It’s been a week since we launched the Helium Hotspot for US customers, and the momentum has exceeded our expectations. Since launch we’ve sold out the initial batch reserved for our target city Austin and received orders from 125 other cities across 33 US states from Alaska to Florida, and California to New York.

This launch represents a significant milestone towards building The People’s Network, the world’s first peer-to-peer wireless network for a new class of connected devices. This network delivers secure, ubiquitous, and affordable wireless coverage for devices that send small quantities of data, not smartphones or computers that need to transfer large amounts of data.

The People’s Network is completely community-owned and operated by its participants, with all core technology available under open source licenses. We believe by rewarding the creators of the network with Helium tokens, a new cryptocurrency on the Helium Blockchain, we can build a global wireless network many orders of magnitude faster and at a fraction of the cost it takes traditional telecommunications companies.

We welcome other developers and manufacturers to build Helium-compatible Hotspots, and we intend to dedicate time and resources to prepare tools and documentation to streamline that process.

Shared Helium Enthusiasm

Based on our announcement last week, many publications shared our enthusiasm, including Fortune, Forbes, VentureBeat, SF Chronicle, TechCrunch, CoinDesk, and others. Check the complete list here.

Here’s a sample of our favorite tweets:

Aligning Network Value with Usage

There were some key design goals to incentivize people to participate in building The People’s Network:

The network and economic system is truly decentralized and can continue to operate without relying on any single entity. Tightly aligning economics for Hotspot hosts around growth and usage of the network.

To accomplish these goals we built our permissionless blockchain to support two units of exchange: one (Helium) a cryptocurrency for rewarding Hotspot hosts for building and maintaining the network, and the other (Data Credits) for users of the network to pay for the transfer of data.

Hosts earn Helium, a new cryptocurrency on the Helium Blockchain, for hosting Hotspots which make up the network infrastructure. Helium are earned for providing and validating wireless coverage (through mining), as well as when devices use their hotspot to transfer data.

Users pay to use the network with Data Credits, which can only be created by converting Helium tokens into Data Credits. In other words, Helium tokens are necessary to acquire Data Credits, which devices on the network need to use to transfer data. Data Credits are non-transferable and have a fixed value denominated in USD, which allow the holder to send a fixed amount of data on the wireless network.

We chose to use Helium tokens and Data Credits for the following principal reasons:

Helium are used to reward hotspot hosts for performing work that is tied to the overall success and security of the network. Helium can be converted to Data Credits which users of the network use to send data.

By requiring Data Credits to use the network, companies have a stable price they can budget for connectivity, and it simplifies the process as they can avoid dealing with tokens, exchanges, or other related issues.

Hosts Earn Helium

In addition to providing wireless coverage, Hotspots act as full nodes and miners of a permissionless, secure, highly scalable blockchain built to deliver the transaction speed and scalability necessary to support IoT device use cases. To learn why we needed to develop our own blockchain, go here.

Every month 5,000,000 Helium are minted by the network and distributed to Hotspot hosts for their work in securing and validating the network, and a portion is allocated to Helium and its investors.

There is no pre-mine of tokens; the genesis block contains 0 Helium. Every time the mining cycle completes, the distribution of Helium is as follows:

Note: These are initial distribution estimates, and could change with mainnet launch.

Early Participation, Maximum Mining

Early participants can earn a disproportionately large number of Helium.

We expect that early Hotspot hosts will mine almost double the amount of Helium because initially, widespread user adoption of the network will take time. The 25% allocation reserved for Hotspots that send device data on the network will be allocated to existing Hotspots that are participating in Proofs-of-Coverage, independent of usage of the network.

Also, the amount of Helium minted each month will remain fixed, and in the early days, there will be fewer Hotspots sharing that allocation.

Users Pay for Network Usage with Data Credits

Data Credits are required to send data over the Helium network. Data Credits can only be created by converting Helium in to Data Credits. The price of Data Credits is fixed, in USD, per payload. Data Credits are non-transferrable and must be used by their single original owner. Data Credits cannot be re-sold or traded. You can think of these as similar to pre-paid cellphone minutes or airline miles.

IoT device users must either convert Helium into Data Credits, permanently removing those Helium from the circulating supply, or pay an owner of Helium to create Data Credits for them.

As the demand for Data Credits increases with usage of the network, the supply of Helium decreases due to the increased conversion to Data Credits.

Since Data Credits represent utility value from users of the network, the network becomes more valuable as demand for Data Credits increases.

Reward Allocations will rise each year, for 20 years, by reducing the allocation to Helium and its investors by 1% of the total mined Helium tokens.

Helium and its Investors

Initially, 35% of Helium tokens mined on the network will be distributed to Helium, Inc and its investors. This number will decrease every year by 1% until settling at 15%. The additional 1% will be added to hotspot rewards, specifically for those hotspots that transfer data on the network.

Companies that believe

Our goal is to create a global peer-to-peer wireless network that is more secure, ubiquitous, and affordable for companies to use for their IoT use cases. We’re actively working with companies who are trying to solve problems with The People’s Network that are either too costly, too complicated, or just flat out impossible with existing networks.

These partners are either trying to solve internal problems to make their business more efficient or create new value for commercial or consumer customers. Here’s a sample: