Helium is the canonical DePIN — a decentralized physical infrastructure network — and one of the few DAOs whose token rewards are paid for producing a real-world good rather than an on-chain one. Individuals run "Hotspots" that provide wireless coverage (LoRaWAN for Internet-of-Things devices and, since 2022, 5G mobile) and earn HNT in proportion to verifiable coverage and data transfer. The network began as Helium, Inc. in 2013 under co-founder Amir Haleem, pivoting in 2017 to pay node operators in cryptocurrency (Wikipedia).

What makes Helium interesting as a governance case study is that it has restructured its token model twice by community vote — first splitting into a multi-token subDAO federation, then reversing course back to a single token — with each turn decided through vote-escrowed HNT. It is the wiki's reference for how a DAO coordinates hardware incentives, and for what happens when governance is used to undo its own earlier design.

From its own L1 to Solana

Helium originally ran a purpose-built Layer 1 blockchain. In late 2022 the core team proposed HIP-70, moving Proof-of-Coverage, data-transfer accounting, and token issuance onto Solana's high-throughput chain to shed the burden of maintaining a bespoke L1. The proposal passed with 6,177 wallets voting — the most "For" votes on any HIP in Helium's history — and the network migrated to Solana on 18 April 2023. Governance moved with it: staking, voting, and treasury operations now run through Solana's SPL governance tooling (Realms).

veHNT and the subDAO model

Helium's governance is vote-escrow, established by HIP-51 and its siblings HIP-52 and HIP-53. Holders lock HNT to receive veHNT voting power, and — importantly — the docs describe these locked positions as Non-Fungible Tokens that are “not tradable or transferable and are considered ‘soulbound’ to your wallet”. Voting power scales with both size and lock length: a minimum six-month lock earns 1× the veHNT, a maximum four-year lock earns 100×.

HIP-51 also drew a line between the Network and its subnetworks, each with its own token: IOT for the IoT network and MOBILE for the cellular network. veHNT could be delegated to the IOT or MOBILE subDAO to earn a share of that subnetwork's emissions, and the split of new HNT minted to each subDAO was proportionate to the veHNT delegated to it — a design that let each subnetwork govern its own build-out while remaining backed by, and convertible to, HNT (HIP-51).

Return to one token

The multi-token structure proved hard to explain and hard to value. In November 2024 the community proposed HIP-138, “Return to HNT”, which phases out the IOT and MOBILE subnetwork tokens and returns the network to rewarding participants directly in HNT. In the authors' words, "moving to a single token simplifies the Helium ecosystem, making it more understandable for current and future network builders." The same proposal ends HNT emissions to Helium Security Token (HST) holders — early Nova Labs investors and employees, who had been receiving 30% of emitted HNT declining toward 15% — redirecting that HNT to active Hotspot owners and builders and increasing rewards to participants by over 40%.

The reversal is the noteworthy part. Helium used its governance process to build an elaborate multi-DAO token economy, ran it for two years, and then used the same process to dismantle it — a live demonstration that on-chain token structure is not permanent when a DAO retains the power to rewrite it. (Compare the durability-versus-flexibility trade-off that recurs across DAO design.)

The off-chain trust problem

Not everything about Helium was decided on-chain, and that is where its sharpest cautionary tale lies. In January 2025 the U.S. SEC charged Nova Labs — the company that launched Helium — with misleading investors during a 2021–2022 round that raised $200 million at a $1 billion valuation, by exaggerating relationships with Nestlé, Salesforce, and Lime (SEC litigation release). Per the complaint, the Nestlé relationship was a small 2018 hardware test predating Nova Labs' crypto business, and the Lime relationship amounted to two demonstrations to two Lime employees; both companies later sent cease-and-desist letters. Nova Labs settled in April 2025, paying $200,000 without admitting or denying wrongdoing, and the SEC dropped a separate unregistered-securities claim (CoinDesk).

The governance lesson generalizes: a DAO can make its on-chain mechanics transparent and still carry off-chain claims that its token-holders cannot verify from the ledger. Decentralizing the vote does not decentralize the marketing.

How Caper approaches this

Helium and Caper both reach for the word "soulbound," but they bind very different things. A veHNT position is soulbound only in the sense that a locked capital position cannot be sold while it is locked — it is bought with HNT, its weight is proportional to how much you locked and for how long, and when the lock expires your capital comes back. It is a time-boxed bet, not a record of participation.

Caper's soulbound token is the opposite kind of soulbound. Verified against the contract (contracts/src/caper_dao.rs), every vote mints a non-transferable proof-of-vote token (indivisible, depositable only by the DAO component itself), and a member's influence is w = (t · v) / (V · T) — where v is the votes they have actually cast. That weight is earned by taking part, never unlocks, and cannot be bought or rented; a member's first-ever vote even counts for zero, because the snapshot is taken before the token mints. The identical figure sets each member's exit share of the treasury, then the vote tokens are burned. Holdings still matter — t is a genuine multiplier, so this is not "one person, one vote" — but the decisive, un-buyable half of control is the participation history that Helium's expiring capital lock does not attempt to capture.