DIMO Network — Sell Your Car’s Data for Dollars

DIMO’s first core concept as a user is simple — it allows you to put your data to work. The tech boom of the last decade has taught us that our data is valuable, and DIMO allows you to directly sell your vehicle data to companies that want to use it for traffic mapping, insurance, self-driving systems, infrastructure planning, and more.

From my perspective, DIMO allows me to claim a bit more value on my car that I otherwise would have lost. In my first week of driving, I earned 39 $DIMO through the weekly baseline issuance. This just means that I had to connect the AutoPI miner to my car and drive once that week. At today’s (Feb 2024) prices of $DIMO, that came out to ~$20 USD.

DIMO: Start-up costs and initial investment

For many of us with older cars, DIMO will require an initial investment between $100 and $300 USDC. The difference between the three options is laid out below:

Car App Connection (FREE): DIMO’s free option that is a great choice for cars with an in-app subscription (tesla, toyota connect, OnStar, etc). Of the three ways to connect, the car app subscription earns the least — somewhere between 1/3rd and 1/6th that of the Macaron and AutoPI. But this option is completely free, is easy to set up, and allows you access to the DIMO marketplace. A great way to try before you buy.

DIMO Macaron ($99): DIMO’s newest miner is the Macaron, a lightweight device that starts out earning ~1/3rd of the AutoPi but as the weekly connected streak increases can earn as much as 5/9ths the AutoPi. The best bang for your buck, the Macaron has the fastest track to paying off the initial hardware investment.

DIMO AutoPi ($299): DIMO’s most expensive miner, the AutoPi earns the most from weekly baseline issuance.

Ask: If you decide to connect your car, using my referral code R9BN0K earns us both 50 $DIMO and supports the creation of free content like this.

DIMO’s Weekly Airdrop and Marketplace

There are two ways to earn $DIMO: driving your car once+ per week and selling your anonymized and aggregated data to businesses.

Right now, the main way to earn is by driving once a week through the weekly airdrop/baseline issuance. The amount of $DIMO you earn per week depends on what device you have connected and how long you have had a DIMO streak going for (maximum rewards are earned at 36 weeks). Driving more than once per week does not currently increase rewards.

Eventually, the main way to earn $DIMO will be through selling your data directly to merchants via the DIMO marketplace. The buyers will have to specify exactly what data they are collecting and what they want to do with it, and the sale will work on an opt-in model. You do not have to sell your vehicle data if you do not want to.

You can read more about marketplace issuance in the DIMO documentation.

Is the DIMO Macaron/AutoPI Worth it?

As with most things in crypto, nothing is ever guaranteed. DIMO has a great team of builders that have created a unique solution to an interesting problem. Their product creates a win-win — companies have greater access to data and consumers have the opportunity to earn from the value of their data. If you believe that DIMO has found product market fit, then the business model is likely to be successful and the miners would likely return value on their investment (NFA).

Personally, I’m intrigued by DIMO’s business model and can see a world where it’s successful. For the time being, my main goal is to pay off my initial investment into the DIMO AutoPi ($300) while exploring the product. My initial referral reward + 1 week of DIMO driving has netted me 89 $DIMO, equivalent to ~$45 USD — meaning I’ve recouped about 1/6th of the miner cost so far.

It’s pretty cool to see companies like DIMO building on crypto’s core infrastructure. The more great decentralized use-cases, the better.

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