DePIN Exposed

We are DePIN exposed. We do not forget. We do not forgive. Expect us.

[DePIN Exposed @DePINExposed]

We are DePIN Exposed, calling out BS in this industry for the betterment of DePIN.

The question is, who’s next on the list?

[DePIN Exposed @DePINExposed]

@The_Relay_ It’s over for most of DePIN. It was tried for many years, billions were spent, millions of devices were deployed, the value generated was lackluster.

[DePIN Exposed @DePINExposed]

@acouplenomads He had a body guard at one point during events. Must have been quite a bit.

[DePIN Exposed @DePINExposed]

@gradoj @amirhaleem @0xdoublecapp @BidAsk_Spread @aut0m8d @helium @SECGov @fmong @didiomario @KyleSamani Bingo

[DePIN Exposed @DePINExposed]

@amirhaleem @0xdoublecapp @gradoj @BidAsk_Spread @aut0m8d @helium @SECGov @fmong @didiomario @KyleSamani The irony is that by stating you subsidized burns at $.50 means you were by definition inflating the protocols revenue. You may not see that as an issue, but every investor who bought HNT thinking the burns translated 1-1 to customer offload revenue, does.

[aut0 @aut0m8d]

look at the date on this tweet

[DePIN Exposed @DePINExposed]

@dlmcdonough @DePIN_Crypto Well said luke

[Brian | Life & DePIN @DePIN_Crypto]

HNT is now trading around $0.38, just pennies above its all-time low while sitting more than 99% below its 2021 highs.

At the same time, the community is being asked to consider a proposal that would authorize significant new token issuance to fund growth initiatives.

To be fair, Helium has made meaningful progress. The team appears to have found product-market fit, network usage has grown, and many deployers have earned strong returns on their infrastructure investments over the years.

But that’s also why emotions are running high.

Many of the people raising concerns aren’t critics on the sidelines. They’re the deployers who invested capital, took risks, endured years of uncertainty, and helped build the network to the point where PMF is finally being realized. After helping carry the project through its most difficult stages, they’re now being asked to accept dilution to fund the next chapter of growth.

One of the biggest sources of frustration is the perception that deployer rewards were, at times, supplemented by the network itself and then presented alongside revenue metrics. For deployers and investors making capital allocation decisions, the distinction between incentive-funded activity and organic customer demand matters. When those lines become blurred, trust becomes harder to maintain.

In fact, one of the biggest challenges facing this HIP is that many community members are evaluating it through the lens of what they perceive to be a lack of transparency around network revenue and financial performance. Fair or not, questions surrounding incentive-funded activity, reported revenue figures, reserves, runway, and overall network economics have left some deployers and investors skeptical of the numbers being presented.

As a result, the debate is no longer just about whether the proposed dilution will create value. It’s also about trust. When stakeholders don’t feel they have a clear picture of the network’s financial position, they’re naturally less willing to support a proposal that asks them to bear the cost of funding the next phase of growth.

Another factor weighing on sentiment is the amount of organizational change that has occurred over the last several months. Helium has seen a number of long-time team members move on or transition into different roles. Whether those changes are ultimately positive or negative, they create uncertainty at a time when the network is asking the community to support a major strategic shift.

Whether you support the HIP or not, the market is sending a clear signal: confidence in the token appears to be at or near all-time lows.

The uncomfortable reality is that if HNT continues to decline, the amount of capital that can be raised through dilution declines with it. A proposal targeting tens of millions of dollars becomes increasingly difficult to execute as the token price falls.

What the network needs now is a clear and credible plan that restores confidence among deployers, investors, and the broader community. Confidence won’t be rebuilt through arguments with deployers on X. It will be rebuilt through transparency, accountability, and execution.

