How the Mobile Crypto Project Helium Onboarded AT&T

How the Mobile Crypto Project Helium Onboarded AT&T originally appeared on TheStreet.

In a world where crypto projects are often accused of being all hype and no substance, Helium has been working on one of the most promising validations of blockchain infrastructure yet.

For years, the decentralized wireless network has been laying the groundwork and is now working with AT&T and other major carriers to offload cellular traffic onto Helium’s network of hotspots in times of peak demand. It's also now offering a free mobile plan for users, all possible because they've incentivized people to install hotspots to earn rewards via tokens.

With devices already operating across the U.S. and Mexico, Helium's Head of Protocol Abhay Kumar says hotspots have now become a solution not just for Helium’s own mobile service, but for legacy carriers struggling to meet demand in dense environments like stadiums, cafes, and music venues.

"What we're starting to see is that this kind of deployment model is not only helpful for what we were focused on for many years, which is internet of things, but also for for cell phone coverage," he told Coinage. "Cell phone towers are really hard to deploy, expensive to maintain. The standards keep changing and so network operators like AT&T and others are looking for new ways to create and use new kinds of networks."

Source: Helium Stats If the model keeps working, it wouldn't just be a win for Helium and its HNT token, it would be a win for DePIN as a concept to show that tokenizing network effects to build out physical infrastructure can work with community participation. Others in the Solana ecosystem, including decentralized mapping project Hivemapper, have attempted to show the same — by taking on big tech behemoths by using tokens to blur the lines of users and incentivized co-owners in a network. There have been mixed results.

Hivemapper's HONEY token has fallen by about 70% over the last year, while Helium's HNT token has fallen about 30% over the same time frame. Some analysts have argued the market is undervaluing DePIN tokens that carry value in the physical world. But as Kumar explains, part of that is due to the pressure from the last administration at the Securities and Exchange Commission and Chair Gary Gensler. The SEC charged Helium for an alleged unregistered security offering in January only to drop the complaint months later in April after leadership changed.

As Coinage has covered, new crypto-friendly leadership at the SEC is opening the door for more experiments with tokens and value accrual. Kumar says Helium is now exploring new possibilities beyond simple token burns to further extend ownership over the network of hotspots.

Story Continues"When people are doing work to actually deploy them and monitor them and provide services to users, like that should be allowed," he said, adding that he expects answers to be figured out this year. "We definitely feel a change in that tone and we're excited to work with the [SEC's] Crypto Task Force. We've already had great conversations with them, and we hope to continue to do so and continue to innovate because we think that there's a lot more that we can do."

As Helium co-founder Amir Haleem previously told Coinage, the model is gaining traction outside the U.S. as well. In Mexico, Helium partnered with Movistar, a subsidiary of Telefonica, to pilot coverage in two cities.

“They saw a tremendous opportunity to provide better services for their customers,” Kumar said. “We're hoping to... expand out even further into the areas that are underserved in Mexico and also in major cities."

With more than 90,000 active hotspots already deployed and a new $50 million grant pool launched to onboard large-scale deployers, Kumar says the team is aiming to 10x the network: “Let’s get to 900,000.”

How the Mobile Crypto Project Helium Onboarded AT&T first appeared on TheStreet on Jul 9, 2025

This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Jul 9, 2025, where it first appeared.

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