io.net (IO) Q1 2025 Market Analysis

io.net (IO) is a decentralized network of graphics processing units (GPU) and central processing units (CPU) designed to provide scalable and efficient access to compute resources.

Key insights into Primer's analysis of io.net in Q1 2025 highlight both persistent trends and shifts in the network's performance. While the broader crypto market contracted, and iotechnology's token price fell sharply, the physical infrastructure network saw strong revenue growth and is integrating with other DeFi protocols.

Despite Bitcoin's 11.4% decline in market capitalization to $584 billion, crypto market capitalization still reached a record high of $3.1 trillion in Q1. However, Ethereum's market capitalization fell more sharply—by 45.2%—to $246 billion.

As the year progressed, BTC's dominance fell from 48.1% to 40.4%, while ETH's dominance rose from 18.1% to 21%.

In the context of iotechnology, revenue is the amount of money compute buyers pay to GPU and CPU providers.

Compute buyers can rent compute for as long as they desire, but they must rent for at least one hour. Currently, iotechnology allows buyers to pay with IO, USDC, or a credit card via a third party. In the future, there will be a 2% facilitation fee when paying in USDC; however, this fee is currently being waived, and the total cost to reserve compute goes to the suppliers.

Q1 saw three months of all-time highs in monthly revenue, which also led to an all-time high in quarterly revenue with $5.7 billion, up 82.6% from Q4 2024.

The IO token was launched on June 11, 2024, via Binance’s Launchpool with an initial circulating supply of 95 million and a total token supply of 500 million. The token has a 20-year emissions schedule that reduces monthly, resulting in a maximum supply of 800 million.

Following a strong Q4 2024, where the market cap of IO rose 100.5% to $376 million, Q1 2025 saw a reversal.

Specifically, the market cap of IO dropped 71.4% to $108 million, driven by a 74.9% decrease in token price despite a 14.5% increase in circulating supply.

This dropped IO from the 188th to the 298th largest crypto asset by circulating market cap during the quarter.

Iotechnology requires devices with at least 12 GB of RAM, 500 GB of free disk space, and a high-speed internet connection (over 500 MB/s download, 250 Mbps upload, and less than 30 ms ping).

To ensure that suppliers' CPU/GPU resources are genuine and perform as expected, iotechnology implements an hourly Proof-of-Work (PoW) verification process.

This process, which runs for about 15 minutes, uses a cryptographic puzzle to verify the authenticity and performance of devices, deter fraud, and ensure fair resource allocation.

The PoW system comprises three components: a Binary Checker API that seeks a valid solution, a Challenges API that generates the puzzles, and a Results Submission API for verifying the solutions.

Devices are visibly marked as verified, pending, or failed on the user interface, and any errors are logged for troubleshooting.

Average daily verified compute continued to decline in Q1. Verified GPUs fell 11.1% to an average of 6,720 per day, while verified CPUs dropped 4.5% to an average of 1,130 daily.

This extends a broader downtrend from peak activity in mid-2024, reflecting ongoing supply-side contraction and reduced token incentives amid a 74.9% drop in the price of the IO token.

After strong early traction, the average daily numbers of GPU and CPU workers and integrators declined in Q1.

Specifically, worker numbers fell by 11.8% to 2,220 and integrator numbers fell by 4.5% to 1,130, reflecting continued supply-side contraction.

Iotechnology began producing blocks and emitting the IO token as rewards for GPU and CPU suppliers on June 25, 2024.

Since then, iotechnology has emitted 40 million, 9.3 million of which were emitted in Q1, which equals $16.9 million at the average Q1 price of 1.82.

At the start of Q1, iotechnology's token price was around 2.5, but it fell throughout the quarter, closing at 1.7.

This contrasts with BTC, which depreciated by 11.4% over the same period, while ETH depreciated by