Senet and Helium Announce LoRaWAN Network Integration Partnership
senetco.com
senetco.com
So then, what's the resource underlying HNT? Unlicensed ISM spectrum (and perhaps antenna rent, and latent internet backhaul). Which is actually kind of a scary thought, because among all crypto fuels, this one is actually very scarce. Sure, 900MHz is relatively underutilized and so spamming LoRa basestations every 100m isn't the end of the world; but imagine a logical extension of Helium into 2.4, 5GHz spectrum, where suddenly your home wifi is fighting for signal with 100s of venture-backed mining rigs on every street corner.
Not saying good can't come from it, I do appreciate crypto concepts that actually try to accomplish something productive as a byproduct, and after all ample coverage of a cheap data network is a good thing, but the spectrum is fundamentally a shared resource, and needs to be approached carefully.
This is the beauty of the proof of coverage scheme. Its an awesome way to distribute rewards to people who provide valuable coverage while simultaneously creating a force to disperse over a large geographic area.
The nodes need space between them
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It’s certainly a weird project, and watching the corporation contort itself into something coordinated enough to drive partnerships like this but decentralized enough to qualify as a cryptocurrency is a sight to behold.
The governance of this project isn’t “decentralized” in any strict sense of the word, but the separation of the dewi alliance from the main corporate entity is interesting.
The self-imposed technical constraints are equally fun to observe. The scaling issues (gossiping blockchain data across 100k+ raspberry pi devices with no broker) are insane, and the incentive mechanism for “validators” is an interesting incremental solution. Specifically, people ”stake” $200k on cheap cloud servers, which might earn money for a few hrs a week when elected to a “consensus group.” This made sense historically (on distributed raspberry pi devices) but is now really strange compared to most other blockchains where validators earn consistently.
Every one of these issues is a bottomless pit of learning opportunities as worlds collide (economics, telecom incentives, cryptocurrency price swings, hobbyist antennas, etc…).
I’m no maximalist (I’ve sold lots of coins), but there is something deeply fun about watching _anybody_ try to do something novel to compete against the old guard. That’s why I was up at 6am today to fiddle with an antenna on a friend’s roof.
> The Helium Network, also known as “The People’s Network”,
...and add the fact that LoRa and LoRaWAN is corporate-controlled and patented. This is all astroturfing.
Do we really need yet another proprietary radio standard?
> “proof-of-coverage” transactions earn Hotspot owners HNT cryptocurrency
Yikes.
the helium network viability is that using the network doesn't burden the consumers with the cryptocurrency's fluctuations in price or necessarily dealing with it at all. Consumers are able to use Data Credits which have a fixed price, creating data credits (DC) destroys the HNT token - of which the consumer or their future ISP will have to buy/acquire Helium tokens to do. So it creates a decent incentive for providers to build and expand the network (to earn HNT) and also a demand side as consumers (or their ISPs) to buy and destroy helium to create DC.
The antenna/routers do not use much energy and instead rely on a geographic distance which determines if they earn more or less HNT based on the coverage they are providing to the network.
However, nothing really competes with the coverage of cellular networks yet. Even this press release boasts about being present in 29 states. An impressive accomplishment, but it’s a non-starter for any mass market products.
If the price is low enough then this could be very attractive for local applications like sensor monitoring, smart meters, and other low bandwidth operations.
The money to pay for the crypto currency (helium) you get paid in must be coming from companies that will benefit from having these radios working.
I know it's not that there is not legit use for this in terms of sensors. But there's also no way for me to restrict devices that in things I purchase from being part of this network.
It comes from inflation. There is an emission schedule.
The demand to offset the inflation comes from the people/organizations that want to send data over these networks - which is not the device sellers or the people that own them. Data Credits have a fixed dollar amount so the cost to use the network is always predictable, but creating a data credit requires acquiring/purchasing Helium tokens and destroying them. So the more subscribers to send data over the network, the greater demand there is for Helium tokens in order to create Data Credits.
The companies that benefit from the radios working make dollars from selling hardware to people that want to earn HNT and expand the network.
Yes, there is now a reason for there to be a lot of IOT devices reporting stuff. Okay.
If you come up with a peer-to-peer network technology, and you want people to take it seriously, don’t try to make a quick buck off it. If it needs payments for routing or whatever, just use an existing payment technology like lightning or something.
It would be hard to sound more like a hype scam if they tried: “Powered by the Helium Blockchain, The People’s Network represents a paradigm shift for decentralized wireless infrastructure.”
Edit: against my better judgment I read some of the technical stuff on their site. This is either decentralized in name only or vulnerable to Sybil attacks.
This is probably the most socially useful, productive means of mining crypto conceived so far.
So funny watching bitter losers at hackernews get everything about blockchain wrong and stay poor over the past 10 years.
- Throw in some buzzwords you don't really understand like "lightning" (does not apply to helium as it is a protocol based on bitcoin script)
- use the word "scam" because you don't own any and you didn't invest a few months ago when it was pennies.
