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Helium is a terrible use case for cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is for money, only for money, and not for any other purpose.

by Canada 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
wiredone 4y ago
Isn't the idea that you'd get paid for use of a LoRaWAN access point pretty much the same thing as money. Sure, earning HNT for mining/proof of coverage is nice, but I see the long term game is pretty much earning money (via crypto) for use of your home internet connection. Otherwise why the hell are you building a wireless network in the first place?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Canada 4y ago
  How does that proof of coverage work exactly? https://docs.helium.com/blockchain/proof-of-coverage/ https://docs.helium.com/blockchain/proof-of-coverage/ It has nowhere close to the density for this to work, and there's nothing to stop the Beaconer and Witness from being the same person. If the goal is to enable renting out of WiFi, then the sensible thing is to make a system that automates payment in ETH/USDT/USDC/DAI/BTC/etc... Or to put it another way, use the money cryptocurrency that exists and works already. But no, that was never the point of this. The point of Helium is to mint and dump the shitcoin.
tradertef 4y ago
Agree. The amount of spectrum they use for their application is so small (15 MHz?) that there is really no good use-case that can not be addressed by cellular or Wi-Fi. Helium is just a toy project with good marketing. It is really a scam.
- dzhiurgis 4y ago
  FWIW I'd love to move away from "you must have a cell number to do ANYTHING in life". It's super inconvenient if you move between countries. Example - local taxi app (Bolt) wouldn't even let me register. I'm guessing their SMS gateway doesn't support new number ranges I've got assigned. Engineers don't give a fuck to enable my mobility. I've spent weeks trying to get on.
  - Canada 4y ago
    I'm not saying that the Helium idea of having this network of access points is bad. That's actually great, I wish there were such a thing. What doesn't work is their token. Instead of having that they could have used a whitelist of acceptable payment... eg. ETH, USDT, USDC, DAI, WBTC, BTC... But no, they had to have their own shitcoin of course, because if they used a cryptocurrency with actual value they wouldn't be able to give themselves a bunch of it to dump on the suckers.
    - tradertef 4y ago
      Agree 100%. Helium and similar project could very well work with other tokens or even with regular payments in dollars or whatever. But they choose to come up with their own shitcoin so that they could dump it to others with marketing.
- KaiserPro 4y ago
  > no good use-case that can not be addressed by cellular or Wi-Fi. Cellular is power hungry, and Wi-fi is range limited. Long range low bandwidth, that is both cheap in power and money to use, is really useful. Cellular is a pain in the arse, expensive to miniaturise, difficult to power longterm.
  - tradertef 4y ago
    You know WiFi can use the same spectrum and get better range? Check out Halow. For IOT applications, power during transmit is not a big deal. Battery life is limited by the leakage (sleep power). Also those "miners" use lots of power.

Helium is a terrible use case for cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is for money, only for money, and not for any other purpose.

by Canada 4y ago

Helium is a terrible use case for cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is for money, only for money, and not for any other purpose.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

wiredone 4y ago

Isn't the idea that you'd get paid for use of a LoRaWAN access point pretty much the same thing as money. Sure, earning HNT for mining/proof of coverage is nice, but I see the long term game is pretty much earning money (via crypto) for use of your home internet connection. Otherwise why the hell are you building a wireless network in the first place?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Canada 4y ago
How does that proof of coverage work exactly? https://docs.helium.com/blockchain/proof-of-coverage/ https://docs.helium.com/blockchain/proof-of-coverage/ It has nowhere close to the density for this to work, and there's nothing to stop the Beaconer and Witness from being the same person. If the goal is to enable renting out of WiFi, then the sensible thing is to make a system that automates payment in ETH/USDT/USDC/DAI/BTC/etc... Or to put it another way, use the money cryptocurrency that exists and works already. But no, that was never the point of this. The point of Helium is to mint and dump the shitcoin.

tradertef 4y ago

Agree. The amount of spectrum they use for their application is so small (15 MHz?) that there is really no good use-case that can not be addressed by cellular or Wi-Fi. Helium is just a toy project with good marketing. It is really a scam.

dzhiurgis 4y ago
FWIW I'd love to move away from "you must have a cell number to do ANYTHING in life". It's super inconvenient if you move between countries. Example - local taxi app (Bolt) wouldn't even let me register. I'm guessing their SMS gateway doesn't support new number ranges I've got assigned. Engineers don't give a fuck to enable my mobility. I've spent weeks trying to get on.
- Canada 4y ago
  I'm not saying that the Helium idea of having this network of access points is bad. That's actually great, I wish there were such a thing. What doesn't work is their token. Instead of having that they could have used a whitelist of acceptable payment... eg. ETH, USDT, USDC, DAI, WBTC, BTC... But no, they had to have their own shitcoin of course, because if they used a cryptocurrency with actual value they wouldn't be able to give themselves a bunch of it to dump on the suckers.
  - tradertef 4y ago
    Agree 100%. Helium and similar project could very well work with other tokens or even with regular payments in dollars or whatever. But they choose to come up with their own shitcoin so that they could dump it to others with marketing.
KaiserPro 4y ago
> no good use-case that can not be addressed by cellular or Wi-Fi. Cellular is power hungry, and Wi-fi is range limited. Long range low bandwidth, that is both cheap in power and money to use, is really useful. Cellular is a pain in the arse, expensive to miniaturise, difficult to power longterm.
- tradertef 4y ago
  You know WiFi can use the same spectrum and get better range? Check out Halow. For IOT applications, power during transmit is not a big deal. Battery life is limited by the leakage (sleep power). Also those "miners" use lots of power.