Last month, I finally got into the crypto craze. I was dragged into it thanks to my readers along with a large number of commenters on my Helium hotspot post from 11 months ago. It turns out the Helium hotspot that has sat on my windowsill for a little more than a year helpfully providing a LoRa network to anyone within range has also been mining Helium Network Tokens (HNT), which are now worth real money.
I knew it was mining those tokens to create an incentive for people to buy the hotspots and provide more network coverage. I wrote at least two articles on the topic, and was excited by the way Helium was rethinking the economics of a wide area network.
What I hadn’t been focused on were the tokens themselves. Yes, I vaguely tracked the debates taking place in various forums about how tokens were mined and potential forks in the code, but I was operating the hotspot as a grand experiment in IoT networks, not for any hope of future value.
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Then last month, after people kept emailing me about HNTs and seeing that the routers were all sold out, I took a closer look at the app. In doing so, I noticed an update that offered me the chance to convert my HNTs to a dollar figure, so I clicked it. And all of a sudden those 1,100+ HNTs turned into $10,876 and some change. (They fluctuate, like all cryptocurrencies. As of Thursday evening, 1,100 HNT are worth $16,500.)
When I told to Kevin about this, at first he laughed at me. Then he told me how I could turn that imaginary Helium money into actual cash. Y’all may roll your eyes, but I can explain what the blockchain is and even understand the concepts behind mining. And yet, for me, the blockchain is best used for building trust and accountability between machines, whereas the entire cryptocurrency market is merely a digression.
Indeed, the market for cryptocurrencies has always struck me as less about tech and more about day trading. I’ve got nothing against it, but it’s not something I’m eager to latch onto, either. Or rather, I didn’t used to be. But with potentially $10,000 in found money from a LoRaWAN hotspot, I decided to open a Binance account and see if I could turn those HNTs into cold hard cash.
In the process, I stumbled upon a Reddit thread full of people asking how to capitalize on the apparent rise in the value of HNTs. There were two classes of poster: the miners, and those who buy and resell HNTs as the price rises. A class of miners was strategizing where they should place their hotspots and how many hotspots would saturate an area, leading to slower mining of HNTs. Someone had also posted about trying to cover a wider area by placing the hotspot on a flagpole on a hill.
I was searching the post replies for a retired network engineer to explain how water, mountains, buildings, and other RF nemeses would affect the HNTs’ earnings potential. It was like watching network optimization driven by day traders — surreal and kind of wonderful.
At some point, after realizing that I had the potential for real money sitting in my app, I showed it to my husband, a man who in college in the late 90s would go to yard sales to pick up old beer signs and resell them on eBay in one of the first efforts at internet arbitrage. He’s someone who can spot an opportunity.
He looked at the volatility in the HNT market and raced up to my office to tell me exactly when to trade those HNTs I had moved into Binance for cash. We ended up transferring about 700 HNTs into the platform and converting 600 or so to cash. We then transferred $5,000 (which was the limit at the time) to our bank.
We subsequently moved additional HNTs over to Binance, where we’d convert them when the price of a token rose to $20. When our conversions reached $5,000, we took that out and left the rest, with some of the HNTs in Binance and the rest in the Helium app. The price of HNTs has since fallen to around $15 each. I currently have about 450 of them, with a few more getting mined each day.
I was bemused by the whole experience. I had turned my nerdy thrill of hosting a public LoRa hotspot into $10,000 and based on the current price of HNTs, stand to make about $5,000 more — all while my hotspot keeps on mining additional HNTs. It’s like finding money on the sidewalk.
But I still can’t say why these tokens are rising in value. The idea is that customers who want to use the Helium network of public hotspots use HNTs to buy data credits on the network. A data credit is worth $0.00001, which means that $1 gets you 10,000 data credits. When an HNT buys a data credit, the HNT is burned, so as people use the network and buy more data credits, the overall number of HNTs could drop (although more are continuously being mined).
A data credit is worth a packet of data on the network (roughly 24 bytes), which is enough to send a GPS location, time, and temperature, or another bit of data. If you had a sensor transmit every five minutes, the year-round cost would be $1.05 on the Helium network.
Customers are already using the network. A company that makes mousetraps has decided to connect its products using Helium, while a university is using it to building connected products for the school and students.
Frank Mong, the COO of Helium, can’t explain the fluctuations in HNTs, but he’s thrilled to see all the excitement around setting up hotspots. Every time someone sets up a hotspot to mine the tokens, Helium gains another geographic area with LoRa coverage. In other words, Helium’s original idea for setting up a low-cost network for IoT devices is finally working.
