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The wireless industry is breaking.
Helium is the repair.

Helium started with IoT and the idea of The People's Network in 2019. That model proved a decentralized network, built and owned by its community, can actually work at scale. Today that same model carries real carrier traffic for millions of people every day.

The last two years brought real validation from carrier demand, but Helium's original economic framework hasn't kept up. This proposal fixes the economics for the long term, so the people who built this Network can reliably earn from the impact it's having on a 150-year-old industry.

Read the full Proposal

READ THIS

The wireless industry is breaking.
Helium is the repair.

Helium started with IoT and the idea of The People's Network in 2019. That model proved a decentralized network, built and owned by its community, can actually work at scale. Today that same model carries real carrier traffic for millions of people every day.

The last two years brought real validation from carrier demand, but Helium's original economic framework hasn't kept up. This proposal fixes the economics for the long term, so the people who built this Network can reliably earn from the impact it's having on a 150-year-old industry.

Read the full Proposal

What you Missed

The global wireless industry spends over $300 billion a year building network infrastructure, and that number is now declining while demand for coverage keeps climbing. Carriers need more capacity in more hard places, stadiums, transit hubs, dense indoor, underserved communities, with less capital to build it. No single company can close that gap alone.

Helium flips the model. Instead of one carrier funding every tower, thousands of independent deployers build coverage where demand actually is, own the infrastructure, and earn from the traffic that flows through it. This is telco's AWS moment: fixed capital expense converted into pay-per-use infrastructure

Helium, ~2 years ago

Hotspots earned for providing coverage, whether or not anyone used it

IoT in active use, Mobile still in early pilots

Proving the model could work

Helium, TODAY

Carrier-grade wireless at scale, used by millions daily

Real carrier traffic across the US and Mexico, expanding internationally

An intelligent connectivity platform carriers are asking to build on

130K+

Hotspots across major airports, casinos, and city centers

Millions

Daily active users, sustained at scale

~128TB

Carrier data routed every day

5x

Traffic surge absorbed during Mardi Gras and the Super Bowl

Here is the part that matters for HNT holders: HNT is not a meme. It is an infrastructure share, a use-backed asset where verified carrier usage permanently burns HNT, and where the community that builds the Network governs its supply. The more the Network is used, the more HNT leaves circulation.

So why a Proposal now?

Helium's original economic framework was built for a faster carrier-adoption curve than reality delivered. That is not a failure to hide, it is the reason a clean correction is possible now: we finally have real data on how carriers actually adopt. Three pressures have built up, and this proposal resolves them in a single move.

The earn rate drifted

The target of $0.50/GB has compressed to roughly $0.10/GB: traffic grew about 4x, HNT issuance stayed fixed, and the token price more than halved. Earnings need to anchor to what carriers actually pay, not an outdated target.

The earn rate drifted

Proof of Coverage did its job

PoC was the tool that built coverage before any demand existed, and it worked. Now that real traffic is here, paying Hotspots for simply existing diverts rewards from the deployers actually serving users. The bootstrap succeeded, so now the tool retires.

Proof of Coverage did its job

Proof of coverage did its job

The moment to capitalize

Carrier demand is proven. Reaching scale means funding international expansion and the carrier platform now, while carriers are actively shopping for a new infrastructure model and Helium is the only one filling the gap. Fixed issuance cannot move at that pace. Every infrastructure company hits the moment where proven demand outruns the capital model.

The moment to capitalize

Carrier demand is proven. Reaching scale means funding international expansion and the intelligence platform now, while carriers shop for new models and Helium is the only one filling the gap. But today's emissions fund rewards, not growth. Every infrastructure company hits the moment where proven demand outruns its capital model. This is ours, and we close it with a finite, on-chain capitalization.

The moment to capitalize

The proposal, in four moves

A deployer earnings floor

A safety net under deployer earnings

The problem: deployer earnings have been exposed to HNT price swings, with no guaranteed floor in dollars.

This fixes it. Deployers earn HNT worth at least 50% of what carriers actually pay, every epoch. If HNT falls far enough that normal rewards dip below that floor, the protocol tops them back up. If HNT rises, deployers keep the full upside, the floor never caps them, and as carrier rates climb the floor rises automatically.

Earnings are a share of carrier demand, not a fixed slice of a pie. More adoption means more traffic flowing through the Network, which grows what deployers can earn.

The problem: deployer earnings have been exposed to HNT price swings, with no guaranteed floor in dollars.

Earnings are a share of carrier demand, not a fixed slice of a pie. More adoption means more traffic flowing through the Network, which grows what deployers can earn.

Capitalize operations and growth

Fuel to expand, on-chain and capped

A capped HNT mint into a public on-chain vault: one authorization, about 141M HNT, paid out over about 36 months and ending on its own. Yes, this increases HNT supply. It is finite and bounded.

Two reasons it is needed now. First, the Network has been subsidizing the gap between the protocol rate and what carriers commercially pay, and that subsidy is not sustainable. Second, reaching carrier scale takes capital that the fixed issuance schedule cannot provide. Demand is proven and now is the time to invest.

New issuance runs flat for the first 12 months, then tapers to zero over the following 24 months and stops on its own, no future vote required. Every dollar funds Network growth: international carrier expansion, deployer programs, and the carrier platform. None of it flows to on-chain Hotspot rewards. Every outflow is visible on-chain in real time, overseen by the Community Advisory Council, and the community can vote to shut it off at any point.

A capped HNT mint into a public on-chain vault: one authorization, about 141M HNT, paid out over about 36 months and ending on its own. Yes, this increases HNT supply. It is finite and bounded.

A Community Advisory Council

Oversight and a kill switch

A 7-seat council provides real oversight on capitalization: 5 seats community-elected, 2 from Nova.

The council gets real visibility into spending and carrier dealings, publishes regular disclosures, and can trigger a community vote to shut the mint off entirely. Nova's two seats cannot trigger that vote, and cannot block it either.

This is more transparency than most public companies give shareholders.

A 7-seat council provides real oversight on capitalization: 5 seats community-elected, 2 from Nova.

This is more transparency than most public companies give shareholders.

Retire Proof-of-Coverage

Earn for being useful

Hotspots stop earning just for being plugged in. They earn for carrying real carrier traffic.

This applies to both the Mobile and IoT networks. A 20% larger data pool flows immediately to the deployers actually serving users. The more useful a Hotspot, the more its deployer earns.

Hotspots stop earning just for being plugged in. They earn for carrying real carrier traffic.

This applies to both the Mobile and IoT networks. A 20% larger data pool flows immediately to the deployers actually serving users. The more useful a Hotspot, the more its deployer earns.

What it means if it passes

What changes with this Proposal

Deployers earn from real utility, with a dollar-anchored floor protecting the downside.

The Network gets capital to expand internationally and ship the carrier platform.

HNT reads more clearly as a use-backed asset: rewards track real demand, not an outdated target.

The community gains a standing oversight body with disclosure rights and a kill switch.

The model moves toward self-sustaining economics as carrier revenue scales.

What does NOT change with this Proposal

The halving schedule, preserved

veHNT lockups, multipliers, and voting

The 6% delegator allocation

The Data Credit burn mechanism

Helium's Next Era
Starts Now

This proposal contains four significant changes which are being proposed in parallel because they all depend on each other. The council exists to oversee the capitalization, the floor protects deployers through growth, and utility rewards graduate Helium from proof to sustainability. Read the full proposal, challenge the assumptions, and bring the hard questions.

Join the conversation in Discord.

Read the full Proposal