Helium (HNT) is a decentralized blockchain-powered network for Internet of Things (IoT) devices.Launched in July 2019, the Helium mainnet allows low-powered wireless devices to communicate with each other and send data across its network of nodes.Nodes come in the form of so-called Hotspots, which are a combination of a wireless gateway and a blockchain mining device. Users who operate nodes thus mine and earn rewards in Helium’s native cryptocurrency token, HNT.Helium’s goal is to prepare IoT communication for the future, identifying inadequacies in current infrastructure from its birth in 2013.Helium’s three co-founders Amir Haleem, Shawn Fanning and Sean Carey started the company in 2013.Haleem has an active eSports and game development background. Fanning, by contrast, is well known for developing Napster, the music sharing service which was one of the first mainstream peer-to-peer (P2P) internet services in the late 1990s.Carey meanwhile held multiple development roles prior to Helium, which included advertising optimization firm Where, acquired by PayPal.Helium’s team now consists of members which the company says have experience in “radio and hardware, manufacturing, distributed systems, peer-to-peer and blockchain technologies.”