- Telefonica expanded its DePIN hotspots in Mexico City and Oaxaca.
- The solution is offered through a partnership with Novalabs, which uses Helium’ blockchain.
- Helium Mobile and IOT tokens also surged after the report.
Decentralized Public Infrastructure (DePIN) has become one of the fastest-growing industries in the blockchain industry, with the total market cap of all tokens estimated at over $20 billion. To a large extent Solana has become the primary blockchain for these DePIN networks like Hivemapper, IoTeX, and Render Network.
Helium Network doing well
Helium, one of the biggest platforms in the DePIN industry, is doing well as it inks several deals with large carriers. A few years ago, the network partnered with Dish Network, a leading American company.
Most recently, it partnered with Telefonica, one of the biggest telecommunications companies globally. This week, the company rolled out its mobile hotspots in Mexico City through a partnership with Novalabs, a platform built on top of Helium’s blockchain.
According to its website, Helium now has over 975k hotspots globally, with most of them being in the United States, Europe, and Asia.
Meanwhile, other networks in Helium, including Mobile (it’s 5G network) and IoT are growing. Data in its stats page shows that IoT’s active hotspots have jumped to over 389k and analysts expect it to reach 400k soon. Its total onboarding fees, or sums paid by active hotspots, has jumped to $15.9 million.
Helium Mobile is still a small, but growing, part of Helium’s ecosystem. Its total hotspots have jumped to 8,511 while the total onboarding fees is just $225k.
Analysts believe that the Helium has room to grow. According to Messari, Helium Mobile added over 20k subscribers in December, leading to an annualized number of 250k. The report estimates that the network will get to 500k subscribers in the next 18-24 months as it moves towards profitability.
This growth explains why the tokens in Helium’s ecosystem have grown in the past few days. HNT token soared by 16% in the past 24 hours while IOT and MOBILE jumped by over 20%.
The success of Helium, which moved to Solana in 2023, explains why Solana has become the most important blockchain for DePIN industry. Developers love its fast speeds and extremely low prices, especially for a layer 1 network.
Helium HNT price forecast
The 4H chart shows that the Helium HNT price has gone vertical in the past few hours. It has jumped from a low of $5.56 on Tuesday to over $7. This jump continued after the Telefonica partnership growth.
It has now moved above the 50-period and 25-period Exponential Moving Averages (EMA). Also, it has formed a three white soldiers pattern, which is a popular bullish sign.
The Average Directional Index (ADX) has jumped to 30, signaling that the trend is strong. Therefore, the outlook of Helium HNT is moderately bullish, with the next point to watch being at $8.48, its highest point on January 12th. This price is about 21% above the current level.
