Will Helium, which top encryption institutions are optimistic about, lead the DePIN narrative? no it doesn't work at all

Author | Beichen

In addition to the poor price of the currency (down 97.6% from the highest point), Helium seems to have no reason not to be optimistic-the top capital has invested a total of 365 million US dollars, the team composed of high-tech giants, and the very popular DePIN (distributed hardware infrastructure network) narrative.

What's more, in the current market environment, if the currency price is not good, it does not mean that the project is not good...but Helium is really not good.

Next week, Steven will explain why the blockchain is not suitable for hardware infrastructure from the perspective of a communication engineer. It needs to be completed by Steven), and by the way, diss the research and analysis of those blowing Helium.

The reason why this article starts with Helium is that just a few days ago Coinbase Assets included HNT in its roadmap for listing coins. My first reaction was—how is it still alive? Then most of the information I can see is talking about it (from the English world to the Chinese world, and there are even paid ones...), so I can't help but want to make a violent comment!

**What does Helium do? **

Many research reports on Helium are based on the official technical documents and summarize a bunch of IoT technology introductions that ordinary people cannot understand. There is no doubt that Helium must have a future, buy it!".

I think the most concise way to popularize what Helium does is to use Filecoin as an analogy.

Filecoin is for distributed storage, mainly by issuing a coin (FIL), and then encouraging everyone to store files on IPFS with the method of "storage is mining".

Helium is a distributed wireless network, mainly by issuing a coin (HNT), and then encouraging everyone to provide hotspots for Helium's wireless network by means of "opening hotspots means mining". As for the role of HNT, you can refer to FIL.

There are two standards for Helium's hotspots. One is the cellular network we are very familiar with, but the core is LoRaWAN (a low-power wide-area network). Although the data rate is only 0.3-50kbps, the coverage is up to 16 kilometers, and the battery life The time can be as long as 10 years, and it supports private networks and public networks, which is completely sufficient for the Internet of Things (IoT).

Note that the LoRaWAN network is not for you to watch short videos and play games, but to provide a network for devices that only need to transmit a small amount of information (such as GPS trackers, environmental sensors, weather instruments, parking meters, etc.).

If Filecoin at least started from the beautiful vision of the founder Juan, but was later played badly by sellers of mining machines, then Helium started purely from selling mining machines-in the early days, only official mining machines were allowed (special routers, Users buy it to access the power supply and connect it to the Wi-Fi or Ethernet port, then deploy the wallet and synchronize it to mine), otherwise no reward will be given, and it will be opened to third-party manufacturers later, but requires the approval of the community and the foundation .

At this point, have you noticed that Helium’s public chain only plays the role of issuing coins and order settlement (so those who boasted about their public chain technology according to the technical documents in the early days were lonely), and this function is completely different. You can also need a public chain!

So Helium finally found its way back last year, and migrated to Solana in April this year, using smart contracts to do what the public chain does.

Now you should have an intuitive understanding of what Helium does - ** builds a wireless network and encourages everyone to buy a router to provide a hotspot. **Whether Helium can take off in the future depends entirely on whether there are IoT projects adopting their network, and this is purely a matter of business logic.

Helium's business logic

The LoRaWAN network has no problem replacing the 2G network in terms of communication network technology (the only thing that has been criticized is that there is no general standard at present, so the security is low), and indeed more and more IoT devices adopt this network, **But Helium's own business logic has a big problem. **

There is no problem for miners to buy routers and provide networks to peripherals to earn a limited amount of HNT rewards, but what is the value capture of HNT? If the IoT hardware wants to access this network, it needs to destroy HNT, then generate the corresponding DC (anchored at 0.00001 USD), and finally use DC to pay.

In theory Helium users are suitable for all IoT projects that only need to transmit a small amount of information, as they advertise-GPS trackers, environmental sensors, weather meters, parking meters, scooters, etc., even Nestlé in Europe Office refrigerator. Moreover, the scooter has been refuted by the other party, saying that it has only been tested briefly.

However, in fact, Helium's Internet of Things requirements are simply pseudo-demands. Regardless of the industrial Internet of Things devices that have extremely high security requirements, they are Internet of Things devices in daily consumption scenarios such as gashapon machines, coffee machines, express cabinets, and vending machines. ****Household products will not consider accessing third-party networks! **

First, security is questionable, and second, they want to build their own IoT ecosystem (such as the Xiaomi IoT developer platform). Only insignificant and ambitious IoT projects use Helium out of cost considerations.

This is the same as the data of enterprises will not be considered to be stored by Filecoin, but then again, as far as I know, some cold data of some short video platforms are handed over to Filecoin miners for processing.

Therefore, among the ecological projects promoted by Helium, a considerable part of them are IoT solution providers. An additional Helium in the other party’s case library as an alternative is also conducive to PR, so this gold content is approximately equal to the establishment of a cooperative relationship between Internet companies and AWS and Alibaba Cloud. .

Of course, Helium also has a 5G narrative, which you can completely understand as using the same logic to sell another wave of 5G routers (this is a general cellular network, and it is also for ordinary mobile users), and the tokens earned are MOBILE, convertible to HNT. According to the founder, 6G, 7G, 10G will be prepared in the future...

How do they blow Helium

Through the above analysis in this article, it should not be difficult for us to draw such a conclusion - LoRaWAN will be adopted by more and more IoT projects (and mainly because the business growth of the IoT itself is too large), but they do not need to join Helium's LoRaWAN network.

