MetroClick has seen the introduction of Web3 as a new avenue to innovate and become a leader in this new age of the internet. From NFT to IoT, numerous projects are in development for MetroClick. One such project that MetroClick is developing is integrating Helium hotspots into new and already existing Kiosks.
Why add Helium crypto-miners to a kiosk?
The goal of Helium is to set up a blockchain-based network that connects IoT (Internet of Things) devices to the internet. The difference between normal Wi-Fi and the wireless signal that is emitted by Helium is that the Helium network runs on LoRaWAN or “low-range wide area network”. This means signals from Helium can reach miles, not just feet connecting IoT things such as sensors, smart thermostats, and everything in between.
Why is this important to a crypto-miner inside a digital signage kiosk? The big advantage of this approach is an additional revenue stream for all parties involved. When a Helium hotspot is set up in a location, it broadcasts the LoRaWAN signals to all devices in its vicinity, and to incentivize more hotspots and stronger signals Helium rewards the user with HNT. A coin based on the Helium blockchain. The amount of HNT earned for a specific miner is based on the saturation of miners in a given area. The fewer miners within a given area, the more profitable your one miner becomes. There is however a happy medium for the number of miners in a certain area.
This is because of how Helium verifies its networks and the additional hotspots. In addition to being rewarded for broadcasting the network, Helium also verifies its hotspots and rewards the hotspots for verification. This process is like bitcoin verifying transactions on the blockchain, but instead of transactions, Helium verifies location. A hot spot is selected for verification and the hotspots in the surrounding area can verify its location as well as network status. With this verification, the hotspots that have verified the location are then rewarded and the user is paid in HNT.
Mine Helium with hotspots
With Helium miners integrated into our lineup of kiosks, we will be able to create that happy medium for new areas into which Helium has not yet broken into. While the advantages in a larger city or town for Helium is less than it would be where there is no established network, the possibility for profit is still there. The best part about the Helium integration we are proposing is that this is all passive income. Helium miners are machines that you can set and forget, once it has power and a connection to the internet it starts making money.
The downside to this is only the initial cost to acquire and integrate it with our existing kiosks. Based on market research however hardware ranges from $500-$1000. While that is a decent investment for one miner, there is a possibility for ROI. For one miner the average return is about $4 per day which is $120 per month.
Can Helium mining be profitable?
The short answer is it depends, and it truly does….
One miner in a city will have less profitability than a miner in a more rural area. However, one miner would of course make less than a network of miners would. Then there’s the time you’re willing to invest.
Are you ok with running these hotspots for months or even years before you start returning a profit?
Another factor is that in 2021 Helium had its first Halving. What this means is that every 2 years the amount of Helium being mined drops by half. Before august of 2021, the monthly rate of HNT being mined was 5 million. After August 1, 2021, the amount mined was 2.5 million every month after that date.
The question is, why would the Helium project start to ax their coins. Also, to investors what does this mean.
A potential investor can look at this in two ways. Firstly, Helium is no longer a coin that can get you rich quick so there is no sense in buying a miner and ROI doesn’t make financial sense. Or they can see it as the Helium team moving away from rewarding coin generation and moving towards rewarding data transfer on the network instead.
“According to the Helium project, the first halving starts the ball rolling toward a lower network reward for mining and increased rewards for data transfer. This means that simply setting up a few hotspots in the middle of nowhere to farm HNT will gradually lose potency. Instead, more rewards are given to the Helium miners that get used by users spending Data Credits.”
Its clear what direction Helium is headed in, they believe in the size of the network and want to start pushing its users to get on board with the vision of the project.
This is why MetroClick entered the Helium market at a perfect time. In addition, with our central location in midtown Manhattan and many of our existing clients also in the New York metropolitan area. We are at a perfect point to begin preparing for the Helium cross-over. With a network-wide rollout, we can get ahead of the curve and not be late to the craze as so many people were, maximizing our profits and establishing ourselves in the Web 3 space.