Welcome to Block 8

🎊 Ringing in the New Year

It’s been a busy year at Helium with the announcement of our decentralized wireless network, #BUIDLing amazing tech, welcoming new members to our team, and preparing for our upcoming Alpha Testnet launch. We couldn’t have done it without community members like you and we’re so thankful for your continued support.

New Year’s resolution? In 2019 join the movement to create a truly decentralized wireless network by becoming one of the first hotspot hosts.

Until then, enjoy Block 8 and have a very happy holiday season from Helium!

P.S. If you didn’t hear the news, we officially changed the name of the Helium Gateway to the Helium Hotspot. Read more here.

🚀 To Austin and Beyond

We’re splashing into 2019 with our next Crossing the Crypto Chasm event in Austin! You’re invited to meet Helium and a special lineup of speakers at Capital Factory on Thursday, January 31st, for a conversation on bringing blockchain and crypto from Wall Street to Main Street.

Featured speakers include:

• Tushar Jain, Multicoin Capital, Managing Partner
• Kyle Ballarta, Falkon Ventures, Founder & CEO
• Kim Raath, Topl, Co-Founder & CFO
• Frank Mong, COO, Helium
• Coco Tang, Director of Product, Helium

Please RSVP to attend as space is limited. Blocktails 🥃 and 🍕 on us.

IoT has Failed.

At the end of November, we hit the IoT & Blockchain Expo North America show floor hard at the Santa Clara Convention Center. With a buzzing IoT has Failed booth, multiple speaking sessions, and a team of Helium ninjas, the event was a hit. Thanks to everyone who stopped by our booth! Catch the full event recap here.

📍Where to find Helium next:

• 1/8–1/11: CES, Las Vegas, NV
• 1/17: IoT Fuse Decentralization Night, Minneapolis, MN
• 1/31: Crossing the Crypto Chasm, Austin, TX
• 2/28–3/1: Code BEAM, San Francisco, CA
• TBA: Upcoming meetups in Boston and Miami

Shipping Alpha Testnet

In this Developer Update, we’re excited to share we’ve started shipping the first Helium Hotspots for our Alpha Testnet and they look glorious. In the next few weeks, we’ll be putting the hardware and the technology to the test by deploying 150 hotspots across the US, starting with the Bay Area, New York City, and Boston.

This is a huge milestone for the team and we’ve already made major improvements to the stability of the hardware and user experience from initial testing. We’ve also overhauled the wallet design with a facelift (sneak peek of the new design here). We look forward to keeping you up to date on the status of our Alpha Testnet in the new year. Stay tuned and head to our Github to follow the incredible work of our engineering team.

In case you missed it…

The Problem with LoRa

Helium VP of Business Development Mark Phillips digs into why we passed on LoRa to build our decentralized wireless network and why The Things Network deployment model is interesting, but ultimately, not enough to scale successfully. Read his blog on Hacker Noon here.

Why Blockchain is a Terrible Idea for Applications

Why are blockchains not suitable for most projects? Helium VP of Engineering Andrew Thompson explains and predicts an industry reckoning to come much like the .com bubble burst in his latest blog on Hacker Noon here.

Get in touch

We’re on Telegram! Join the community to get your questions answered by the Helium team. And if you’re building IoT products, we want to talk to you. Get in touch at sales@helium.com to learn about our enterprise solutions.