Let’s take a look at how those investment research institutions/media/KOLs promote Helium, and we can avoid pitfalls in reverse. **

Crypto investment research media Coinmonks wrote an article "The Future of Helium Network and LoRaWAN Technology" last month, arguing that LoRa and LoRaWAN will reach a market size of 25.5 billion US dollars in 2028, and Helium is already the world's largest decentralized LoRaWAN network , and may connect billions of devices in the future.

The blockchain analysis company Messari was not only optimistic in the project research report before, but this year it is pushing the DePIN narrative, and Helium is the leader of the DeWi (decentralized wireless network) concept under the DePIN narrative.

Foreigners’ investment and research media (just refers to the media, not investment institutions)** is generally relatively poor, so we just ignore it. **It is worth referring to "The Fall of the Star Public Chain, What Did Helium Do Wrong?" published by Block Rhythm last month. ", the analysis is more comprehensive.

The summary of the text is "Helium is made by a team that doesn't understand the blockchain, so it missed a lot of opportunities for the public chain", and the conclusion given at the end is extremely cautious-"And can Helium take this opportunity to reinvent itself?" To regain their initiative in the market, I believe everyone is looking forward to the answer from Helium.” This seems to be an answer that no one can offend as a temporary addition at the end. I can't agree with it, and I can't refute it... I can only say that it is still of reference value.

However, going back further, the most influential investment research article on Helium in China is "Understanding Helium, the Leading Internet of Things: Advantages and Disadvantages of Operation and Incentive Logic" by Wu Shuo Blockchain. The author believes that "Not everything needs to be decentralized. It seems that Helium, as a centralized and distributed product, will have a better development in the field of industrial Internet of Things." Although his understanding of the Internet of Things industry basically comes from the guidance of the project party, he still understands the blockchain very well.

The most influential investment research article about Helium in China should be the first-class research report, which believes that "there is currently no direct competitor in the industry, and the recent (August 2021) business growth rate is very rapid and is on a continuous rise channel. Therefore, it deserves attention". The first-class research report is a ChatGPT-style refinement of Helium’s official documents**, and the official led the whole process by the nose. **

However, the level of first-class cabins cannot be demanded. After all, a16z led the investment of $110 million in Helium during the same period. The reason is that compared with traditional telecom infrastructure, Helium can cold start faster and at a lower cost. We are excited about the potential to provide comprehensive 5G connectivity within China."

To sum up what Helium can boast: it has great potential in the Internet of Things. However, the singularity moment of IoT hardware has arrived, and its development trend is obviously not to connect to a third-party network like Helium.

Whistle's research methods and future plans

From Messari to first class to a16z, their misjudgment on Helium is very wrong, and their cognition basically does not jump out of the scope of reading the project party’s documents, so you can only be led by the project party to go where they want you to go. place.

While the crypto industry is moving towards standardization, it also has some disadvantages, that is, trying to analyze the crypto industry in the same way as the pig industry, and even the actual performance is simpler than the pig industry research.

The hog market is very mature, and the influencing factors and the linkage relationship between them have long been thoroughly studied. Therefore, a summer intern can analyze it like solving an arithmetic problem, and finally come to a conclusion that is almost inseparable.

The crypto industry is a frontier field where changes are taking place, and effective knowledge is often scattered among the frontier actors. These partial knowledge may be contradictory or even wrong, but it is at least partially true, so listening to it will tell.

As a complex system with no clear rules and dynamic changes, the crypto industry should have more complex analysis methods, but now the research report of the crypto industry is even simpler than the analysis of the hog market. At least a considerable part of the hog research is in Explore the linkage relationship among the factors.

The "6 dimensions, 48 indicators" research method adopted by this research report is purely a tool for mass production of financial migrant workers, and it is not a problem for a skilled worker to produce three articles per day. However, in the crypto industry with a strong learning atmosphere, it allows lay readers to talk to another layman in just 10 minutes.

Of course, this article is not teaching the industry how to do research, but just pointing out what kind of research is incorrect, and which research method we think is in the right direction.

Industry iteration is driven by the underlying logic of the industry, but the market's attention has always been on the surface. If you only use the volume of the market as a reference, you will often become a taker.

"Sharp Whistle" is not a preacher, but as an equal interlocutor with you, making some real sounds (although mostly harsh whistles). Therefore, we will not publish comprehensive or balanced research reports. We will judge other people's opinions or projects sharply, and we welcome others to judge us sharply (but we refuse the sparrow war of rushing forward and not admitting to each other).

We do not guarantee that the sound we make is 100% correct (but we will try our best), let alone pursue 100% rigor and perfection (just give up on this point), it only depends on whether the core point of view hits you, whether you agree or not is not important, what matters It is about whether you have been inspired (even if you have become more determined after a short doubt).

At this stage, our manpower is limited, so we focus on making violent comments on the things that should have been eliminated in the previous round and the previous round. This is the most cost-effective way to show our level. Really constructive frontier discussions (such as ZK) still need more friends with insights to join.

Welcome to "Harsh Whistle", a crypto industry self-media that tells the truth (but not necessarily correct).

Another point: we only evaluate the quality of the project, and do not discuss the currency price, because the currency price often depends on the willingness of the project party to pull offers, who can predict this!