Starter’s Guide To Helium Mining
The Internet of Things is an $800 billion industry, with over 8.4 billion connected devices online, and spending predicted to reach nearly $1.4 trillion by 2021.
Helium is attempting to decentralize the IoT industry
There are several communications technology existing in this space and mobile carriers/vendors have narrowed onto two standards: NB-IoT and LoRa.
The Helium network is a decentralized wireless network that enables devices anywhere in the world to wirelessly connect to the Internet and geolocate themselves without the need for power-hungry satellite location hardware or
expensive cellular plans.
In essence, Helium is attempting to build a Low Power WAN (LPWAN) carrier network by asking normal people to buy and operate network nodes for them.
Why?
Helium has a proprietary wireless protocol called ‘LongFi’
Long-range Wi-Fi is used for low-cost, unregulated point-to-point computer network connections, as an alternative to other fixed wireless, cellular networks, or satellite Internet access.
Helium LongFi is a technology architecture that combines a decentralized IoT networking protocol, and the Helium Blockchain.
Helium’s 5-kilobit per second connections will compete with the likes of SigFox and Nodle. Both being low-power IoT protocols and the latter is an IoT protocol that piggybacks on phones’ Bluetooth hardware. Lucky for Helium, devices like bikes and scooters which require IoT coverage are reaching mainstream popularity just as Helium launches six years after its start.
A Hotspot earns cryptocurrency called Helium (HNT) tokens for providing network services to these devices. This incentive is to make it worthwhile for people to become nodes on Helium’s network.
Only 150–200 hotspots are necessary to blanket a city in connectivity. Not because of range limitations but because they need to be distributed across the landscape, so a client can’t just fill their warehouse with the hotspots.
This requires more hotspot buyers.
A lot more outreach.
A hotspot may be purchased directly or bundled with 3rd party IoT products. Once set up the hotspot acts as a node in a proprietary LPWAN and starts mining tokens in the Helium blockchain.
Helium blockchain offers a computationally inexpensive Proof-of-Coverage that allows miners (hotspots) to prove they are providing wireless network coverage.
People connect the hotspot to their Wi-Fi and put it in their window so the devices can pull in data from Helium’s IoT sensors over its open-source LongFi protocol. The hotspots then encrypt and send the data to the company’s cloud that clients can plug into to track and collect info from their devices. The Helium Hotspots only require as much energy as a 12-watt LED light bulb to run
Without enough Helium Hotspots, the Helium network won’t function.
Lucky for us, we’re far from that.
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This article is for informational purposes only. It should not be considered Financial or Legal Advice. Contained information may not be accurate at all times. Consult a financial professional before making any major financial decisions
