what limited account and device data Grass collects to run its services and how cross‑border transfers are handled. (grass.io)

Tokenomics & Utility

Grass tokenomics are designed around long‑term network growth. The GRASS token has a fixed total supply of 1,000,000,000 with no inflation mechanism described in the docs. The initial allocation is: (grass-foundation.gitbook.io)

• Community: 300,000,000 (30%)
  • Future incentives: 170,000,000
  • Router rewards: 30,000,000
  • Airdrop One: 100,000,000
• Foundation & Ecosystem Growth: 228,000,000 (22.8%)
• Early Investors: 252,000,000 (25.2%) with a 1‑year cliff, then 1‑year vesting
• Contributors: 220,000,000 (22%) with a 1‑year cliff and 3‑year vesting

Utility spans three main categories:

• Staking and routing security. Holders can stake GRASS by delegating to routers. Rewards accrue continuously; unstaking takes seven days before withdrawal. As the routing layer decentralizes, routers with more delegated stake are scheduled to handle more traffic, sharing rewards with their delegators. Documentation notes that slashing is not live yet but may be considered in future updates. (grass-foundation.gitbook.io)
• Governance and ecosystem funding. The foundation and ecosystem allocations are designed to be deployed through governance to upgrades, partnerships, and growth. (grass-foundation.gitbook.io)
• Fees and on‑network incentives. Over time, protocol fees and marketplace demand for verifiable datasets are intended to feed value back into the network. Official materials and exchange primers summarize these functions consistently. (grass-foundation.gitbook.io)

These mechanics—plus periodic community incentive programs—form the core of Grass tokenomics. Many readers track GRASS price as a proxy for adoption, but structurally the token was built to reward the real activity that powers the data pipeline. (grass-foundation.gitbook.io)

Ecosystem & Use Cases

The Grass ecosystem sits where DePIN meets AI. Everyday users run nodes, enterprises request public web data at scale, and the protocol creates verifiable records linking data to source sessions. Reported figures show the network has grown into the millions of nodes worldwide, with throughput measured in hundreds of terabytes per day at peaks. This scale is attractive to AI labs that need fresh, diverse, and geographically representative data. (research.nansen.ai)

Common use cases include:

• AI data collection and curation: Grass cleans and structures raw HTML into machine‑readable formats, then attaches on‑chain provenance to each dataset batch. Buyers can audit the trail without seeing users’ private content. (grass-foundation.gitbook.io)
• Live Context Retrieval (LCR): For assistants or agents that need up‑to‑date facts, LCR enables fetching fresh, verified snippets during inference. (kraken.com)
• DePIN + AI integrations: Decentralized compute networks can pair with the Grass data pipeline to deliver fully community‑powered AI services. (research.nansen.ai)

Beyond data buyers and node operators, the GRASS token appears in several corners of the Solana economy:

• Grass DeFi, NFTs, gaming: As an SPL asset, GRASS can be pooled or swapped on Solana DEXs and used in DeFi strategies. NFT links already exist via the GigaBuds collection, whose holders received a dedicated slice of Airdrop One. Game and app developers can also integrate GRASS for in‑app gating or rewards as they build on Solana. (grass-foundation.gitbook.io)

Taken together, these activities influence network usage and can indirectly shape market interest around GRASS price over time.

Advantages & Challenges

Advantages often cited by analysts and community members include:

• Scalable, verifiable data pipeline. Grass’s Sovereign Data Rollup approach gives AI teams both the data and the provenance trail. That’s hard to replicate with traditional centralized scraping alone. (grass-foundation.gitbook.io)
• Massive reach. Reported node counts and daily throughput suggest Grass has quickly become one of the largest user‑owned web data networks. (research.nansen.ai)
• Fast, low‑cost settlement. As an SPL token, GRASS can leverage Solana’s speed and low fees for staking and in‑ecosystem transactions. (coingecko.com)
• Backing and mindshare. Grass has support from well‑known crypto investors who focus on infrastructure and DePIN. (blockworks.com)

Challenges to watch:

• Enterprise demand at scale. Analysts note the model looks strong on the supply side; the long‑term question is the depth and persistence of demand from AI enterprises for decentralized, provenance‑rich data. (medium.com)
• Ongoing decentralization. Validators began centrally; the roadmap is to expand into a committee with more robust staking economics and, potentially, slashing. That transition will be important for security and trust. (grass-foundation.gitbook.io)
• Competitive landscape. DePIN is heating up across bandwidth, compute, and storage. Execution and partnerships will matter as large incumbents and new entrants compete. (research.nansen.ai)

