Helium is a global distributed hotspot network that creates public, remote wireless coverage for lorawan-enabled iot devices.

Create a truly decentralized and trust-free model for building wireless infrastructure.

At present, global telecom operators have built mobile cellular networks covering the whole world. However, although 2G, 3G, 4G and other cellular networks cover a wide distance, iot devices based on mobile cellular communication technology have disadvantages of large power consumption and high cost. The current carrying capacity of mobile cellular network is not enough to support the connection between object and object. In intelligent home, industrial data collection and other communication scenarios, short-range communication technology is generally used, but for a wide range of long-distance connections, long-distance communication technology is needed.

There is a strong demand for low-power WAN in the area of Internet of Things. Helium is currently using LoRaWAN as the mainstream protocol, which is compatible with many devices and has a wide audience.

HNT is the native token of the Helium Blockchain and has two primary uses: as a means of rewarding Helium Hotspot operators for their participation in building and protecting the network, and as the basis for data credits (DCS) generated by burning Helium tokens. These DCS are used to pay for all transactions on the network.

Proof of coverage: A method for verifying the state of large-scale physical wireless networks. The Helium Blockchain relies on Honeybadger BFT, a method of reaching consensus between a group of nodes connected by unreliable links.

Helium Hotspot operators have five ways to earn coins: 1. Network Data Transfer: Helium Hotspot operators transmit data packets from devices using the network and are rewarded proportionally for their overall share of data transfer. 2. Proof of coverage: The Helium Hotspot operator verifies its peer's wireless coverage 3. Witness: Helium Hotspot operator monitoring and reporting proof of coverage 4. Consensus group: The Helium Hotspot operator validates transactions and releases new blocks. The likelihood of participating in this consensus process is based on the reputation score, which varies according to the coverage of proof of participation 5. Challenge: Select the Helium Hotspot carrier to encrypt messages sent over the Internet to the Helium Hotspot carrier target group. Proof of coverage use these challenges to verify wireless coverage.

Helium is the only product in the blockchain ecosystem that offers low-power, wide-coverage wireless network access, and has a significant competitive advantage within the track. Combined with the incentive mechanism of blockchain, it is naturally superior to traditional Internet of Things operators in terms of equipment construction cost and promotion speed at the early stage of the project.

Helium's model is different from that of traditional enterprises in that tokens are used to incentivize customers to buy mems (popular devices), which offloads the cost of building projects in the start-up phase. In terms of cost, it is ahead of the current low power wan on the market.

(1) Miner cost and revenue risk: Currently, the monthly returns of mems are highly differentiated, which is influenced by terrain openness, deployment height, antenna signal strength, and actual data transmission based on Helium landing applications. If miners are not optimized for their geographic environment, the cycle can be much longer. 2. Risk of network stability: According to Helium white paper, it aims to provide wireless network access with wide coverage and low power consumption for Internet of Things devices. However, in actual situation, due to some physical obstacles, it is unknown whether the signals can be received steadily. 3. Scale of Iot devices: The global Internet market share in the rising, iot equipment installation quantity is also increasing, but the reality is at present because of the limitation of application scenarios, and communication on the Internet of things on benefit tend to use more cellular communication network, so the Helium wireless network may be due to no enough iot devices used, As a result, the profit of miners is small, and even the phenomenon of miners offline, finally forming a negative cycle.

With the development of the Internet of Things and the popularity of iot devices, the installation and data volume of corresponding devices are increasing exponentially. Global low Power Wide Area Network (LPWA) connections have exploded in the last five years. LPWAN connectivity is ambitious, but it will depend on reliable market drivers to make it happen. The 5G network that Helium plans to deploy in the future is also something to look forward to.