Helium (HNT) Changes From HIP70 To The Solana Network

The Helium network community has voted to move to the Solana network.
80 percent of the Helium community voted in favor of the change.

Helium members have voted to move the network from its blockchain known as HIP 70 to the Solana blockchain. For the change of network to be done, a two-thirds majority was needed. About 80 percent of helium community members voted in favor of the change of the blockchain network.

Currently Helium has a market cap of $600 million placing it as the 64th largest cryptocurrency while the price of one HNT is $4 after reaching an all-time high of $55. There are a total of 126,624,793 HNT in circulation and the maximum supply is 223,000,000 HNT.

☀️🎈 https://t.co/pRhcRlNq5z

— Solana (@solana) September 22, 2022

Helium developers proposed the migration to Solana to help scale, become more efficient and improve interoperability as well. This migration will transfer all tokens (HNT), applications, and governance to the network. However, not everyone has been on board with the network’s choice to move to Solana. Around 6,177 community members voted in favor of the move by staking over 12 million HNT while 1,270 voted against it. This makes it an 81% vote in favor of the migration.

Last week, Borderless Capital, an Algorand-focused VC which is backed by Helium, took to Twitter to suggest the network reconsider its choice to move to Solana, and instead move to Algorand.

1/5 We have received numerous inquiries from founders and stakeholders across our industry who are interested in supporting the @Helium team in their proposed #HIP70 about the migration of its blockchain to a new L1 and want to help ensure the best possible outcome. https://t.co/vUJEoonrH9

— Borderless (@borderless_cap) September 12, 2022

Scott Sigel, COO of the Helium Foundation, said in a statement;

Solana has a proven track record powering some of the world’s most important decentralized initiatives and they were an obvious choice for us to partner with.

Moving to the Solana blockchain allows us to focus our efforts on scaling the network as opposed to managing the blockchain itself

The migration will see helium, mobile, and Internet of things (IoT) supplied to the Solana network, which will continue to be the tokens on the Solana network. A new version of the Helium wallet app will be made available once the migration is complete. Users will be able to use the new application by updating their current wallet app. HNT holders can also use other wallets within the Solana ecosystem, such as Solflare or Phantom.

Helium Mobile

Nova Labs and T-Mobile have partnered to launch Helium Mobile, a 5G wireless service for smartphones. It will use Helium’s decentralized, crypto-powered 5G network as well as T-Mobile’s network, and switch between the two as needed. Helium Mobile will be a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) service and will tap both the T-Mobile and Helium networks for customers in the United States.

By combining networks the founders mentioned that the service will be different from the traditional services. Plans will start at just $5 per month, and users can also optionally earn crypto token rewards for sharing data.