Frequently Asked Questions
What Is veHNT?
veHNT represents the voting power of the Helium Network.
In the Helium ecosystem, HNT holders can receive veHNT by locking their HNT on-chain for a specified period in exchange for voting rights and voting power in the HeliumDAO as defined in HIP-51.
Additionally, this provides other benefits, such as earning MOBILE or IOT tokens, if the holder delegates their veHNT to those subnetworks, respectively. After the lock-up period ends, the same amount of HNT is released back to the owner's wallet and is now transferable, if needed.
What Are The Benefits of Staking HNT after the subnetworks launch?
Now the Solana migration has been completed, stakers can use their staked veHNT to vote on proposals in the HeliumDAO and help the DAO make collective decisions, influencing the future of the Network.
Stakers will additionally be able to delegate veHNT to a subnetwork for token rewards. Delegating
veHNT to a subnetwork will count towards the DAO Utility Score, the V value referenced in
HIP-51.
Where Does My HNT Go if I Stake veHNT?
If you lock up your HNT for veHNT, your HNT will become veHNT and remain entirely in your wallet's custody. veHNT ownership is represented by a non-transferable Solana NFT held in your wallet. At the end of the lock-up period, any received tokens need to be claimed, the position undelegated, and then after a close position action is taken you will receive HNT back to your wallet 1:1 for the HNT you staked.
What Is a "Lock-Up" Period?
A lock-up period is a window of time when users are not allowed to transfer their HNT.
You will incur a lock-up period when you stake your HNT for veHNT. The lock-up period is between 1 day and 48 months selectable in days but with block granularity.
Lock-up periods help incentivize long-term holders of HNT and deter short-term speculators and those with shorter-term interests in the governance of the Network.
What is Voting Power?
Voting power is the weight of your vote towards decisions made by the DAO or subnetwork. The more veHNT you have, the more weight your vote has.
You can only increase your voting power by staking more HNT or extending an existing veHNT lock-up period for longer.
How to Choose a subnetwork to Stake?
HIP-51 defines that all subnetworks return a maximum of 6% of their earnings to their veHNT delegators and is designed to be an equal maximum reward level across all subnetworks so that no subnetwork can buy their way to a higher DAO Utility score.
Returns can be lower than 6% in subnetwork tokens if the subnetwork votes to provide a lower token return in return for other benefits or similar.
As more veHNT is delegated to a subnetwork, the DAO Utility Score improves, among other factors defined in HIP-51, which drives greater earnings of HNT for the subnetwork.
As more veHNT holders delegate to a particular subnetwork, individual holder earnings will reduce the amount of net subnetwork token earnings as delegators share the 6% subnetwork token emissions.
The more veHNT delegated to a subnetwork the more the subnetwork Utility score increases and the more HNT the subnetwork gets at each epoch improving the HNT/subnetwork Token ratio. But the more veHNT delegated, the more veHNT holders the 6% will have to be shared between.
How Will Staking Work By Using veHNT?
Anyone can stake any amount of HNT and lock it up for 1 day to 1461 days ( 48 months). You choose your unstaking date at the time of lock-up or decide to keep it on a rolling lock-up period, called "constant lock-up" before initiating the start or the veHNT decay process. The HNT staked is exchanged for veHNT, which provides two benefits:
- Voting in the Helium DAO on new subnetwork proposals and Participating in the Governance.
- Receiving an income if the veHNT is delegated to a subnetwork.
Anyone can delegate veHNT to a subnetwork, it's one component of a subnetwork's Utility Score. Delegating veHNT to a subnetwork allows the holder to earn subnetwork token rewards proportionally based on the subnetworks rules.
For example: If I delegate some veHNT to MOBILE subnetwork, I proportionally earn MOBILE rewards allocated to veHNT stakers.
The Helium Network encourages your long-term participation in voting and governance. Those who stake HNT for 1 day will exchange 1:0.06844627 HNT to veHNT. Those that stake veHNT for 48 months will receive an exchange of 1:100 HNT to veHNT. Any period in between will be treated on a linear scale from 0.0684462 to 100.
For example, I choose to lock up 10 HNT for six months. I receive 125 veHNT. If I decide to unstake immediately, after six months, my veHNT decays to 0 until my 10 HNT unlocks and is available to me for use in my wallet.
A combination of an amount of HNT locked up for a specified duration and the assigned veHNT is called a "Position". It is possible to own multiple Positions in your wallet. Actions taken on a Position - like e.g. on the lock-up duration, delegating the veHNT, voting with the veHNT - are all or nothing options. If a Position owner would like to receive rewards from two subnetworks, then the HNT-veHNT Position would need to be split into two Positions - by transferring some HNT to a second position within the same wallet. Then each position could delegate to a different subnetwork. Similarly, wishing to extend the lock-up duration on parts of a Position requires a similar split by transfer.
How Can I Obtain veHNT?
Staking HNT for veHNT will be done on Realms See the Staking veHNT on Realms documentation
Is There a Staking "Genesis" Period?
