Okay, here are the detailed, narrative-driven show notes for the podcast episode featuring Rob Solomon of DIMO, tailored for Crypto AI investors and researchers.
Show Notes: Bringing the World’s Vehicles Onchain with DIMO | Rob Solomon
Episode Introduction
This episode details DIMO's strategy for building a decentralized vehicle identity and data network, revealing how it unlocks new value for drivers and developers while challenging centralized data monopolies.
Navigating Crypto Market Cycles
- Rob Solomon, reflecting on building DIMO since early 2023, discusses the contrasting environments of bear and bull markets.
- He uses a stage performance analogy: “imagine you're performing on stage and in a bare market you're alone... in a bull market... the audience is packed but like there's a million just crazy people doing weird stuff on stage.”
- Rob expresses a preference for market cycles driven by “cool projects with ambitious vision and serious builders,” hoping for a potential return to fundamentals.
- Strategic Insight: This highlights the team's focus on sustained building and long-term vision despite market volatility, a crucial factor for investors evaluating project resilience.
DIMO's Core Vision: An Open Network for Vehicle Data
- Despite market shifts, Rob emphasizes that DIMO's core vision remains remarkably consistent: creating an effective system for vehicle identity, data access control (streaming/commands), data discovery, and enabling payments and commerce.
- He explains the foundational layer DIMO is building: “what we're building at its core is a innovative super effective way to establish the identity for any data object... we're starting with cars...”
- The goal is to establish an open ecosystem, analogous to the early App Store, where diverse applications can be built upon the DIMO protocol for vehicles, eventually expanding to other objects.
- Strategic Insight: DIMO positions itself as foundational infrastructure, not just a single application. For researchers, this signals a platform aiming for broad ecosystem development rather than narrow use cases.
Demonstrating Value: Early Use Cases and Traction
- DIMO is now focused on proving its value proposition through tangible applications and user adoption, moving into a phase where product-market fit is demonstrated by usage and revenue.
- A prime example is the integration with Royal: EV owners share charging data via DIMO, Royal generates and sells carbon offsets, and users receive cash back (averaging around $200 for 2024 participants so far).
- Carbon Offsets: These are certificates representing the reduction of greenhouse gases, generated here from verified EV charging activity.
- The launch of such applications and the beginning of on-chain protocol revenue signal growing adoption and value creation for developers.
- Actionable Insight: Investors should monitor the growth of third-party applications and protocol revenue as key indicators of DIMO's network effect and validation of its economic model.
Why Blockchain? Avoiding Centralized Platform Risk
- Rob clarifies that while some use cases might seem “Web2,” the entire system is powered by Web3 infrastructure.
- The decision to build on-chain is strategic: it prevents the platform risks associated with centralized giants like Apple, citing their 30% “tax,” potential for self-preferencing, and ability to deplatform developers.
- Web3: Refers to a vision for a decentralized internet built on blockchains, prioritizing user ownership, control, and reduced reliance on intermediaries.
- DIMO aims for an open, resilient ecosystem akin to email, where users and developers aren't locked into a single controlling entity.
- Strategic Insight: DIMO's commitment to decentralization is a core value proposition, potentially attracting developers and users seeking sovereignty and protection from arbitrary platform changes – a key consideration for the crypto-native audience.
Understanding DIMO's On-Chain Components
- DIMO utilizes blockchain for critical components requiring trustlessness and permanence.
- On-chain elements include:
- Vehicle Identity: Minted as NFTs, providing a unique, persistent identifier for each car.
- NFT (Non-Fungible Token): A unique digital asset on a blockchain, used here to represent ownership and identity of a specific vehicle within the DIMO network.
- Device Identity: Hardware connecting to the car (like OBD readers) also has an on-chain representation.
- Access Permissions: Managed via smart contracts; users sign on-chain messages to grant or revoke data access for specific applications (like Royal).
- Smart Contract: Self-executing contracts with agreement terms directly coded onto the blockchain, automating permissions and interactions.
- Crucially, the large volume of raw vehicle data is stored off-chain for efficiency, with the on-chain NFT acting as a pointer to its storage location (initially DIMO-operated nodes, with plans for decentralization).
- Actionable Insight: The specific on-chain architecture ensures core identity and permissions are immutable and transparent, underpinning the trust model. Researchers can analyze the efficiency and security trade-offs of this hybrid on-chain/off-chain approach.
Engaging Developers: Building the DIMO App Ecosystem
- Developer adoption is accelerating, with DIMO approaching 200 developer licenses – a metric that doubled in about a month.
- The process for developers is streamlined: register at
console.demo.org, get API keys, and use DIMO's SDKs to integrate features like “Login with DIMO” into their applications.
- SDK (Software Development Kit): A collection of tools facilitating application development for a specific platform, simplifying integration for developers building on DIMO.
- This allows developers to request access to permissioned vehicle telemetry data from users who opt-in. Rob notes that real developer feedback is now crucial in shaping the product roadmap.
