I've actually thought a lot about this, after all, it is a utility token so its value is tied to a value derived in the real world.Ĭurrently, other IoT platforms are charging 40 cents per MB with a 3.00 monthly service fee. I would love to hear more informed members opinions though! It should therefore follow, that the only real money to be made on the Helium Network is by mining the speculative HNT currency directly in the early stage, which whilst viable at the moment, makes it a very risky proposition in the medium to long term, in my opinion. The price of data on the Helium network will only be worth what consumers are willing to pay for it, which we can see now is $1 to $5 on a mobile network, regardless of which currency you use. But let's be generous and say that the average hotspots routes 1 Gbit of data per month, that still gives a payback period on the cost of the $500 router alone at 100 to 500 months (8 to 40 years!).Īnd it doesn't matter whether the data price to the consumer is charged in HNT, USD, or grains of rice. If that assumption is true, then the likely traffic over the Helium Network by each user session will be measured in bits or at most kbits, not Mbits or Gbits.Īs a result, even with a high number of user sessions per month, this would limit the monthly earning potential of the average hotspot to a fraction of the $1 to $5 per Gbit current rate. However, the key difference between mobile data and the data that will likely be routed on the Helium Network, as I understand it, will be that the Helium Network will be aimed more at "the internet of things" checking in and updating, rather than the data-intensive personal entertainment (video streaming, video calls, games, audio), which is the current biggest data usage on mobile phones. TLDR I suspect that the early adopter mining element of the Helium Network will by far be the most lucrative phase of the network, even if the network is ultimately a massive success, as network traffic will eventually be priced in the range of $1 to $5 per Gbit (or HNT equivalent) and the amount of traffic the average hotspot will see in a month will be a fraction of that due to the nature of the traffic using the network.Īt the end of the day, it seems to me that the "real world" value of a Helium hotspot is equivalent to the value of data traffic that it carries over its lifetime.Īnd the value of the data that it carries will arguably be priced to the consumer, after the network has matured, in the same range or perhaps a slight premium to current mobile internet data, which, according to this site ranges between $1 to $4 per Gb for the US and UK. Let’s look at HNT’s 24-hour performance to assess what exactly went wrong.Like many sub members, I've been trying to work out whether the Helium Network is the next big thing or just a massive scam and I've juggled various thought processes in my head, before settling on the following and I wondered what other members thought? Furthermore, Helium’s native token HNT will be used for backing the governance tokens which will be redeemable for the HNT.ĭown by 25% in the last 24 hours, however, HNT didn’t appear to react positively to this announcement. The separate tokens will be governance tokens. It also has plans for the implementation of separate tokens for each network protocol. The network also stated that as the number of networks surges, more networks will be added. This new token will exist to reward hotspot owners for providing 5G coverage. According to the network, the expansion will come with the launch of a new token referred to as MOBILE. It has a native token known simply as HNT.Īs per a recent blog post titled “ Helium Chapter 2,” Helium Network has now announced its model expansion, one which is directed at addressing the demand for unlimited wireless protocols.
The Helium Network is a decentralized wireless network built around an open-source and standards-compliant wireless network protocol (WHIP) on a purpose-built blockchain.