Helium, an Internet of Things (IoT) project, is moving from its blockchain roots to Solana — a blockchain network known for its speed and scalability.

According to an official announcement made on April 18th, the purpose of this significant migration is to enhance the stability and scalability of the Helium network. The network is built on a decentralized IoT device network that offers connectivity for low-power, long-range wireless devices.

Helium’s ambitious move to Solana commenced yesterday at 4:00 PM UTC and is slated to finish within a day. To facilitate the migration, the native blockchain of Helium has been paused, and a snapshot of the network has been taken.

The Helium tokens (HNT) and MOBILE tokens will then be charted onto Solana’s blockchain, effectively transforming Helium’s native tokens into Solana-native tokens.

According to Helium’s official blog post, the migration to Solana is expected to bring significant improvements to the Helium Network, including increased speed, lower costs, and more excellent stability. In addition, the IoT platform plans to tap into the robust developer community and resources available on the Solana blockchain ecosystem.

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Helium community reacts

The announcement of Helium’s migration from its native blockchain to Solana has been met with mixed reactions from the crypto community. While some expressed concern about the stability of the Solana network, others received the news with enthusiasm, with one user calling it a “smart move.”

The reputation for instability is not unwarranted — as Solana has faced frequent outages in the past — with the most recent outage occurring in November last year. In 2022, downtime became almost a monthly occurrence, leading to widespread criticism of the project.

Despite attempts to address the issue, Solana faced technical problems in 2023, with users needing help completing transactions on the mainnet in February.

Back in September 2022, Helium Improvement Proposal 70 (HIP-70) was put to the vote to determine whether the project should migrate to Solana.

The proposal garnered significant support, with 81.41% of the votes favoring the move. Of the 7,447 votes cast, 6,177 supported the migration, while 1,270 were against it.