[HN Gopher] Helium, Pump and Dump
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Helium, Pump and Dump
Author : rmason
Score : 33 points
Date : 2022-09-29 18:56 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (jeffreycarter.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (jeffreycarter.substack.com)
| renewiltord wrote:
| Hmm, the pre-mine lock-in problem is interesting. How do other
| crypto projects solve that?
| askvictor wrote:
| Having recently been investigating Internet connectivity options
| for our product, I don't see what the value proposition of Helium
| (for enterprise) is compared to M2M/IoT 4G mobile plans, which
| are surprisingly cheap.
| mmastrac wrote:
| The M2M plans I saw have always been expensive -- ridiculous
| prices for hundreds of kilobytes. I was tempted to jury-rig
| some eSIM plans into devices, but it's not terribly easy to do
| that right now with any off-the-shelf hardware.
| schmichael wrote:
| I think from the beginning Helium targeted people who just
| didn't know anything about wireless. The economics have never
| made any sense, and I'm fairly sure reselling your ISP's
| Internet is a violation of their ToS. So the second this saw
| any actual adoption, upstream ISPs would probably start coming
| along to shut down the busiest nodes.
| matrix_overload wrote:
| If you want to successfully "disrupt" the mobile network
| industry, you need to implement one specific regulatory change:
| force the networks to strictly bill people per use, with no
| minimums or monthly fees. So if you are making 90% of the calls
| from a dense urban area and 10% from occasional road trips or
| hikes, you can place these 90% calls through a cheaper local
| provider, and use your major provider for the remaining 10%.
|
| With the current "monthly plan" model it is simply impossible to
| launch a new competing service because your users will still have
| to keep their current subscription. You could argue that they
| would switch to a lower plan, but with the current plan prices,
| you could save like 10-20% by halving the amount of minutes/data
| you get, so nobody will do that.
|
| No way the founders did not understand that and no way they
| expected an average retail miner to think about that and start
| asking those questions.
|
| If you want an example how the below-inflation interest rates
| together with lack of antitrust enforcement create incentives for
| various grifts vs. long-term profitable businesses, you got one
| right here.
| uncertainrhymes wrote:
| Carriers assume most people most of the time won't use their
| full allocation of minutes and data -- this is 'breakage' and
| is built into their pricing. If they charged on usage, the
| rates would look worse even if it was 'honest'. It is something
| I would love to see, but the market can never make it stick.
|
| I don't understand your point about a 'cheap local provider' --
| they are all using the same towers, even if you get better
| rates from a cheaper Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO)
| like Boost or Mint. Their rates are lower because they buy data
| in bulk and just manage sales and support. You don't
| arbitrarily get to choose city vs rural coverage, it is the
| same network infrastructure in the end.
| cliftonk wrote:
| so far as distribution, 25% to early investors and founding
| employees seems pretty close to market. a "pump and dump" would
| insinuate that founders/other management sold significant
| holdings during the run-up and made fraudulent claims about the
| business (they might have! but you arent providing evidence of
| that).
|
| as for early investors, there is absolutely nothing wrong with
| those folks selling any amount of their stake as it becomes
| liquid. i generally agree it is scammy to give early investors
| short lockups on these token launches.... but the reality is that
| many of these projects do have short lockups and that should be
| part of your DD as an individual investor if you're investing in
| crypto.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| I never understood why people were comfortable connecting these
| Chinese-made and backed black boxes into their Internet and also
| having them broadcast on wireless networks. Now it appears they
| want to mimic telecom networks as well. I am fine with this, but
| you need regulatory agencies actually hiring people checking the
| process and they should be able to be made out or standardized
| parts
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