Where to Buy & Wallets

If you’re wondering where to buy GRASS, the token is listed on several major centralized exchanges. Bybit announced the GRASS/USDT listing around the October 28, 2024 launch, and KuCoin posted a world‑premiere listing notice the same week. OKX also enabled GRASS‑USDT perpetual futures. Availability can vary by region and account verification requirements, but these listings make it straightforward for many users to access GRASS. (announcements.bybit.com)

Because GRASS is Solana‑native, it also trades on Solana DEXs, and it’s supported by well‑known Solana wallets. Popular choices include Phantom, Solflare, and Backpack. For reference, Solana explorers and wallet guides list the official GRASS token address as: Grass7B4RdKfBCjTKgSqnXkqjwiGvQyFbuSCUJr3XXjs (always verify before sending). (coingecko.com)

Practical tips when setting up:

• Wallets: Create a Solana wallet (e.g., Phantom or Solflare) and store your recovery phrase securely. Most Solana wallets auto‑detect GRASS after the first receipt. (solflare.com)
• Funding: Keep a small amount of SOL for network fees when swapping or moving tokens on‑chain.
• CEX steps: On supported exchanges (like Bybit or KuCoin), deposit fiat or crypto, then trade the GRASS pair your account is eligible for. Check each platform’s regional rules. (announcements.bybit.com)

Regulatory & Compliance

Grass regulatory status varies by function:

• Data and privacy: Grass operates the dashboard, apps, and airdrop/staking services through Grass OpCo Ltd., with a privacy policy last modified April 22, 2025. The policy identifies Grass as a data controller where applicable, outlines limited personal data collection (such as email, wallet address, and device info), and provides GDPR representatives in the EU and UK, plus transfer mechanisms for cross‑border data. This formal posture is relevant for organizations assessing compliance in the EEA, UK, and BVI. (grass.io)
• Token market access: Centralized exchange listings (for example, Bybit, KuCoin, and OKX futures) indicate platforms have performed their own reviews and apply their standard KYC/AML onboarding. Users’ ability to trade GRASS depends on local exchange permissions and account status. (announcements.bybit.com)

Grass halal status: Independent Islamic‑finance screeners have assessed Grass’s model—rewarding users for sharing unused bandwidth for public data access—and concluded that the GRASS token and underlying activity are permissible. As a result, many describe Grass halal and GRASS shariah compliant, because the network’s rewards do not depend on interest (riba) or prohibited activities. (sharlife.my)

Future Outlook

From an infrastructure standpoint, the roadmap points toward greater decentralization of validators and routers, more sophisticated staking economics, and continued scale in ZK‑backed data provenance. Community updates and third‑party research also highlight Live Context Retrieval, mobile clients, and expanding “Season 2” community incentives that keep nodes online and engaged. If AI developers continue seeking fresher and more diverse web data, the Grass blockchain stack is positioned to serve that demand with verifiability built in. (grass-foundation.gitbook.io)

Ecosystem momentum can influence GRASS price indirectly, as usage, staking participation, and integrations on Solana deepen. Partnerships with AI compute networks and DeFi protocols could add new sinks and flows for the token. The long‑term arc, however, will be driven by how effectively Grass converts crowdsourced bandwidth into repeatable, enterprise‑grade data products with transparent provenance. (research.nansen.ai)

Summary

Grass is an ambitious attempt to make web‑scale data access community‑owned and cryptographically verifiable. The network’s Sovereign Data Rollup architecture combines millions of user‑run nodes with routers, validators, and on‑chain ZK proofs to deliver structured, provenance‑backed datasets for AI. With clear Grass tokenomics, a fixed‑supply GRASS token on Solana, and straightforward staking via router delegation, the project blends DePIN practicality with Web3 incentives. Listings on major platforms make it easy to discover where to buy GRASS, while wallet support across Phantom and Solflare simplifies custody. For communities watching DePIN, AI, and Solana converge, Grass offers a concrete model—one that already boasts broad distribution and a path to further decentralization as demand for verified AI training data grows. (grass-foundation.gitbook.io)