How Mining Helium Can Produce More Than $1,000 Monthly

A blockchain network called Helium is intended to offer widespread cellular coverage.

A relatively new blockchain called Helium is intended to build open, decentralized wireless networks. I’ve always considered decentralized wireless networks to be the “ideal” technology for a decentralized society. The internet of things (IoT), which depends on device interconnectivity to work, contains some of the greatest technology that lowers friction in our daily lives. The actual objects that make up the internet of things have sensors and antennae and are designed to connect with one another and exchange data.

Applications for Internet of Things (IoT) devices include many “smart” objects. By collaborating and acting more effectively, smart lightbulbs, dishwashers, washing machines, and garage doors can all help you save time and energy. With more sophisticated wireless technology supporting devices like blood pressure or heart rate monitors that can monitor and regulate implants, including pacemakers, IoT devices are starting to proliferate throughout hospitals. Finding a parking place can be made significantly easier by installing even something as basic as a wireless sensor in each parking space of a parking garage that notifies the entry if and where any empty spaces are available.

All of these intelligent gadgets are quite helpful, and as they develop more capabilities, they will become even more valuable to us. Connecting these devices in a reliable manner is one of the main problems. Due to demand from our computers and phones, Bluetooth and Wifi have a very little range and are currently pretty well fully utilized.

Herein lies the role of helium. Helium makes use of a unique radio frequency (RF) technology that is intended to give IoT devices extensive coverage. By asking individuals to set up hotspots in their homes, the Helium team hopes to provide these IoT gadgets with extensive wifi coverage. The network will continue to grow and become more dependable as more hotspots are added. In exchange for providing network coverage, hotspot owners are paid in HNT, same way Ethereum miners get paid ETH. This article will explain the operation of HNT mining and the reasons behind its recent high profitability for early adopters.

How Does Helium Function?

Helium pays miners in HNT, the cryptocurrency equivalent to ETH in Ethereum, for using radio waves to confirm that hotspots are indeed giving devices wireless coverage. Helium implements a new work technique called Proof of Coverage (PoC). Helium miners confirm that wifi hotspots aren’t lying about their service by utilizing radio waves to “interrogate” hotspots about their activity, just way Ethereum utilizes graphics cards to compute cryptographic hash codes that give the proof of work needed to validate transactions.

Radio-Frequency and Coverage Proof

Only a few crucial radio-frequency (RF) characteristics make it possible for miners to create proofs that meaningfully demonstrate the veracity of hotspot activity, and these are the ones that make Proof of Coverage work:

1. Because RF travels at the speed of light, it has essentially no latency.

2. The physical range of RF is constrained.

3. The strength of an RF signal can be utilized to calculate its distance from its source.

These three features are essential for Proof of Coverage to operate because they enable the blockchain to continuously verify if hotspots are functioning effectively via a “Challenge.”

Problems with Proof of Coverage

The actual task that needs to be finished in order to comply with the PoC protocol is known as a challenge. The challenger, broadcaster, and witness are the three roles involved in challenges. Each job performs a certain task to validate the information a hotspot transmits.

1. Challenger – The hotspot that initiated the challenge is known as the challenger. This occurs around every 200 blocks.

2. Transmitter – The hotspot that is being contested is the transmitter. It is in charge of transmitting (“beaconing”) the data packets relevant to the task.

3. Witness – Witnesses are hotspots that are close to the transmitter and can confirm that the transmitter is properly sending challenge packets.

Each of these tasks is carried out by one of your hotspots at any given time, and the network pays HNT for each one. Therefore, placing a Helium miner in a window of an area where Helium network activity is already present will begin to earn more HNT than an area with no coverage. In the Resources section, I’ll provide links to more thorough material on the inner workings of the Helium network, but for now, let’s get started on estimating your prospective mining revenues.

How to Calculate Profit

It is more difficult to calculate HNT mining revenues than it is for Ethereum or other Proof of Work blockchains. Your HNT revenues can vary greatly depending on the status of the local Helium network.

As we mentioned, servicing the wireless hotspot, starting/completing challenges, and watching difficulties are all ways that miners might gain HNT. This implies that if you reside in a region where there are no other miners, you will earn less HNT than if you are in a region where you can communicate with other hotspots. There is a saturation limit, though, where adding additional hotspots doesn’t make it easier to observe or start new tasks. The network prefers moderately dense coverage to highly broad coverage. Therefore, once a region has enough hotspots to address all issues and witness obstacles, adding more hotspots will begin to cut into revenue.

