Communications protocol Helium Network has defined March 27 as the date for its migration to the Solana blockchain.
The existing Helium blockchain will be stopped on March 27 for a 24-hour changeover period, according to a blog post from February 17. Activities involving data transfer and proof-of-coverage won’t be impacted. To oversee the relocation procedure, a working group of community volunteers is being established. The team at Helium said:
“This upgrade will encompass all wallets, Hotspots, and Helium Network state, and will take place over a 24-hour transition period commencing at approximately 1500 UTC / 10:00 AM ET.”
Validators will stop creating blocks after the chain stops, and transactions won’t be in sync. The company explained that after moving all accounts and tokens to the Solana blockchain, a final snapshot of the blockchain will be taken, and Hotspots will be created as nonfungible tokens (NFTs).
“Note that any rewards generated by Proof-of-Coverage activity in the prior 24 hours will be available to claim in your Helium Wallet after the transition period. Oracles will update claimable balances, and Hotspot Owners will be able to use the new claim function.”
HNT and MOBILE token owners won’t need to do anything to take part in the upgrade. The same holds true for most Hotspot owners, while owners of sizable fleets might be able to test particular claim capabilities or create unique wallet solutions.
The community’s adoption of HIP-70 on September 22 with more than 80% of the vote made the shift to Solana possible. Developers at the time noted the advantages of the migration, including increased availability of its native currency to subDAO reward pools, enhanced mining, and improved ecosystem support.
Additionally in September of last year, T-Mobile and the company that created Helium, Nova Labs, announced a partnership to launch a crypto-powered mobile service that would let users earn cryptocurrency rewards for sharing information about coverage quality and locating Helium dead-spot locations across the country.
