We have been long Helium for years. Our Helium position was based on a simple thesis: a decentralized wireless network, meaning a network built and operated by distributed participants rather than a single telecom operator, that appeared to be working in the real world. Helium had hotspots in the hundreds of thousands, real carrier offload volume and a token, HNT, whose value was expected to accrue as data usage scaled. For most of that time, the thesis held. Carrier offload grew sharply, Helium Mobile crossed half a million subscribers, the hotspot footprint kept expanding, and daily data throughput reached triple-digit terabytes. By the operating metrics that matter for a wireless network, Helium was working. The token, however, was not. HNT has been grinding lower for months despite the network growth, and over the past two weeks two events made it clear why the disconnect may not close.
Helium Mobile Leaves the Protocol Perimeter
The first event was the sale of Helium Mobile to Noble Mobile, the MVNO founded by Andrew Yang. Helium Mobile was the crown jewel of the ecosystem, with roughly 540,000 subscribers, meaningful annualized carrier offload revenue and the consumer-facing front door to the entire network. Noble is a startup with a fraction of Helium Mobile’s operating history. The deal terms were not disclosed. Nova Labs, Helium’s foundational steward, framed the move as a strategic pivot toward network growth and broader partner onboarding, but the substance is harder to ignore: the highest-quality cash-flow line in the ecosystem just left the protocol perimeter. Whatever Nova received in exchange, whether equity in Noble, a services arrangement or some combination, does not flow back to HNT holders in any mechanical way. The subscriber business and the token economy are now formally separated.
HIP 149 Weakens the Token Link
The second event was HIP 149, the tokenomics proposal published through Helium governance. It does four things at once. It proposes minting roughly 141 million new HNT, about 72% of current circulating supply, over 36 months into a Nova-administered Squads multisig vault, with the use of funds including core operating costs. It reduces the carrier-paid burn rate from $0.50 per gigabyte to about $0.10 per gigabyte, which materially lowers the mechanism that converts network usage into HNT demand. It retires Proof-of-Coverage on both Mobile and IoT. It also creates a seven-seat Advisory Council, with five community-nominated seats and two Nova-appointed seats, while preserving a 7% veHNT quorum threshold for termination votes.
Stripping the framing away, the protocol’s largest stakeholder is proposing to fund operating expenses through dilution while cutting the rate at which network growth translates into token value. That is not a routine tokenomics adjustment. It is a restructuring of who pays for the business, and the answer is now the holders.
Why We Closed the Helium Position
These two events have to be read together. Helium Mobile leaving the protocol removes a cash-flow line Nova could have used to defend HNT without dilution. HIP 149 then proposes the dilution anyway. The carrier burn-rate cut means that even if the network grows substantially, the demand side of the token equation may move far less than the usage metrics suggest.
None of this changes our view that the Helium network itself can continue to grow. We still expect it to reach millions of users, and the DePIN wireless thesis remains one of the more credible product-market fits in crypto. But the token’s relationship to that growth has been deliberately weakened. A constructive view of the network and a negative view of the asset are no longer the same trade.
That is why we closed our Helium position. We would revisit our Helium position if the burn-rate cut is reversed, the dilution schedule is materially restructured or governance moves toward a structure that more directly aligns network growth with HNT holder value.
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