On Thursday, the Helium Foundation announced that it was moving its mainnet to the Solana blockchain, following a community vote. According to the proposal, proof of coverage and data transfer mechanisms will be moved to Helium Oracles.
It’s official! The HIP 70 vote has ended. #Helium he will move to the @Solana blockchain! pic.twitter.com/V2WIajou7R
— Helium (@helium) September 22, 2022
It’s official! The HIP 70 vote is over. #Helium will migrate to the @Solana blockchain! pic.twitter.com/V2WIajou7R
— Helium (@helium) September 22, 2022
During this time, Helium tokens and governance will be relocated to the Solana blockchain. As mentioned by the developers, the benefits of this move are: more of its native HNT token available for subDAO reward pools, more consistent mining, more reliable data transfer, more utilities for HNT tokens and subDAO, and larger ecosystem support.
Helium is a blockchain-based wireless communication protocol. In the same week, Nova Labs, the creator of Helium, signed an agreement with the US telecommunications provider T-Mobile to launch Helium Mobile, a cryptocurrency-powered mobile service that will allow subscribers to earn cryptocurrency rewards. Helium Mobile subscribers on this cellular plan can earn token rewards for sharing coverage quality data, and help identify dead Helium locations across the country. A 5G compatible device will be required.
As a decentralized wireless network, Helium provides open coverage around the world. Since its launch in 2019, more than 900,000 hotspots using Helium have been deployed, with 1,000 units added every day. There are currently more than 2,500 active Helium locations with 5G in 889 US cities since the program became active in August 2022.
Solana, Helium’s new blockchain, is introduced as a hub for building decentralized applications. Looking at voting transactions, Solana’s daily transactions grew from about 100 million to 200 million per day. The number of blockchain users has surpassed one million since May this year. Helium developers recommended this change because of Solana’s ability to improve operational efficiency and project scalability.
