So far, only the company's employees have been enriched with the" popular " Helium cryptocurrency. Chief from the Forbes investigation

Forbes published an investigation about the company Helium. The company, which is estimated at 1 1.2 billion, promised that it would create a "people's network" that was supposed to provide internet communication to objects such as parking meters and dog collars.

Those who wanted to become part of the network only had to spend 5 500 on a device similar to a Wi-Fi router, connect it and receive the Helium cryptocurrency.

In return, the company promised that buyers will be able to "recapture" their contributions in a few weeks, and if HNT, the company's cryptocurrency, rises in price due to the growing demand for the Helium system, then all network participants will receive financial benefits from this.

But so far, ordinary buyers of devices have not seen the promised profits. But, according to Forbes, Helium made the company's directors and their friends rich. It was the company's employees who quietly collected the most tokens at the dawn of the project, and therefore earned the most.

Forbes has identified 30 digital wallets that appear to be linked to Helium employees, their friends, families, and first-time investors. This group of wallets "earned" 3.5 million HNT — this is almost half of all tokens that were mined in the first three months after the launch of the "people's network" in August 2019.

Within six months, more than a quarter of all HNTS were received by the company's employees. It was during this period that the peak of token prices occurred, so this "catch" was estimated at.250 million. Even after the fall in crypto prices, these tokens are now worth 2 21 million.

Amir Halim, co-founder and CEO of Helium, said in an interview that about half of the first devices went to the company's employees, their families and friends. "I don't think these are unfair numbers," he told Forbes.

Scammers have appeared in the system. These people bought several devices and set up their geolocation so that it seemed as if they were scattered all over the city, and not in the same house. So the owners validated themselves, and therefore received more tokens. Helium employees arranged the same schemes.

According to the documents, five devices that are connected to the wallet of Halim's wife mined 250,000 HNT in the first three months of the network's operation. As dividends to the same wallet, a total of 455,000 HNT was credited, which at the peak of the token value was worth 2 25 million, and today — only.2 million.

Halim said that some crypto projects set aside 90% of the first tokens for investors and team members. When Forbes could not find other examples of such projects, Halim insisted that "there are a lot of them", and gave a link to the table, which refers to 10-58%, but not 90%.

Forbes also found that between June 2021 and August 2022, the Helium network generated only даних 92,000 in revenue through data processing. This is by no means up to the $250 million that Nova Labs, the parent company of Helium, raised for its "daughter". Most of the revenue — 5 53.3 million for the same period-the company received from the sale and registration of new devices in the network.

In August, the city of San Jose refused to continue cooperation with Helium, when the company did not fulfill its promise to reduce internet costs for the low-income population through mining. The city has noticed a decrease in the number of HNTS that miners "mine" on the network.

The company attributes to itself partners that it does not have. Salesforce and Lime have confirmed to Forbes that they do not use Helium, although their companies are listed on the Helium website as customers.

Last month, Helium announced the launch of a new mobile token, which will be awarded to owners of devices in the 5G ecosystem. And to join this ecosystem, you need to buy a new device that costs from.1000 to. 2600.