Helium ditches own blockchain in favor of Solana after community vote

Helium community members have voted to move the decentralized WiFi network from its blockchain, officially known as HIP 70, to the Solana blockchain.

The HIP 70 proposal concluded voting early Thursday morning, with some 81% voting in favor of migration in early Asian hours. Participants staked Helium token (HNT) to participate in the on-chain vote. In order for a vote to migrate the network to pass, a two-thirds majority was needed.

Some 6,177 community members voted in favor of the move by staking over 12 million HNT. Just 1,270 voted against it.

Developers behind Helium proposed the migration to Solana to help scale the protocol through more efficient transactions as well as interoperability. The move will transfer all tokens, applications and governance to the network.

"Solana has a proven track record powering some of the world’s most important decentralized initiatives and they were an obvious choice for us to partner with," Scott Sigel, COO of the Helium Foundation, said in a statement. "Moving to the Solana blockchain allows us to focus our efforts on scaling the network as opposed to managing the blockchain itself.”

The migration will see HNT, MOBILE and IOT issued on the Solana network, which will continue to be the tokens in the Helium ecosystem. Once the migration is complete, a new version of the Helium Wallet App will be made available. Additionally, the Helium L1 blockchain history will remain public. Users will be able to access the new application by updating their current wallet app. HNT holders can also use other wallets within the Solana ecosystem, such as Phantom or Solflare.

However, although the votes show overwhelming support for the migration, not everyone has been on board with the network’s choice to move to Solana. Last week, Borderless Capital, an Algorand-focused VC that is backed by Helium, took to Twitter to suggest the network reconsider its choice to move to Solana, and instead move to Algorand.