Coverage Diagram

Using their coverage map is the most accurate approach to calculate your prospective earnings from mining helium. Finding out if there are any nearby hotspots in your neighborhood is simple with the help of the coverage map. You can click on neighboring hotspots to see how much HNT it generated over the course of the last month or 24 hours.

The HNT earned by new and current hotspots could improve if you add a new hotspot if your area isn’t extremely heavily populated because they would be able to take part in challenges. Due to its slightly more central location and the fact that it has filled the witness role in numerous challenges each day, one of the more lucrative hotspots in my area, Handsome Hazelnut Crane, appears to be producing more HNT than others.

Despite the recent decline in the value of cryptocurrencies, this particular hotspot earned 105.62 HNT in the last 30 days, which is presently worth about $1180. That indicates that in the last 30 days of operation, this miner has probably nearly tripled its initial cost.

Unfortunately, unlike Ethereum, where we can use a few metrics to obtain a fairly accurate profit prediction. However, by examining the most recent earnings of hotspots close to your house or place of business, you should be able to obtain a pretty good idea of how profitable your local HNT mining is. Following that, we’ll go through how to set up a hotspot and which models you should buy if you want to give it a try.

Which hardware is required?

Since that is how Ethereum and Bitcoin function, when most people think of cryptocurrency mining, they think of hardware like graphics cards. As we’ve explored, Helium uses a Proof of Coverage mechanism that depends on radio waves to verify the network activity around it rather than Proof of Work.

This means that Helium mining must be done with specialist technology created expressly for this purpose. There are various companies selling Helium miners and most of them are pretty similar to one other. They all tend to appear like a router that you would have in your house for your home internet with a simple plastic shell and antenna on the back. The most popular and full-featured miners cost roughly $450; getting into Helium mining isn’t free, but the upfront investment is lower than mining Ethereum.

My favorite element about Helium mining is that the miners run on next to little electricity, which means they also emit no heat or noise. Powering a radio antenna is extremely low power, which means that you don’t have to take electricity prices, heat, and climate change into account like you do with Ethereum mining.

Which Miner is the Best?

If you are interested in trying Helium mining for yourself, you are probably thinking which miner to try to get. Luckily, aside from weatherproofing for outside miners, the internals are usually relatively comparable. It is also currently fairly difficult to find them as the profitability is quite high. The brands that are certified by Helium include Nebra, Bobcat, Rak Wireless, and Syncrob.it; I will link them in the Resources section.

One common miner is the Bobcat Miner 300. But, like most popular miners, the Bobcat is shipping 12–20 weeks from order. It is also only taking payment via Coinbase commerce, which is like checking out with Paypal except via Coinbase with cryptocurrency. This is a significant reason why they are still available for purchase; all of the similar miners, like the Nebra miner, that accept credit cards are entirely sold out.

Where Do I Put My Miner?

If you buy an indoor miner, they are normally supposed to go next to the tallest window accessible in your home. You also should remove any metal mesh on the window you are using since it may disrupt the signal.

Generally, height is the only constant when it comes to enhancing the signal on your new miner. The higher up, the better since the radio signal will normally be disrupted less up high. If you have many areas to choose from, pick the one that has the least surrounding metal, electronics, or concrete. However, if you only have one acceptable high window in your home, it will most likely function just fine.

If you want to see a practical example of Hotspots in locations with low and high revenues, check out this post!

Where Do I Store HNT?

HNT is best saved using Helium’s official wallet software. I will link the iOS and Android versions in the Resources section. The apps are professionally developed and help you manage your hotspots along with your HNT coins safely and securely.

The wallet will supply you with your private key, which you should be very careful to store offline and in two locations. If you aren’t acquainted with how cryptocurrency wallets function, check read this post.

Selling HNT for Dollars

HNT isn’t supported by some of the major exchanges, such Coinbase. However, there are reliable exchanges like Binance US and crypto.com that let you to sell HNT. I have a handful of pals that have used both to sell HNT without any concerns.

To sell your HNT, simply move it from your Helium wallet to your crypto.com wallet and then sell it for dollars. You’ll pay some costs on the transfer and sale, so it’s advisable to save up before converting to avoid the fees being a substantial part of your earnings.

Wrapping Up

Helium is one of those technologies that gets me psyched. It is really interesting to see blockchain be used for purposes other than digital currencies, much like Ethereum used blockchain to construct a decentralized computing platform.

By setting up a Helium hotspot we get to contribute to the creation of a very unique network all while making some passive revenue. Hopefully, this post has helped you understand how Helium mining works and if you’re interested in attempting it, check out the Helium documentation!