What does HIP51 have to do with ETH?
Let’s go back to 2015 to take a look at the course of some different cryptocurrencies that are still around today. Bitcoin, a couple hundred dollars at this time, had been established for around 6 years, but contained some fundamental shortcomings a developer named Vitalik detailed in what are now known as the Ethereum White Papers. In this document, among other concerns, Vitalik addresses the need to establish a platform on which developers could upload their software without being bogged down by blockchain development. He proposed the Ethereum blockchain, which provides this service to software engineers for a fee and in doing so has created an ecosystem, very similar to the internet providing a space for websites to be built. Ethereum provides a blockchain on which smart contracts and other software can be onboarded, where they will continue to run functions and store its data.
ETH was under one dollar at that time.
Consider the Helium blockchain a framework on which the transactions and protocols of the Helium software are stored. HIP51 proposed that Helium, the framework Nova Labs has developed, and that is maintained by the community, should allow engineers to onboard onto the blockchain in order to provide other services. This is where the colloquialism, “A Network of Networks” comes from.
The Improvement Proposal was passed in a landslide of historical voter participation; The People were clear in what they wanted from their Network!
Helium, like ETH, and like the internet itself, will be providing a framework on which an ecosystem yet to see its adolescence will blossom over the next decades. Developers have been incubating a grid of sensors, their coverage, app integration, data storage, logistical transportation, and services that needed a canvas that has just been delivered. This industry can now build on this framework!
Bitcoin was launched in 2009 at $0, and 15 years later, after an all time high of $64,400, is valued today at over $20,600. ETH was launched in 2015 at .31 cents per coin, and after an all time high of over $4,800, is valued today at over $1000 a coin, 8 years after its genesis.
In 2019, HNT was valued around 30 cents, and today is under 3 years old…
We are not giving investment advice, but would like to emphasize the importance of zooming out when evaluating the prospective of new industries. No one knew what *Netflix, Uber, Amazon, etc. would mean to the market, so as with BTC, and ETH, HNT is set to disrupt without destroying, and by doing so has poised itself to be launched into the center of Web3. (*We aren't guaranteeing Helium's growth to mirror to these trajectories.)
Rather than invoking a repulse response, the industry has embraced the Helium network’s incentivization model and is chomping at the bit for the opportunity to partner with this growing ecosystem, in hopes to be absorbed rather than erased. HIP51 creates an ecosystem out of the Helium blockchain for wireless connection and software innovation into the future, the way Ethereum has created an ecosystem for blockchain adaptation for software engineers, both of which propel this new and evolving landscape into exciting and yet to be discovered places. We’re proud to be building on The People’s Network, and are looking forward to the next several exciting decades.
Acquaint yourself here with some of the many ways RAKwireless and MNTD. are working with industry leaders to build a better future by reimagining the world of data!
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