Overview
Helium is a wireless network built by ordinary people. Instead of a phone company building towers, individuals install small hotspots at home or in shops and earn HNT tokens for providing coverage. It was founded in 2013 by Amir Haleem and Napster co-founder Shawn Fanning, and its company is now called Nova Labs.
Helium is the original DePIN project (“decentralized physical infrastructure network”): it uses token rewards to build real-world infrastructure. Since April 2023, it has run on the Solana blockchain.
How it works
Helium has two networks:
- IoT network: long-range, low-power coverage (LoRaWAN) for sensors and trackers, such as pet trackers, parking sensors or farm equipment. Hundreds of thousands of hotspots provide it in many countries.
- Mobile network: 5G and Wi-Fi hotspots that provide phone data. Major carriers, including AT&T, send (“offload”) some of their customers’ data through Helium hotspots, paying for it. By mid-2025, thousands of terabytes had been offloaded.
When people and companies use the network, they pay with Data Credits, which are created by burning HNT. Hotspot owners earn HNT based on coverage and usage.
Helium Mobile and its sale
In 2023, Nova Labs launched Helium Mobile, a cheap US phone plan that used Helium hotspots plus T-Mobile’s network. It grew to about 600,000 accounts by the end of 2025.
In 2026, Helium Mobile was sold to Noble Mobile, a telecom startup founded by former US presidential candidate Andrew Yang. Nova Labs says the Helium network and HNT are unchanged, but the network lost its own consumer brand.
The HNT token
| HNT at a glance | |
|---|---|
| Maximum supply | 223 million HNT |
| In circulation (Oct 2026) | about 197 million |
| Price (21 Oct 2026) | about $0.44 |
| All-time high | about $54.88 (November 2021) |
| Market cap | about $90 million (#308) |
HNT rewards hotspot owners and is burned when people use the network. In 2025, Helium merged its separate IOT and MOBILE tokens back into HNT, simplifying the system. HNT started 2026 near $1.40 and fell as low as about $0.17 in August before partly recovering.
Security and reliability
Helium’s network runs on Solana and has not suffered major hacks. The main risks:
- Business changes. Selling Helium Mobile removed a key source of demand and brand recognition.
- Hotspot economics. Early hotspot owners earned large rewards; today most earn little, and many hotspots have gone offline.
- Credibility. In 2022, reporting revealed that Helium had overstated partnerships with companies such as Lime and Salesforce, damaging trust.
- Revenue vs. value. Network income from data and offload is growing but remains small.
Helium vs. the competition
| Helium | Grass | Render | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What users provide | Wireless coverage (hotspots) | Internet bandwidth | GPU power |
| Customers | Carriers, IoT companies | AI companies | Artists, AI teams |
| Blockchain | Solana | Solana | Solana |
| Token model | Burn for Data Credits | Rewards | Burn-and-mint |
Our verdict
Helium proved that ordinary people can build real infrastructure with token rewards: its coverage exists, and big carriers pay to use it. It remains the reference project for DePIN.
But the token has fallen about 99% from its peak, rewards for hotspot owners are much smaller, and the sale of Helium Mobile leaves questions about growth. HNT is a high-risk investment, and buying a hotspot today is unlikely to pay for itself quickly. Invest only what you can afford to lose.
This review is for information only and is not financial advice.