Helium Mobile

Helium Mobile is a decentralized wireless network built on user-operated hotspots. Individuals deploy indoor or outdoor hotspots that provide 5G coverage and IoT connectivity, earning MOBILE tokens as rewards. The network also offers a phone plan that combines T-Mobile's nationwide coverage with community-operated hotspots, priced at $15-$30 per month.

Its core value proposition is crowd-sourced infrastructure. Instead of a carrier building expensive cell towers, individuals share bandwidth from their homes or businesses, reducing deployment costs while expanding coverage into areas traditional carriers often ignore. The network currently has approximately 139,000 active hotspots across the US, with daily revenue exceeding $47,000.

Market pain points addressed include high infrastructure costs for telecom operators, coverage gaps in underserved regions, and the lack of economic incentives for individuals to participate in network building. Helium solves these by turning coverage into a token-incentivized, community-driven model.

In the past six months (March to September 2026), Helium Mobile was acquired by Noble Mobile, founded by Andrew Yang, in June 2026. The acquisition does not affect HNT token governance or hotspot rewards. Nova Labs, the original developer, shifted focus to enterprise data offloading services, having signed a multi-year agreement with a major US carrier in late 2025. The service remains unchanged for existing users. However, Helium Mobile has not yet achieved profitability, with cumulative registered users around 600,000. Additionally, hotspot rewards in saturated urban areas have declined significantly due to density-based adjustments.