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Helium COO responds to doubts: Will HNT return to zero?

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Why did Helium migrate to Solana?

Original title: "tl;dr on HIP 70: HNT Ecosystem Would Expand on Solana"

Original author: Frank Mong, COO, Helium

Original compilation: 0x214, BlockBeats

August 31st, Decentralized Wireless The core developer of the communication network Helium launched the HIP 70 proposal, which plans to migrate the network from Helium's custom blockchain to Solana, aiming to improve Helium's speed, stability and scale. Frank Mong, Chief Operating Officer of Helium, published an article to interpret HIP70 and answer related questions from the community. BlockBeats organizes and translates this as follows:

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Helium's core mission has always been to connect everything and people with ubiquitous and affordable networking. In just 3 years since its inception, Helium has accomplished a lot:

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- Helium is the world's largest Internet of Things IoT network with 943,000 hotspots deployed in 72,000 cities and 182 countries.

- Less than a month ago, Helium launched MOBILE Token as a 5G hotspotReward. Subsequently, nearly 4,000 Helium 5G radios were deployed in 48 US states.

- In August, the Helium network transmitted nearly 100 million packets.

On August 31, the core developer of the decentralized wireless communication network Helium initiated the HIP 70 proposal, plans to migrate the network from Helium's custom blockchain to Solana. HIP70 aims to expand Helium to meet the current and future needs of network builders and users, and is consistent with the original intention of the Helium project. In order to achieve this goal, HIP 70 proposes a new PoC coverage proof (Proof-of-Coverage) and data transmission architecture, and will migrate from the custom blockchain to the Layer 1 blockchain Solana.

There are many contents in this proposal that are worthy of in-depth interpretation. Relevant questions are answered.

What is the appeal of HIP 70? Key Highlights:

- Miners/Hotspot owners will Get more rewards. This proposal will allow 2 million HNT to be returned to the reward pool every year, and miners across the Internet of Things and 5G networks will benefit from it.

- More mining opportunities. The consistency of the PoC algorithm will be enhanced. Instead of beaconing and witnessing every few hours or days, PoCs will continue to happen hourly.

- A more efficient network. The data transmission of the device will achieve faster, more reliable, and greater throughput.

Why Solana Blockchain?

When Helium was founded three years ago, there were relatively few blockchains to choose from. At the same time, no one could have predicted that Helium would grow at such an amazing rate.

In pursuit of the new goal of scaling Helium to support more types of networks, the Helium team The need to continue maintaining the current L1 Helium blockchain has been re-evaluated. After analyzing multiple blockchains, the core developers chose Solana to achieve massive network expansion, while Solana will allow the core team to focus on supporting the growth of other networks and building more innovative wireless applications.

Helium recommends Solana for three key reasons:

- Helium's core developers are no longer required to maintain the Helium blockchain.

- Solana's huge ecosystem integrates a large number of developers, applications and teams.

- HNT is natively compatible with other innovative projects in the Solana ecosystem, enabling HNT, MOBILE and IOT Token holders to obtain more use cases.

Network users will get more support, including hardware and software wallets, DeFi, NFT market , and compatibility with other applications in the Solana ecosystem.

How will Solana's mobile product stack (Solana Mobile Stack), Saga phones, etc. participate in Helium's future? Helium is also looking forward to it.

Will the HNT go to zero?

No. In reality, HNT will play a more important role. HNT will continue to promote all network construction and network usage. For example, HNT is required as Data Credits to use all networks, such as IoT and 5G networks. As the usage of each network grows, the value of the HNT ecosystem will also increase.

Can miners get SOL?

No, HNT, MOBILE and IOT are still Tokens in the Helium ecosystem. SOL is the native token of the Solana blockchain and has nothing to do with HIP 70 and Helium.

Will PoC proofs be deprecated?

No, PoC proofs will continue to be used. HIP 70 aims to make PoC more consistent and reliable for miners.

What is the relationship between MOBILE and HNT? Has adoption of Solana changed?

The relationship between MOBILE and HNT will not change due to the use of the SolanaL1 blockchain. 5G hotspot/miner holders will continue to receive MOBILE Token as a reward for providing cellular network coverage, and these MOBLIE Tokens can be exchanged for HNT.

Will the mining machines/hotspots held by miners be affected?

No. Miners should be able to do a more stable PoC activity where beaconing and witnessing will happen every hour. 2 million HNT will be returned to the reward pool every year, and miners across the entire Internet of Things and 5G networks will benefit from it.

Will miners’ wallets be affected?

Helium will provide a new version of the Helium Wallet App to support upgrades. Users do not need to do anything other than update the app. Users can use the same 12 or 24 mnemonic phrases, but with a different public address on the Solana blockchain.

HNT holders will also be able to use other wallets on the Solana ecosystem such as Phantom or Solflare.

How will existing Helium IoT and 5G networks be affected?

IoT and 5G networks will continue to grow and expand, while the proposed upgraded architecture in HIP 70 will give Helium IoT and 5G networks greater reliability and better scalability.

HIP 70 mentions a lot about Oracles, what are Oracles ?

An oracle is a server that provides off-chain data for the blockchain. For Helium, the oracle will provide PoC activity and data transfer information to the Solana blockchain in order to accurately distribute Token rewards.

What tasks does the oracle complete?

Currently, PoC proofs and data transfer transactions are processed on the Helium blockchain. HIP 70 proposes moving it to an oracle to simplify the entire architecture and ensure that data continues to flow, even if the blockchain itself is offline, and Hotspots can participate in PoC proofs.

It is important to note that the oracle itself does not run on Solana. Oracles are blockchain-independent, separate infrastructure for resiliency and performance. Even if Solana encounters a temporary downtime or a gas fee rise, the machine will not be affected.

What if Solana stops producing blocks or has a temporary outage?

Using oracles helps maintain the flow of data on Helium, even when Solana stops producing blocks or temporarily cuts off supply.

What about Validators?

A validator is an entity on the Helium blockchain that issues challenges, validates transactions, and adds new blocks to the blockchain. With oracles and the HIP 70 proposal, the work done by validators will no longer be needed.

However, validators can redeploy their staked HNT to veHNT (vote-escrowed HNT ), which is a new governance token in all Helium networks. veHNT gives holders the right to vote on key decisions about Helium's ecology, and can obtain IOT and MOBILE Token (which can be exchanged for HNT). Alternatively, validators can choose to unstake after a cool down period of 5 months.

After HIP70 is passed, can HNT be pledged?

Yes. Any HNT holder can stake HNT in the form of veHNT. Unlike validators today, HNT holders can stake any amount of HNT with no minimum amount. According to the length of the pledge time, you can get voting rights and Token income.

More details about veHNT can be found at HIP51 proposal.

How many users are using Helium IoT?

A total of 97 million data packets flowed through the Helium IoT network in August, including GPS location tracking, air quality monitors, temperature sensors and more. You can view the user sample here.

Hardware construction is not easy. Building useful and reliable products and applications takes both time and money. It took the Helium community 3 years to build the first wireless network in existence, and it didn't really go live until 6-9 months ago. Over time, more Helium-enabled products and applications will enter the market, driving overall usage of the network.

Is IoT data transmission affected?

The proposed data transport architecture in HIP 70 will provide a more reliable, scalable and An accessible platform that allows anyone using an existing LoRaWAN Network Server (LNS) such as ChirpStack, The Things Stack or AWS to use the Helium network.

How do new LoRaWAN devices join the network?

No changes to joining devices are required until the new architecture is ready. Once the new architecture is actually implemented, users will have more choices about which LoRaWAN Network Server (LNS) to use and joining devices.