On August 30th, 2022, Helium announced plans to move its network to Solana. The move was meant to increase operational efficiency and take advantage of Solana’s excellent development tools, applications, and features. Ostensibly, Solana could facilitate better data flow, management, and accounting, which Helium has been struggling with.
The Vote
The transition was slated for Quarter Four of 2022 after a vote on September 12th. An incredible 81% of employees okayed the transition of Helium’s data processing functionalities to Solana, even after Algorand stepped in with a last-minute offer. Even though all Helium employees did the voting, the company could have made the process more liberal by giving more than just the Solana option.
The Technical Partnership
The decision by Helium to host its wireless network with Solana will help the former to improve seamless interactions with decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, NFTs, and Web3 apps. Even though there are questions about the reliability of Solana’s network, it is considerably bigger and more optimized for Helium’s customers. However, there have been calls among some Helium users that Solana’s network is no less reliable as it suffers constant lags and downtimes. Other users maintained that Solana’s previous reliability issues make it the best platform to partner with to solve Helium’s network connectivity issues.
Cons
Some disadvantages of Helium’s move to Solana include;
- The network has previously been faced with numerous breakdowns and is thus unreliable
- Helium and Solana don’t have the same level of decentralization, and this might affect operationality down the line
- Helium employees were internally divided over the transfer, with some opposing it due to fundamental issues such as brand and network compatibility issues.
Many people argue that Helium should not have transferred its operations to Solana because it might lose its autonomy. However, the move will allow Helium to focus on the important thing – providing decentralized internet connections.
Pros
There are a few unrefutable benefits to Helium moving its network to Solana’s servers;
- Helium coins and wallets will be more readily available on the wider Solana infrastructure.
- Miners will have better tools and platforms to operate in
- Data transfer has received a massive boost, as Solana’s servers are better operated than Helium’s
All in all, the move to Solana will do Helium much good, as it will facilitate a smoother transition of data and processing of transactions and enhance applicational transition.
Issues with reliability that have plagued the two crypto operators can be solved by engaging more programming talent in the widened enterprise.
The Algorand Option
Even as Helium’s employees logged in to their servers to vote on the proposed operational partnership, a new player was looking to swoop in and take the deal. The speed-optimized Algorand blockchain offered to acquire Helium, with its executives going as far as Twitting about their desire to host the currency’s backend.
Algorand’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) tweeted that the channel provided a “secure, robust and scalable chain,” seeming to infer that Solana was still unreliable. However, Helium employees went ahead with the transition. As the blockchain host with some of the best connection speeds on the internet, Algorand may have been the smarter choice.