- sprinkle in some unfounded FUD about decentralization and Sybil attacks because you're bitter you still don't own any
Helium is the fastest growing wireless network on the planet.
There are currently 190,000 hotspots over the globe, up from 20,000 6-months ago. https://explorer.helium.com/
...but but but against your better judgement you read some of the technical stuff... wooooowwwww
Call me when the Helium node count drops below 100,000 again and I'll congratulate you and thank you for warning everyone about this "scam" before it was too late.
There are already thousands of societal beneficial uses of lorawan.
No one wanted tvs to spy on them via the internet connections, they just wanted connected tvs with built in streaming devices. Today for any privacy you have to buy your own streaming device and not connect your tv itself to the internet. In the very near future, most devices will come with a low power radio that can't be turned off (just like you basically can't turn off the ubiquitous spying from your streaming connected tv). This network aids that.
They clearly have some sort of central issuance because they have an airdrop. Their “proof” mechanism is either centralized or Sybil vulnerable - haven’t bothered checking which.
> So funny watching bitter losers at hackernews get everything about blockchain wrong and stay poor over the past 10 years.
This is a hilariously off-the-mark shot. I have nothing against blockchain when used where it’s actually useful (I.e. for solving double-spend or zooko). This, however, seems like a silly misapplication.
> Throw in some buzzwords you don't really understand like "lightning"
I think you did not understand what I said, which is that payment for network services should use normal payment mechanisms instead of special ones.
200k operators climbing their roof to deploy beneficial coverage beg to differ
I think a deeper dive is warranted on what and how they are "paying" people. Helium tokens are used as an incentive to bootstrap a network, but in the future part of payment for network services like you mentioned. I think this is one of the purest uses of crypto... less as currency replacement but more sharing in a network's future.
As soon as I found out I couldn't stand up my own DIY helium miner and start providing coverage and making money I became entirely disinterested.
That said, there are 50 HW manufacturers queued up to supply. Incorporating Helium into an existing Lora framework is very easy.
In fact, Helium is seeing an interesting phenomena where the PoC mining tech is becoming bundled with existing HW platforms because the material costs are so cheap. Projects are now bootstrapping on top of Helium.
How did they arrive at $40 I'm not too sure. It seems like a moderate amount?
- An organization different from Helium Inc. disperses keys to hardware manufacturers.
- Said independent org also performs an audit and approval process.
- Improvements to the network are crowdsourced and voted by rough consensus.
- Anybody can make suggestions or implementations similar to ethereum improvement proposals.
- Once deployed, there is no way to remove the node from the network.
- Nobody has banning or revocation abilities.
This is one of more interesting parts of the Helium network. It's wholly not forkable. Helium hotspot owners get their firmware updated automatically... which again seems like a big negative (single company controlled hardware) but it's imperative for this stage of network bootstrapping. I want Helium to tightly control quality now to get to a level of resources where trust itself can be disaggregated amongst DIY hotspots and firmware developers.
Indeed, that’s why helium is DINO (decentralized in name only).
> I have nothing against blockchain when used where it’s actually useful (I.e. for solving double-spend or zooko).
In order to join the network and start mining, you've got to buy $80 worth of gear from some company marked up to $600. That company then has to pay $40 to the Helium company in order for them to generate private keys that let your miner join the network and start making money.
Helium is just https://network.fon.com/ on a different frequency + a bunch of unneeded crypto bullshit that hides the grift.
Call me when I can stand up my helium miner based on open source hardware and software and make money using that.
Helium will go down as one of quote unquote "actual uses for blockchain".
The proof is here. Lorawan coverage is now a solved problem.
The Helium network does a variety of things to mitigate sybil attacks by requiring/incentivizing geographic distance between the routers.
There are other proof-of-coverage systems where all of your criticisms would apply, such as MXC (the hotspot version, not the exchange) as they do allow individuals to just hoard a bunch of hotspots in one place and try to earn, reducing the health of the network. You should reserve your judgements for the ones doing it wrong and compare it to the ones doing it right or at least differently.
so basically, nobody cares about that particular area of centralization and it allows for vetted hardware that meets some additional standards to come onto the network (at one point they didn't gatekeep and allowed any hardware).
I think this role can go away though.
except for anyone who cares about cryptosystems actually being cryptographically secure and decentralized instead of just serving as a thin excuse to drive hype.
> I think this role can go away though.
The eternal refrain of shitcoins is “I think we can fix this later”. That never seems to end up being correct.
If it is a goal and a part of a threat surface, I care about it
If its not, I don’t care about it and it can exist as part of a gradient instead of being a line in the sand to complain about
Helium is working now to launch "light hotspots" the fee for which is $10. When light hotspots launch (retail price is ~$150) all current hotspots will get a software update.
Finally, the fees act as a spam/scam filter only while the proof of coverage concept is necessary. When (if) a sufficient volume of data is moving through the network, the fees will no longer be needed.