What is Grass (GRASS)?

By CMC AI
17 February 2026 09:22PM (UTC+0)
TLDR

Grass is a decentralized network built on Solana that lets users earn cryptocurrency by sharing their unused internet bandwidth to help collect public web data for artificial intelligence (AI) training.

  1. Decentralized Data Layer for AI – It creates a user-owned network that scrapes and structures web data, providing an alternative to centralized services like Googlebot.

  2. DePIN & AI on Solana – The project combines Decentralized Physical Infrastructure (DePIN) with AI, operating a scalable Layer 2 on the Solana blockchain for efficiency.

  3. Earn-While-You-Browse Model – Users install a lightweight app to contribute idle bandwidth passively, earning GRASS tokens as rewards.

Deep Dive

1. Purpose & Value Proposition

Grass aims to solve a core problem in AI development: access to large-scale, high-quality training data. Centralized web crawlers face blocks and rate limits. Grass creates a decentralized alternative by pooling the unused bandwidth of its global user base. This network scrapes public web data—text, images, and video—which is then structured and sold to AI companies. In essence, it turns idle internet resources into a crowdsourced data layer, challenging the data monopoly of tech giants.

2. Technology & Architecture

The network is built as a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) on Solana, chosen for its high speed and low transaction costs. It uses a Layer 2 solution for scalable data processing. A key technical feature is its use of zk-SNARK proofs, a form of zero-knowledge cryptography. This ensures user privacy and data integrity by verifying contributions without exposing personal information. The network has demonstrated the ability to process over one petabyte of data per day following its Sion Upgrade in February 2026.

3. Tokenomics & Utility

The GRASS token has a total supply of 1 billion. It primarily rewards users for providing bandwidth and maintaining network uptime. Users earn "Grass Points," which are convertible to GRASS tokens, often distributed via airdrops. The token also facilitates governance, giving holders a say in the network's future development. A significant portion of the supply is vested; as of July 2025, only 29% was in circulation, with major unlocks scheduled for later dates like October 2025 (Gate.io).

Conclusion

Fundamentally, Grass is a community-powered infrastructure project that monetizes unused bandwidth to build the open data foundation required for the next generation of AI. Will its model of incentivizing mass participation be sustainable enough to become the default data layer for AI?

CMC AI can make mistakes. Not financial advice.