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Over the past year, Helium’s HNT more than quadrupled in value to become a top-performing cryptocurrency among blue-chip tokens.
After years of tinkering with its business model and growth strategy, Helium, a decentralized wireless ecosystem, is now starting to reap rewards from its bold pivot, which saw the project abandon its standalone blockchain and migrate to Solana (SOL) in 2023.
The move was part of Helium’s plan to find a stable layer one (L1) to build an ecosystem of independent decentralized wireless and data networks.
In 2024, Helium Mobile (MOBILE) — one of the first independent protocols of the Helium ecosystem — saw incredible growth due to the popularity of its low-cost wireless 5G connectivity offerings in the U.S.
The positive developments have helped Helium’s crypto token HNT surge over 370% year-on-year from about $1.50 to over $7 as of October 22, 2024.
In this article, we talk about factors driving Helium’s HNT token price and more.
Key Takeaways
- Helium abandoned its standalone blockchain and migrated to Solana in 2023.
- Helium Mobile has seen incredible growth due to the popularity of its low-cost wireless 5G connectivity offerings in the U.S.
- Helium Mobile adoption surged as signups rose from about 24,500 at the start of the year to over 109,000 by mid-August 2024.
- Helium Mobile was the top Helium ecosystem protocol, accounting for nearly 96% of DC token usage.
- Helium will create a new subnetwork called ENERGY for solar power production and battery energy storage.
Understanding Helium’s History & Road to Success
First, we explore a quick dive talk into Helium’s history.
Early Success with IoT Devices
Helium started as a standalone blockchain in 2019 to enable a decentralized community to provide wireless connectivity to Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
Users purchased Helium hotspots to provide wireless coverage. HNT tokens were rewarded to service providers.
In addition to HNT, Helium created a payment token called Data Credits (DC). HNT tokens had to be burned to receive DC tokens.
Every time a user tapped into Helium’s hotspot, they paid for the services in DC tokens, which had a fixed price of $0.00001 per 24 bytes of data.
By July 2021, over 100,000 hotspots were live on the Helium network, powering smart home devices, tracking instruments, air quality and water leak detection sensors, and agriculture data monitoring devices.
By November 2021, crypto market exuberance lifted Helium’s crypto price to an all-time high of over $55.
Helium Needed Scale for 5G Wireless Connectivity
Helium soon found it difficult to scale. Helium’s original structure also did not promote the creation of independent decentralized networks within its ecosystem.
Helium therefore proposed the creation of sub-networks, each specializing in a specific offering, such as low-range wide-area network (LoRaWAN), WiFi, 5G, content delivery network (CDN), virtual private network (VPN), etc.
Each subnetwork would have its own decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) and native token. These subDAOs would also be free to create their own rules, mining rewards, and more.
The first two Helium ecosystem subDAOs created were the IoT subDAO and the Helium Mobile DAO. The former managed the Helium IoT network (the original Helium offering), and the latter managed the decentralized 5G wireless connectivity network.
This led to two new ecosystem tokens emerging: Helium IoT’s IOT token and Helium Mobile’s MOBILE token. The tokens were primarily used as reward tokens in their respective operations.
DC tokens (received by burning HNT tokens) continued to be used as payment tokens across the Helium ecosystem.
Additionally, Helium also proposed to abandon its standalone blockchain and move to Solana.
According to Helium, the move would remove the burden of maintaining a chain and free resources to build wireless and data networks.
On April 18, 2023, Helium migrated to Solana.
Helium Mobile Breathes New Life into HNT Token
The HNT token price did not immediately rebound after Helium migrated to Solana, and the move was viewed with much skepticism within the Helium community.
Sentiment began to pick up when Helium Mobile made its debut in May 2023.
Helium Mobile launched with a 5G carrier plan provided in collaboration with telecom company T-Mobile for unlimited talk, text, and data at $25 a month — later reduced to $20 per month.
Helium Mobile soon introduced the Discovery Mapping feature, which allowed users to earn MOBILE tokens by sharing their location with the network.
A partnership with telecom company Telefónica to launch Helium Mobile in Mexico, the introduction of international roaming features, and boosted coverage in Los Angeles and New York were among other key Helium crypto news that occurred over the last twelve months.
Helium Mobile adoption surged as signups rose from about 24,500 at the start of the year to over 109,000 by mid-August 2024, on-chain data on Dune showed.
Based on DC tokens usage, Helium Mobile was the top Helium ecosystem protocol accounting for nearly 96% of DC token usage on August 15, 2024.
The growing adoption of Helium Mobile breathed new life into the HNT token, which rose to a six-month high of $8.64 in September 2024.
Helium Mobile’s MOBILE token, on the other hand, was on track to see seven consecutive months of losses in October 2024.
Note that Helium subDAO tokens like MOBILE are backed by HNT and can be easily converted to HNT.
Notable Helium Crypto News: Helium ENERGY Subnetwork & More
Let’s go through some of the most important Helium news that has developed over the past few months:
August 2024
Helium community passed a Helium Improvement Proposal (HIP) called HIP 128 which proposed the creation of a new subnetwork called ENERGY for solar power production and battery energy storage.The proposal read:
“The energy sector is undergoing a rapid transformation towards decentralization, driven by the proliferation of small-scale renewable energy resources. There needs to be an effective way of coordinating the vast number of small energy resources.
“By leveraging the community with already open hardware platforms and coordinating current and unforeseen products, we can build a more cost-effective, permissionless, and transparent energy system than options available today.”
September 2024
The upcoming Solana mobile phone called Seeker will have Helium Mobile’s network mapping apps, which will allow users to earn MOBILE rewards by sharing their location.
October 2024
Crypto-focused asset manager Grayscale identified Helium’s HNT token among “possible candidates for inclusion in a future product.” At the time of writing, Grayscale offered over 20 crypto investment products.
Earlier in a Q3 2024 research report, Grayscale included Helium in its list of 20 crypto assets that have “high potential over the coming quarter.”
“The addition of Helium reflects our preference for category leaders and projects with sustainable revenues. Helium is a leader in the DePIN category, leveraging a decentralized model to efficiently allocate resources for wireless network coverage and connectivity and rewarding participants for maintaining the network’s infrastructure,” said Grayscale
The Bottom Line
Helium is yet another example of crypto’s real-life use cases.
Helium hotspots are not only lowering connectivity prices in the U.S. but also enabling wireless infrastructure to be expanded to areas with low-quality coverage.
If you are interested in investing in Helium, always remember to conduct your research before investing. Past performance does not guarantee future returns. This article should not be considered as financial advice, it is for informational purposes only.