- Strategic Insight: Strong developer tooling and responsiveness are vital for ecosystem growth. Investors should track developer license growth and the diversity of applications being built as leading indicators of network health.
User Control: Data Privacy and Monetization Models
- Rob strongly emphasizes user privacy and control: vehicle data is never shared with third parties (like insurance companies or developers) unless the user explicitly opts-in for a specific application.
- Developers pay a fee (currently ~$1.25 per car per month) in DIMO credits to access this permissioned data. These credits are acquired by spending/burning the DIMO token.
- A portion of the spent DIMO token is recycled to node operators, while ~60% (approx. $0.75 worth) is permanently removed from circulation (burned). This activity is transparently tracked on a public Dune dashboard.
- Dune Dashboard: An analytics platform allowing users to query and visualize blockchain data; DIMO uses it to provide transparency on key metrics like data access payments and token burns.
- Actionable Insight: The opt-in privacy model and the direct link between data access usage and token burning create a clear utility and potential value accrual mechanism for the DIMO token, directly relevant to investors.
Emerging Trend: Data Unions for Collective Monetization
- Rob highlights an emerging model being explored by partners like DLP Labs: creating a “data union.”
- In this model, users could choose to pool their anonymized or aggregated vehicle data. The union would then negotiate its sale to interested parties (e.g., for research on battery performance across demographics/regions).
- Data Union: A structure enabling individuals to collectively bargain or monetize their pooled data, potentially yielding better terms or access to new markets.
- Users participating would receive a percentage of the revenue generated. Rob mentions reports suggesting such vehicle data could be worth $600-$1,000 per car annually, offering significant potential returns to drivers.
- Strategic Insight: Data unions represent a novel, decentralized approach to data monetization on the DIMO platform. Researchers should watch this trend as it could unlock significant economic value and create new data markets relevant for AI training and analysis.
Protocol Revenue Dynamics and Future Growth
- Currently, the DIMO mobile app itself is the largest payer for vehicle data access, adhering to the standard $1.25/month fee since a Q4 governance decision mandated it pay like any other developer.
- While internal use drives significant revenue now, third-party applications like Royal are growing their usage and payments.
- Rob states the strategic goal is for the external, third-party developer ecosystem to eventually dwarf the DIMO app's usage, indicating a truly open and thriving platform.
- Actionable Insight: Investors should monitor the ratio of internal vs. external data access payments (visible on Dune) as a key indicator of the platform's transition towards a self-sustaining, developer-driven ecosystem.
Enterprise Adoption Signals: Automakers, Insurance, and Government
- While unable to disclose specific names due to confidentiality, Rob confirms DIMO is engaged in “deeper conversations” with major enterprise players, including automakers, insurance companies, and government agencies.
- Potential enterprise use cases discussed include:
- Usage-based road charging for EVs (as a gas tax replacement).
- Data for preventative vehicle maintenance programs.
- Enabling a broader app ecosystem for automakers' connected cars.
- Leveraging DIMO's infrastructure for distributing tokenized rewards or incentives.
- These discussions involve long sales cycles but signal significant interest in DIMO's capabilities at scale.
- Strategic Insight: Enterprise adoption could dramatically accelerate DIMO's network growth and data availability. Crypto AI researchers should consider the implications of standardized, permissioned vehicle data becoming accessible at scale for training models related to traffic, insurance risk, energy consumption, and predictive maintenance.
Go-To-Market: Balancing Supply Growth and Partner Needs
- DIMO currently has around 170,000 connected vehicles. While growing this user base (supply side) increases credibility, especially with large partners, the immediate focus is shifting.
- Emphasis is now placed on demonstrating the technology's merit, refining the developer experience, enabling compelling use cases, and specifically building features required by key strategic partners.
- Strategic Insight: DIMO is maturing from a purely growth-focused stage to one prioritizing platform refinement and high-value integrations, signaling a focus on sustainable ecosystem development.
Get Involved with DIMO
- For non-developers/users: Connect your car via the DIMO mobile app (available for newer cars via software, older cars via an OBD hardware device). Rob reassures users about data privacy (opt-in sharing only) and highlights app utility (locating car, tracking fuel/trips) alongside token earning potential. Explore apps built by third-party developers.
- For developers: Visit
demo.org to access documentation, the developer console (console.demo.org), and SDKs to start building applications that leverage DIMO vehicle data.
- Actionable Insight: The ecosystem offers clear entry points for both contributing data/using apps and building new services, facilitating network participation.
Conclusion: Building the Foundation for Connected Vehicles
DIMO is laying decentralized groundwork for vehicle data, enabling a rich developer ecosystem and attracting enterprise interest. Investors and researchers should monitor developer adoption, protocol revenue sources (especially third-party growth), and enterprise partnerships as key indicators of DIMO's progress in creating an open standard for vehicle connectivity.
