As of August 12th, 2022, the 5G activation process has begun! The update of a few chain variables began the activation, as the teams monitored the progress. Based on the size of the change, they took precautions and moved slowly to ensure things continued to run smoothly. The second step in the process was to activate subnet v1 and fund the treasuries. Then the team ran their final checks to ensure subnetwork rewards can be issued, and lastly began to issue the initial subnet tokens. The Helium and Nova teams increased their communication to around half hour updates through the process, providing the community with maximum clarity while undertaking this massive and exciting upgrade.
Soon hotspot owners will be able to attach MNTD. modification kits to their existing LoRaWAN hotspots that will enable 5G rewards, allowing the to simultaneously obtain both the $IOT and $MOBILE Tokens. The implementation also paves the way to enable multi-mining of other tokens on Helium hotspots. This is the first big step towards the ambitious “Network of Networks” proposed in HIP 59 and it’s exciting to be able to watch these goals be reached in real time. An example wallet can be seen below where the new $MOBILE token has its own field.
One can also observe the status of the small cell.
So far the implementation is going well. The two DAO treasuries have been announced; 25 billion $MOBILE to the Helium Foundation and a 15 billion $MOBILE grant to Nova labs. An additional 10 billion $MOBILE is set aside as genesis rewards for 5G hotspot owners who’ve helped bootstrap the network thus far. Hotspot owners immediately began reporting their Mobile earnings and have been close to what has been predicted by the Helium 5G Hotspot Bot on Twitter (@5GHotspotBot). The estimated average earnings as of August 13th per Small Cell Radio during Genesis is 30,740 $MOBILE for indoor, 76,860 for Outdoor, and 122,980 for High Power.
Price speculation followed shortly after, despite firm rules in the Helium Discord not to discuss price. Hotspot owners immediately began to inquire about staking their $MOBILE via a staking pool, which can be viewed as an interest earning savings account. There are many exciting plans for additional features on most Helium related apps and software services to accommodate monitoring and estimating your 5G earnings. The team at Hotspotty has developed 5G Rewards Calculator delivered with their distinguished vapor wave aesthetic.
This feature allows users to easily enter the quantity and variety of 5G Small Cell radios they have in order to quickly calculate your $MOBILE earnings.
There is even a simple calculator tool to allow you to quickly speculate on price to estimate your ROI. We won’t know what the value of the $MOBILE token is until the Mobile DAO treasury is established, likely at least a few months from launch.
The MOBILE Genesis represents the remarkable achievements of the teams at Nova Labs and Helium Foundation, working together to establish a recognizable and rapidly expanding ecosystem of software and hardware developers. The People’s Network, now securing an even stronger foothold in the Telecom world, offering more than just Roaming partnerships, by offering network participants ownership and governance. This is a first in this space and is going to pave the way for future generations of mobile networks where the public owned, decentralized model will dominate.
Crypto markets appear to be on the mend, retracing gains previously lost in the depths of this long crypto Winter. BTC is up over 20% in the last 30 days, with over a 5% gain in the last week alone, while ETH has climbed nearly 75% in the last 30 days (although it has now reached a plateau). Helium, the lofty newcomer, continues its streak of buoyancy withstanding market pressure to find firm support in the mid $8 range. The price of HNT has stagnated just a bit in the last month, but shown sustained support allowing the price of the coin to hold up through what appeared to have been several weeks of synchronized scrutiny from a small handful of Twitter investment personalities. It is a testament of the quality of both the Helium network team and its community that it has withstood these turbulent times and has emerged even stronger.
Amir Haleem, Helium's Founder, as well as members of the core development team, took personal account to eloquently demystify the accusations. This article by Amir was published on the Helium Blog on Medium, and corrects each of the claims lobbied by skeptics, and this twitter thread unravels the sordid past of the self proclaimed Web3 skeptic who firmly established himself as the centerpiece of the newfound scrutiny of the network’s accomplishments. This unexpected hype drew a lot of new eyes to Helium just in time to watch the successful launch of the $MOBILE token.
The Helium Network has sustained remarkable growth, adding over a thousand IoT hotspots a day for the last month, in which time over 1000 5G Small Cells have been onboarded. The Network of Networks has enveloped its first new addition providing a treasury for the Mobile and IoT subDAOs, and a framework on which to continue to enhance the service being provided. What will The Helium Network look like in another 5 years? What about 10?
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