2 major developments:
- Helium has announced a major partnership with T-Mobile
- Helium has passed a proposal to migrate to the Solana Blockchain
T-Mobile Partnership
Helium’s partnership with T-mobile is a major step in achieving the long-sought vision of a truly decentralized peer-to-peer cellphone network.
September 20th, the Decentralized wireless network executed a 5 year agreement with T-Mobile announcing plans to launch – Helium Mobile, which will be the world’s first decentralized 5G wireless Crypto carrier. It will be a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) which will allow users of Helium Mobile to use both 5G networks, Helium and T-Mobile. CEO of Nova labs and founder of Helium, Amir Haleem stated that this partnership’s, “5G infrastructure can be accessible to anyone at a much faster pace by enabling the community to help build and use the Helium network, especially in hard-to-reach places.”
Helium Mobile’s plans will begin at just $5 per month while these users who join Helium Mobile will be given the option to mine the network’s $MOBILE token as a reward for providing data to the network. This new system, Proof-of-Coverage (POC), incentivizes users to build the speed of the network infrastructure while decreasing costs.
Solana’s Migration
Migrating to Solana’s Blockchain should provide tangible benefits to the Helium token.
The recent passage of Helium’s upgrade proposal HIP 70 will move the network from its own blockchain to Solana. This upgrade is expected to improve Helium’s speed, stability, and full ability to serve more users. The Helium Foundation stated that Solana’s benefits to Helium include network scale, community, and composability.
As an unstated benefit, at Sarson Funds, we believe that adopting a token standard (Solana’s) that is already integrated with major exchanges, could provide HNT tokens with a more direct path to exchange listings, something that has proven elusive for HNT token to date. We believe that the migration to the Solana blockchain could speed up the listing of HNT token on major exchanges like Coinbase that have yet to make the token available to its users despite the project’s vast popularity. Ultimately more exchange availability means more potential purchasers of the token and we view this as a positive development and see it as a potential catalyst for higher prices.
Since the Helium Network launched in 2019 with the design to support the devices of Internet of Things (IoT), over 935,000 active node operators have been deployed globally. We think that Helium’s movement into 5G and partnership with T-Mobile further solidifies the project as the frontrunner to disrupt the global telecom marketplace.
Written by Jenny Mongan
Disclosures: Not investment advice. It should be assumed that Sarson Funds or its affiliated managers hold positions in all projects that are discussed. It is not possible to invest in any project directly through Sarson Funds, Inc. or its affiliated managers. Any investment product offered by managers affiliated with Sarson Funds should be assumed to be only available to Accredited Investors and subject to the individual terms and conditions of that offering including but not limited to those eligibility requirements associated with U.S. Securities Regulation D, section 506c. Talk with your financial advisor before making any investment decisions or have them contact Sarson Funds directly at info@sarsonfunds.com
