Welcome to Block 9
What’s happening in 2019?
Since the new year, the team has been laser-focused on extending our Alpha Testnet while squeezing in multiple events across the US. From CES in Vegas to IoT Fuse Decentralization Night in the Twin Cities and our upcoming meetup in Austin this Thursday, we’re closing out January on a high note. We were also featured in CRN’s 10 Hot IoT Companies to Watch in 2019 as enterprises remain bullish on blockchain. Needless to say, January has been jam-packed so without further ado, get up to speed on the latest and greatest in our Block 9 newsletter!
Meet Helium in ATX on Thursday
We’re Crossing the Crypto Chasm at Capital Factory in Austin this Thursday, January 31st. Come enjoy blocktails 🥃 and pizza 🍕 while hearing from an awesome panel of speakers on how we can bring crypto from Wall Street to Main Street so that everyone can benefit from blockchain opportunities.
Featured speakers:
- Tushar Jain, Multicoin Capital, Managing Partner
- Kim Raath, Topl, Co-Founder & CFO
- Kyle Ballarta, Falkon Ventures, Founder & CEO
- Karyl Fowler, Transmute, Co-Founder & CEO
- Frank Mong, Helium, COO
- Coco Tang, Helium, Director of Product
Doors open at 6:30 PM. Please RSVP to attend as space is limited.
Helium lands in the Twin Cities
Helium visited Minneapolis to speak at IoT Fuse Decentralization Night and Prime Academy. Other than the temperature drop, it was a great opportunity to introduce Helium to new faces and hear the excitement around the decentralized wireless network we are building to provide communities like the Twin Cities ubiquitous and affordable connectivity. A big thank you to the organizers for their support and to everyone who showed up. Check out the recap of our visit here.
Alpha Testnet status
By the end of 2018, we sent out an initial 18 hotspots for our Alpha Testnet, registered them to the Helium Blockchain, and made sure each declared their location with GPS. While out in the field, we monitored each hotspot’s CPU usage, power consumption, and fixed bugs along the way. We’re happy to report we’ve improved the system’s stability and are sending the remaining 150 hotspots out for testing.
The wallet goes mobile
To streamline the Helium experience, we are adding more functionality to the mobile wallet app, which was previously only available on desktop. From the new mobile app, you can now manage your wallet and hotspots, view the block explorer, and send and receive token transactions. We’ll be rolling out the mobile wallet with our next batch of Alpha Testnet hotspots so stay tuned.
Wondering why the hotspot above is named Genuine Aubergine Albatross? Fun fact: every hotspot will randomly generate its own special name when it’s registered.
👋 New hire: Stuart Westerman
This week our newest hire, Stuart Westerman, joined Helium. Stuart was previously at Northrop Grumman, Ring, August, and Brava. When he’s not working on embedded firmware and Linux development, you can find him playing chess, ultimate frisbee, or hanging with dogs. We’re thrilled to welcome Stuart to the team!
In case you missed it…
Linking hardware to a blockchain
Developing an interface for our physical blockchain would have been easier if we had just forked off an existing blockchain, but existing platforms didn’t meet our requirements. See what engineer Victor Mu has been working on to link our physical blockchain to the wallet here.
The problem with LoRa
Why did Helium pass on LoRa and will The Things Network deployment model ever scale successfully? Mark Phillips has the answers in his blog featured on Hacker Noon here.
Become a hotspot host
Interested in bringing Helium to your city? We want to hear from you. Sign up for our waitlist to become one of the first Helium hotspot hosts and get rewarded for helping to build the first of its kind decentralized wireless network. Quantity is limited. We’ll be notifying those on the list first once hotspots are available for purchase.
And if you’re not already in our Telegram channel, join in on the fun. The team is happy to answer any and all questions from the community.
