Short
- Despite their logo appearing on the Helium website, Lime and Salesforce denied having a current relationship with Helium.
- The founders of the helium crypto-powered wireless network said they would be more diligent in marketing to brand partners.
helium Crypto Token with its user-powered wireless network is developing one of the more unique blockchain use cases. The Buzzy project suffered a setback last week, however, when a pair of major companies listed it as partners denied they were working together.
Helium’s founders now say they are changing how they handle and market such alliances.
Scooter rideshare startup on Friday told lime Mashable that it does not have an active partnership with Helium, which is governed by the non-profit Helium Foundation and has considerable involvement in Nova LabsThe startup that represents the founders of the network.
The Lime logo was prominently displayed on the Helium website, but a representative for the scooter firm told the publication that it only participated in “preliminary testing” in 2019.
Later on Friday, a representative for cloud software giant Salesforce confirmed to ledge Despite its logo appearing on the Helium website, it had no partnership with Helium. In that case, a Salesforce spokesperson simply said, “Helium is not a Salesforce partner.”
The Helium website quickly removed both logos.
Today, a representative from Nova Labs told decrypt That firm will work with the Helium Foundation to transform the way they collectively partner with brands. Nova Labs declined to comment specifically on Salesforce or Lime.
“Since the network’s launch in 2019, we have worked with a variety of companies on various applications and pilots,” the Nova Labs statement said. “In the case of brands mentioned in recent articles, we had approvals to talk about use cases, but now we are going to be more rigorous about the logo approval process to avoid any confusion. Both Nova and our partner Helium Foundation have removed the reference.”
Following is the statement from Nova Labs a tweet thread From Helium co-founder and Nova Labs CEO Amir Halim, who wrote today that it was “disappointing and disturbing” to read reports about companies claiming to have no affiliation with the Helium project.
Halim said the creators of Helium have worked with a number of companies, though some are on limited pilot programs and trials.
“We spent a lot of time working with the brands mentioned in some of the stories last week,” he tweeted. “Months and months of testing, experimentation, prototyping, sales engineering. We had verbal approval from the teams we worked with to publicize and highlight these engagements.”
Haleem said Helium’s no-permissions network approach means they don’t have formal business partnerships with brands and firms, and they aren’t always clear when tests or pilots have ended. But eventually, he said, as people switch roles and leave companies, “verbal approval just isn’t enough.”
There’s a lot of discussion floating about @helium And various companies that have used the network over the years. I wanted to clear a few things. Disappointed and disappointed to read some of this material
— amir.hnt (🎈,🫡) (@amirhaleem) 1 August 2022
As a result, Nova Labs and the Helium Foundation will update the Helium website to “reflect only those companies that we think are active and with written approval, and we will work to keep this current going forward,” he explained.
Helium’s core network, in which users share access to their home wireless network in exchange for the HNT crypto token, now has Over 900,000 User Operated Nodes To. That network is focused on providing connectivity to Internet of Things (IoT) devices such as trackers and sensors.
Recently, helium launched a 5G network which can be tapped by smartphones, laptops and other consumer devices, and passed a resolution Launch new crypto tokens For each separate wireless network added in the future as it explores the “network of networks” approach.