[Noggin Noms] Why Helium Gave up its L1 Status (and Premium)

Welcome to Noggin Noms: A Linkable Notebook of My Annotative Reads & Listens

About Helium

• Was founded a while back as a web2 company, but couldn’t bootstrap or compete with ATT until Crypto Boom happened in 2017.

Why did Helium move to Solana?

• When Helium started, there wasn’t an alternative to Ethereum for HNT to build, and HNT worried that ETH wouldn’t scale well, leading to them starting the Helium L1

• Helium needs smart contract capabilities (like how Filecoin needs FVM to make logic programmable)

• Why Solana

  • Speed: Solana user experience is web2-like, and a lot of Helium users are nonweb3 native

  • Rust makes it easier for new dev to onboard

  • Key compatibility makes it easier to migrate: current Helium wallet private keys are compatible with Solana, which isn’t the case with some other blockchains. Tokens can “magically” move over to Solana without any “affirmative action” required for current holders

  • Solana’s focus on mobile and hardware

  • Existing relationship with senior management at Solana

  • Network effect and wallets

  • Speed to finality/transactions to confirm

• ~6.8% inflation rewards moves to the validator. now can save those rewards (back to the pool)

• Frictionless migration