“We are getting closer to our dream of creating the right kind of tools to connect sensors in a low-cost and open manner,” Mong told me. “And this incentive structure using cryptocurrency could be bigger than LoRaWAN.”
If you want to get involved with the crazy world of network crypto, be aware that because of the global chip shortage and high demand, there is currently a back order of 150,000 hotspots. But if you’re like me and want to provide network coverage for a burgeoning IoT network — and maybe pick up a bit of cash as everyone dives into cryptocurrencies — I can think of worse ways to spend the roughly $400 it costs to buy a hotspot.
Great article. You mention a 150K unit backlog, where is this data from?
Frank Mong, COO of Helium
Please link to the mousetrap site and the university examples in your story. What devices use the Helium network?
The mousetrap company is Victor Mousetraps and there’s a list of some Helium customers here: https://www.helium.com/use#casestudies
Hi, I use the Helium device as a LoRaWAN gateway. On the Helium console, on the top left, a number is shown under data credit, is that the number you are talking about? I have set up an account on Binance. How do I transfer the HNTs to Binance? Thanks.
I see everything in the Helium app. It will show you the tokens you earned and from there, you can get a QR code to send your tokens to Binance. Do note, that some states won’t let you use Binance, so pay attention to that. Binance makes it pretty obvious.
Good call, Stacey! Just remember, the first ones into a Ponzi scheme usually do pretty well…
Lol you have no idea what you’re talking about! Good luck staying poor.
Yeah, I’m poor. LOL. Dumbass.
Ponzi scheme! haha do your homework bud
Very informative, and great purchase! I just have a question on what the cost is to run the unit and are you using the basic or advanced plan that you have to pay for? I’m just curious on the cost for the advanced version. Trying to get my hands on a couple units, eBay sales are already getting up there since they are all on back order.
past performance doesn’t guarantee that you won’t lose money
it is nice to read how people are bragging making money, but none of them warn you that you could lose more before winning anything.
helium it’s in an alfa stage, don’t invest money that you can’t aford to lose
Tempted to join – any thoughts on which hub to get? What are the key factors to look at? We live in downtown Montreal / residential area. What should I guesstimate to expect? Yes, am very new to this – thanks!
Any of the hubs they sell will work and there is an entire Reddit and Discord group on the topic you can check out. You can also look at the coverage map to see what hotspots near you are earning. But this is not a quick way to earn a buck. I did spend all year mining the tokens I sold, and there is no rhyme or reason for the gains. I literally put this thing in place because I wanted to be part of an IoT network.
You shouldnt have told your husband lest anyone about the advancements and rise in price. You should try to hold on to the coins as long as possible as there might not be any immediate emergency to sell them off for you anyways. Just hold the coins for 5 or 10 years and let it rest there and you might be able to sell them then at even higher prices hopefully and might be useful for even your kids then. Regards for getting in at this at the very best time. I would have wished to have a small miner here at my home in India but alas I knew about all this only today and I cant buy one now from anywhere 🙂
Cool story bro
Hey Stacey good Job !! Looks you have made a lot of research on this Helium craze. Is there anything you came across regarding the halving of the rewards and the implications on the profitability of the investment ?
This is a ponzi scheme that is based on a good idea. The circuit schematics for a node is available and you can build one yourself to contribute to the network but your homegrown node will not receive any HNT because??? Ponzi?
Also, there are ways to run these nodes as virtual hotspots in software where entire networks of these can be faked while still earning HNT.
Stacey, I bought one of the original Helium hotspots after your first article because I liked the idea of helping build out a LoRaWAN network. Like you, I was surprised to see that I had actually made some money. Then I started doing some research and realized there are tax implications. It looks like coins earned through mining are taxed as regular income based on their value on the day you mine them. You then also have to consider capital gains when you sell them. So, $10K isn’t really $10K.
I am aware of that, but I figure found money is still found money and paying taxes on it is still fine 🙂
My question is if we get taxed and/or receive a form or some type of documentation from the People’s Network to submit on/or pay taxes.
Like you “found money still found money” but I will love some light on the taxes topic in relation to my HNT earnings.
Additionally, if you could provide an example of what was your taxation it will be greatly appreciated.
Please confirm me is it worth Helium mining in remote areas without single other miners? Suggest me if there are any options?
Is it possible to buy the Helium device & run it in Asia? specifically Japan? Thanks for your cooperation in advance!
Yes you can!