Helium’s Migration to Solana Proposal Now Open

BlockchainOther News
Written By Francisko Kim


Around two weeks ago, Helium (HNT) developers announced that they were considering migrating the network to Solana’s (SOL) blockchain. Helium (HNT) runs on a proof-of-coverage (PoC) network in which users operate hotspot devices that act as nodes.

Last night (9/13/22), around 8:30 PM EST, Helium released its proposal to migrate Helium’s tokens and governance to the Solana blockchain. Proof-of-coverage and Data Transfer Accounting would be moved to dedicated Helium Oracles. The Helium network would continue to run in the same way but the move would allow for more HNT available for rewards, better reliability, more utility for the tokens, and more ecosystem support. 

The proposal, named HIP 70, is available online and is open for voting until September 21, 2022.

View the full HIP GitHub details page

Algorand Founders Propose Moving Helium to ALGO Instead

Algorand’s (ALGO) founder and CTO, Silvio Micali and John Woods respectively, have announced via Twitter that Algorand is interested and ready to explore options of moving Helium to Algorand instead of Solana. Woods stated that Helium requires a secure, robust, and scalable blockchain, which Algorant meets.

Algorand is a permissionless proof-of-stake blockchain and the token ALGO is ranked 31 crypto with a market cap of $2.1 billion USD. The blockchain was designed to speed up transactions, improve efficiency, and lower transaction fees. Algorand is staked automatically on crypto wallets and exchanges, without the need to join a staking pool. Rewards are claimed every time a transaction occurs to or from your Algorand wallet. Funds are also not locked up and can be transferred, used, or withdrawn at any time. 

Read the upgrade press release

Algorand recently went through a protocol upgrade that introduced state proofs for trustless cross-chain communication and up to 5 times performance boost. The upgrade allowed the network to increase from 1,200 to 6,000 transactions per second. The upgrade is also readying the network for more cross-blockchain interoperability. 

Since Helium’s launch in 2019, there are nearly 1 million active hotspots operated by users. There are currently 939,913 hotspots (around 8,000 more hotspots than on September 1, 2022) with 64% online. The hotspots are currently in 73,152 cities spread across 182 countries. This is 664 more cities than on September 1.

Helium also offers staking capabilities. To run a validator node, a stake of at least 10,000 HNT is required (worth around $47,600 at the time of writing). There are currently a total of 32.29 million HNT staked by 3,629 validators (around 37.7% of HNT’s circulating supply)

Francisko Kim
Previous

Bitcoin Chart
Next

FAL Crypto Minute: 09/12/2022