NBA champion Tristan Thompson announced at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 that he is partnering with global telecommunications company World Mobile to launch a community-owned mobile network called Uplift. The network offers unlimited data plans starting at $9.99 per month.
Uplift is built on blockchain technology and decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN).
With Uplift, every subscription contributes to growing the network at the neighborhood level, and local hosts, known as “AirNode operators,” earn a portion of the network revenue by providing community coverage. The idea behind Uplift is to challenge the centralized model of the $2 trillion telecom industry by allowing users and local carriers to share in the value they create.
“What’s important to me is how can I help people who have been through the same life that I’ve been through? I think what we’re doing for us is providing access and connectivity to unlimited data at a lower cost,” Thompson said on stage. “It’s like, how can I help my community have a better tomorrow? That’s what this is. And we’re very fortunate to have a team that understands this vision. And we want to help the American people, help our inner cities, and give people hope.”
Thompson is known for his basketball career and winning an NBA championship with the Cleveland Cavaliers, but he is also an outspoken advocate for innovation and inclusion. Thompson currently holds four executive roles in the Web3 and fintech space. He is the Chief Digital Asset Officer at World Mobile and the Chief Advisory Officer at AxonDAO, an AI-powered medical research platform inspired by his brother’s treatment for epilepsy.
He is also the co-founder of Basketball Fun, a Web3 platform that tokenizes NBA players, and the Chief Content Officer of Tracy AI, an AI platform for real-time sports analytics.
With this latest initiative, Thompson and World Mobile aim to advance affordable, community-owned internet access.
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World Mobile says this is a tested and scalable model as it piloted it in Reno, Nevada. There, community hosts earn more than $10,000 a year by serving underserved areas. According to World Mobile, Uplift will run on infrastructure already proven through World Mobile’s U.S. deployment.
“We’ve got about 20 percent of Reno back connected,” Thompson said. “When we had the hurricanes in North Carolina and Asheville, Starlink went out there and tried to get connectivity, but we couldn’t. So we reached out to the World Mobile team, and we were able to go out there and send some people in a helicopter. In fact, we were the ones who got connectivity back to Asheville, North Carolina during that hurricane.”
The new service will begin rolling out soon in Cleveland, Ohio, and is expected to launch in other cities in 2026.
World Mobile notes that more than 50 million Americans live at or near the poverty line, and many lack access to affordable, high-speed data. Uplift aims to expand access while ensuring that the wealth created through mobile use stays in the communities where it is created.
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