Initially dubbed as the “People’s network”, this platform promised to unite thousands of American households into a single large network that would elevate the IoT concept to the next level. At the same time, owners of equipment sold by the company would generate profits by collecting cryptocurrencies when their devices are connected to the network and plugged into an electricity outlet.
Founders promised democracy and that all profits generated by the increase of the price of the native token would be fairly distributed among all users.
The dream that never came true
Helium has been receiving a lot of backlashes recently with even companies like Forbes piling on. While the crypto industry has many interesting projects with immense utility, it turned out that Helium is not only not one of such projects, but it is also a scheme designed to enrich several people who were either founders or their friends.
The downfall of the company started with leaked documents that revealed that several individuals hoarded most of the tokens. Just 30 digital wallets that were connected to the network mined over 3,5 million HNT (native Helium token) which is just a couple of hundred thousand shies of 50% of all mined tokens. This massive amount was mined within the first three months.
The market cap of HNT was close to $250 million at some point. Even now, the market cap is quite sizeable and hovers over $21 million. By trading at an opportune moment and hoarding tokens, the founders of the company and some of their chosen employees managed to obtain wealth while individual users of the network purchased equipment at a loss and did not see any rewards.
The crypto industry must get rid of these parasites
Many interesting platforms that offer actual utility and have ways to monetize their services without scamming their users may lose credibility if companies like Helium continue wreaking havoc. We need to remove such bad actors from the domain and focus on supporting networks that have bright futures and something valuable to offer. Helium is certainly not one of them.