Right now, the market appears unconvinced. @helium

[DePIN Exposed @DePINExposed]

@BidAsk_Spread @KyleSamani Yikes

[doublecapp @0xdoublecapp]

@amirhaleem @gradoj @BidAsk_Spread @aut0m8d @helium @SECGov @fmong @didiomario @KyleSamani I mean an onchain way for investors to know the $ amt used to buy & burn HNT since that was meant to be the revenue

If there's no way to infer this by looking onchain, token investors are going to be relying on Blockworks & Defillama dashboards which reported the wrong revenue

[DePIN Exposed @DePINExposed]

@amirhaleem @0xdoublecapp @gradoj @BidAsk_Spread @aut0m8d @helium @SECGov @fmong @didiomario @KyleSamani The irony is that by stating you subsidized burns at $.50 means you were by definition inflating the protocols revenue. You may not see that as an issue, but every investor who bought HNT thinking the burns translated 1-1 to customer offload revenue, does.

[Krypto Insider 💫 @KryptoInsider1]

So you're telling me @helium 's reported "revenue" wasn't actually a clean measure of customer demand?

The question was never whether solana:hntyVP6YFm1Hg25TN9WGLqM12b8TQmcknKrdu1oxWux was burned.

The question is whether investors had a clear picture of actual customer demand.

Nova continued buying and burning HNT at the $0.50/GB benchmark to keep deployer revenues stable, even as carrier pricing varied. Real money. Real burns.

Dashboards reported the burn. Investors interpreted it as network revenue. By the former CEO's own admission, public dashboards did not distinguish the origin of the funds used for those burns.

He also acknowledged that this was not clearly communicated to investors outside the community and that "$ burned" may have been a more accurate label than "revenue."

The problem is that "revenue" has a meaning. When a company funds its own buy-and-burn, most investors will assume the money came from customers.

DePIN's edge over TradFi is supposed to be transparency.

Where do you draw the line between a growth subsidy and misleading reporting?

[DePIN Exposed @DePINExposed]

@acouplenomads Yep

[DePIN Exposed @DePINExposed]

@DePIN_Crypto Nailed it

[DePIN Exposed @DePINExposed]

@ZwigoZwitscher @helium @helium_mobile I believe this is missing the point of the post🙂 it’s not about waking up and selling. It’s a pattern of bad decision making, that resulted in this seemingly obvious outcome, which is been placed on token holders to fix.

[DePIN Exposed @DePINExposed]

The most frustrating part about the current @helium situation is that the team waited until the 11th hour to address all the compounding issues (unsustainable hnt rewards vs real revenue, MVNO costs etc.).

[DePIN Exposed @DePINExposed]

@ZwigoZwitscher @NovaLabs The sale isn’t the issue. It’s that Nova operated under the grow at all cost model (offered free phones plans, subsidized actual offload revenue on hnt rewards) which is fine until it isn’t. our point is the writing was on the wall long ago but they didn’t do anything til the end

[DePIN Exposed @DePINExposed]

@BuckGup1108 @helium Lol we know…🫠

[gradoj @gradoj]

@amirhaleem @BidAsk_Spread @aut0m8d @helium @SECGov @fmong @didiomario @KyleSamani In that definition of revenue was it clear to anyone that helium was operating at 5x deficit ($.5 vs .1)? Lol gaslight as usual. Hey look at our big made-up revenue when we operate at a 5x loss

[DePIN Exposed @DePINExposed]

🎯

[MrGilm0re @MrGilm0re]

@jhiller @aut0m8d @helium @SECGov When Helium is promoting $50k in daily revenue and 80% of that Novalabs HNT treasury they got for free, only to inflate supply with 141 million more HNT via HIP-149 giving them more free HNT tokens... It isn't revenue.

[Raresh @Raresh94172421]

@amirhaleem @aut0m8d token holders were def given incorrect information about revenue, burn/emissions ratio, price per gb etcetera. Then de buyback fiasco (the way this was communicated!) you effed so many people throughout the years, truly unprecedented.

[DePIN Exposed @DePINExposed]

@Raresh94172421 @amirhaleem @aut0m8d This is the crux of the issue. It’s fraud. Full stop. People were buying hnt based on heliums publicly available, misleading info. Doesn’t matter if it was using money raised from equity investors. It’s inflating revenue. And it’s illegal.