Why does Helium plan to abandon its independent chain and migrate to Solana at the height of the popularity of application chain narratives?

Author: Runsheng, Chain Catcher

Amidst a wave of applications leaving to build their own blockchains, the decentralized wireless communication network Helium is taking the opposite approach. On August 30, Helium's core developers initiated the HIP70 proposal, planning to migrate the network from its custom blockchain to Solana.

The proposal indicates that Helium's core developers aim to transfer Proof of Coverage (PoC) and Data Transfer Accounting to Oracles, and migrate Helium's tokens and governance to the Solana blockchain, including all ecosystem economies built around HNT, DC, IOT, and MOBILE. After migrating to the Solana blockchain, 6.85% of HNT tokens will be returned to the staking pool to "feed back" to the hotspot owners of the subDAO.

The core developers claimed in the proposal that this would not only significantly simplify the existing system architecture and improve operational efficiency but also allow the use of more composable developer tools, features, and applications from Solana, ultimately achieving greater economies of scale.

However, the HIP70 proposal initially failed to gain market approval, as evidenced by the sharp fluctuations in the price of Helium's token HNT. According to Coinmarketmap, since August 30, the price of HNT has continued to decline, with a drop of over 45%, far exceeding the overall market decline.

Yuan, head of Helium's Asia-Pacific region, explained to Chain Catcher that not only HIP70, but also the previous HIP51/52/53 proposals, which introduced the new tokens IOT and MOBILE, sparked significant controversy within the community. Some community members were initially influenced by negative opinions, overlooking the substantial positive value of the proposals.

Chain Catcher noted that since the release of the HIP70 proposal, the Helium Foundation and its core members, including the CEO and COO, have been actively gathering community questions and providing public answers on social platforms.

On Helium's social platforms, skeptics raised questions about the specifics of the HIP70 proposal, the migration timeline, and the fairness of the voting process. Among the most common questions was: Why does Helium want to abandon building its own blockchain? Why choose to migrate to Solana instead of another public chain?

Regarding why Helium wants to abandon building its own blockchain, Helium's COO Frank Mong previously explained that at the inception of Helium, there were relatively few blockchain options available, and they did not anticipate Helium's rapid growth. To scale Helium to support more types of networks, the Helium team reassessed the necessity of maintaining the current L1 Helium blockchain.

"Everyone is concerned about why Helium wants to switch to another public chain, but we should consider what is wrong with the switch," Yuan told Chain Catcher. It is important to clarify that Helium's endowment and goals have never been to create a general-purpose public chain platform; the purpose of building a public chain is merely to support applications. "Building a public chain just to create an application is like inventing a computer just to perform calculations." Helium aims to create a decentralized wireless network, which requires freeing the team to focus on more important tasks while leaving the underlying blockchain to those who are most skilled at it.

As for why they chose to migrate to the Solana blockchain, Frank Mong stated that first, Helium's core developers would no longer need to maintain the Helium blockchain; second, Solana's vast ecosystem integrates numerous developers, applications, and teams; third, HNT is natively compatible with other innovative projects in the Solana ecosystem, allowing HNT, MOBILE, and IOT token holders to gain more use cases; and fourth, network users will receive more support, including hardware wallets and software wallets, DeFi, NFT markets, and compatibility with other applications in the Solana ecosystem.

Additionally, Frank Mong mentioned that he looks forward to Solana's mobile product stack (Solana Mobile Stack) and the Saga phone participating in Helium's future. In June of this year, Solana Labs announced that it is developing a new Android phone focused on Web3, called Saga, which is expected to begin delivery in early 2023.

"This is a key topic we are discussing with Solana. The Saga phone and Solana Mobile Stack, which Solana is currently promoting, have a natural collaboration demand with Helium's goals in 5G mobile networks," Yuan told Chain Catcher. Both parties have had extensive discussions about the details of the collaboration, specifically exploring the possibility of Helium providing network access services for the Saga phone and how the Saga phone could participate in validating the Helium network.

In June 2022, Solana announced that it is developing a new Android phone focused on Web3, called Saga.

Despite the advantages mentioned by Frank Mong regarding Solana, it is undeniable that the downtime issues have been heavily criticized. Yuan added that the downtime issue is a significant concern for the community and was an important consideration for Helium when evaluating Solana as an alternative. The mechanisms behind the downtime issues are now quite clear, and the Solana team is steadily advancing solutions. Helium's core developers will also monitor the progress of resolving this issue and consider it an important factor when designing the migration timeline and plan.

It is worth noting that there are also views questioning whether Multicoin Capital, as a joint investor in Helium and Solana, is facilitating this move, suggesting that HIP70 is essentially a product of capital operations. Yuan denied this, stating that it is merely a conspiracy theory arising from negative emotions in a poor market, and that Multicoin has also invested in other public chains. In fact, the decision to choose Solana was the result of extensive industry research on various public chains, comparing factors such as scalability, cost of use, ecosystem completeness, and compatibility with Helium's technical architecture.

What if the community vote does not pass? Yuan told Chain Catcher that the Helium core team has no preset stance on this and will respect the community's voting decision. If it does not pass, they will seek to understand the reasons for the rejection and provide an improved solution as soon as possible.

It is noteworthy that the public chain Algorand recently extended an olive branch to Helium. On September 12, two executives from Algorand expressed interest in bringing Helium to Algorand on Twitter. Its CTO John Alan Wood stated that Helium "needs a secure, robust, and scalable chain, and Algorand meets these requirements. We are ready to talk with the Helium team."

However, Helium's public response did not show any positive signals, as its core team member Abhay responded on Twitter that "the reliable way to propose changes in the Helium community is to participate in writing HIPs on the Discord server and demonstrate a path that the community can follow. The core developers have already made their suggestions, and we should vote."

Chain Catcher noted that the Helium Foundation originally planned to conduct community voting on the HIP70 proposal from September 12 to September 18. The actual voting began on September 13, Beijing time, and is expected to end around 9:12 AM on September 22, Beijing time.

It is reported that if the proposal can pass with a 2/3 voting result before the deadline, it will be considered approved. As of 4 PM Beijing time on September 14, a total of 5,486 votes had been cast, with a support rate of 81.84%.

Although the current support rate in the community is significantly high, the final voting result remains uncertain. What is clear is that the Helium core team's idea of migrating to Solana is not a hasty decision made in the short term, but rather a long-term plan and consideration. When it comes to the pros and cons of building its own blockchain versus migrating to another public chain, the choice needs to be made based on the project's own circumstances, and time will ultimately prove the effectiveness of the decision.