re: Which one of you made $10k last month mining Helium?

For those who still aren't sure what all this stuff is about, check out Barnacle for an example. It's a tracking device for high-value packages.


How it works:

A shipper buys Barnacles for $30/each (or a little cheaper in quantity). They scan the QR code and slip a Barnacle inside the box with the goods (they look to be roughly the size and shape of a small envelope). Now both the shipper and the recipient can track the package location in essentially real time. It also has package open detection (I assume via light sensors) so you will know if, when, and where the package was opened.

The Barnacle has pre-paid postage, so the recipient can put it in their mailbox to be returned to Barnacle. The shipper gets $20 back upon its return, so the net cost is $10 per package.

Pretty neat.



I would expect there to be competition soon, and hopefully the pricing can come down lower to allow lesser value packages to be tracked cost-effectively.

This can only be done with long-range, low-power wireless networks like LoRaWAN, and Helium looks to be far and away the best network of this kind. AFAIK it's the only network that incentivizes building, operating, and maintaining the network for others to use.

So the idea is that by the time the mining rewards start to wind down, the payout structure shifts over to data transit payouts. So maybe in a couple years every delivery truck that passes within a couple miles of you will have a few dozen packages inside transmitting data over your miner, and you collect the fees.


And that's just one example, it's not only about location tracking. If it can be measured, a Helium device can be built to measure it, and an application can be built to use the data.