80% of voters in the early Asian hours of Thursday supported relocating Helium’s original network to Solana, demonstrating the strong support of the electorate.
Members of the Helium community have decided to transfer the decentralized WiFi network from HIP 70, the blockchain used by Helium, to the Solana blockchain.
In the last hours of early Asian time on Thursday, 81% of those voting on the HIP 70 proposal were in support of migration. To take part in the on-chain voting, participants staked Helium tokens (HNT). A two-thirds majority was required for a vote to relocate the network to be approved.
By wagering more than 12 million HNT, 6,177 community members voted in favor of the change. Only 1,270 people abstained.
The move to Solana was proposed by the Helium developers in order to scale the protocol through more effective transactions and compatibility. All tokens, apps, and governance will be given to the network as a result of the change.
According to Scott Sigel, COO of the Helium Foundation, “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.” By switching to the Solana blockchain, we can concentrate on the scalability of the network rather than blockchain management.
HNT, MOBILE, and IOT will continue to be the tokens in the Helium ecosystem after the migration and will be issued on the Solana network. A new version of the Helium Wallet App will be made available after the migration is finished. The Helium L1 blockchain history will also continue to be accessible to everyone. Users can update their current wallet app to have access to the new one. Holders of HNT can also use Phantom or Solflare wallets, which are part of the Solana ecosystem.
Despite the overwhelming support for the relocation demonstrated by the votes, not everyone has agreed with the network’s decision to relocate to Solana. Last week, the network was urged to reconsider moving to Solana by Borderless Capital, an Algorand-focused venture capital firm sponsored by Helium, and migrate to Algorand instead.