For the first ten days after Helium's migration onto Solana, there was a 3x multiplier bonus for new veHNT stakers. This is called the "Landrush" multiplier.
New stakers were only eligible to receive this veHNT bonus during the initial ten-day Landrush period. HNT staked now, after this period will receive veHNT at the normal rate with no multiplier.
This landrush period ended at 23:59:59 UTC on April 28, 2023.
For example:
Staking 10 HNT during this Landrush period with a lock duration of six months gets 375 veHNT (10x12.5x3) that, if a cooldown is selected, decays from 375 to 0 veHNT at the end of the staking period, and 10 HNT is returned to the wallet.
Staking 20 HNT during this Landrush period with a lock duration of 24 months returns 3000 veHNT (20x50x3), and at the end of the staking period, 20 HNT is returned to the wallet.
Will I Earn HNT by Staking For veHNT?
No. HNT staked to veHNT will not earn more HNT, it will only return what they staked at the end of their selected lock-up period.
However, when you stake HNT into veHNT, you can delegate your veHNT into one or more subnetworks (such as IOT or MOBILE), and the subnetworks allocate up to 6% of their token emissions to the veHNT owners delegating to that subnetwork.
For example: When you delegate your veHNT to the IOT subnetwork, you receive IOT every epoch that is claimable in your Helium Wallet. If you choose, this IOT can then be burned at the IOT subnetwork treasury for HNT, or you may hold your IOT tokens, or stake them into veIOT.
How much veHNT will I get for each lock-up period?
The table below shows the approximate HNT to veHNT multiplier for example months of staking
This value is multiplied by 3x during the first 10 days after the Solana transition and this multiplier lasts as long as the last lock-up period selected in the first 10 days after the Solana migration.
| Months staked | veHNT received | Months staked | veHNT received | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 week | 0.5 | 12 | 25.0 | |
| 2 weeks | 1.0 | 15 | 31.2 | |
| 1 | 2.0 | 18 | 37.5 | |
| 2 | 4.1 | 21 | 43.7 | |
| 3 | 6.2 | 24 | 50.0 | |
| 4 | 8.3 | 27 | 56.2 | |
| 5 | 10.4 | 30 | 62.5 | |
| 6 | 12.5 | 33 | 68.7 | |
| 7 | 14.5 | 36 | 75.0 | |
| 8 | 16.6 | 39 | 81.2 | |
| 9 | 18.7 | 42 | 87.5 | |
| 10 | 20.8 | 45 | 93.7 | |
| 11 | 22.9 | 48 | 100.0 |
Do I Have to Delegate My veHNT to a subnetwork?
No. You can hold your veHNT as is or delegate to a subnetwork at any time.
Changing delegation is allowed, but any delegation changes within a Solana Epoch will void any delegation rewards within that Epoch. A Solana Epoch is 24 hours long and starts and ends at 00:00:00 UTC time.
How Granular Is The veHNT Linear Decrease?
The veHNT decay countdown starts when initiated from the Wallet app/Realms, either immediately in "decay" mode or after a "constant lockup" is unlocked and cooldown started.
veHNT quantity decay is granulated per second even though the Epoch period is 24 hours.
It is the current delegated veHNT value at the start of an Epoch that is used for calculating the subnetwork utility score during the Epoch.
A 48-month lock-in period has approximately 1461 linear steps between 100 veHNT and 0 veHNT.
4 years x 365.25 days epochs per day = 1461 steps
After 1 day has passed after staking a single 1 HNT for 48 months, the quantity of veHNT in the wallet will decay from 100 veHNT to 99.86311 veHNT. This decrease will recur linearly over the remaining 48 months until it hits zero.
Can I Increase My Staking Lock-up Period At Any Time?
Yes. You can increase your lock-up period by extending it to a maximum of 48 months at any time, and the increase activates at the start of the next epoch. If the veHNT is delegated you must undelegate, change the period, redelegate, and lose delegation rewards within that 24 hour Epoch. If those three actions take longer than an epoch or are split over two epochs then delegation rewards are lost for two Epochs.
Can I Decrease My Staking Period For Fast Access to My HNT and Take a Penalty?
No. You define your lock-up period at the time of staking and cannot unstake or decrease the lock-up period for any reason.
Can I Automate Re-Staking?
Yes, a constant rolling lock-up period is available called Constant Lock-up. The decay countdown start point will need positive action to start the lock-up cooldown period.
Staking 10 HNT for 4 years will get approx 1000 veHNT and this will be a rolling 4 year period and will remain at 1000 veHNT until the decay countdown is activated and this will then decrease linearly over 4 years to 0 veHNT and the HNT is returned.
Can I Transfer my veHNT or any of the veDNTs to Someone Else?
No. veHNT and the like are fully non-transferable and represent your voting power in the Network. It is not a token. It is represented in the wallet by a non-transferable NFT.
How Do I Buy veHNT or Any of the veDNTs?
You cannot buy veHNT, veIOT, or veMOBILE. They are not tradable tokens. veHNT can only be obtained by staking HNT with a lock-up period. Likewise, for veIOT or veMOBILE.
veHNT and veDNTs have no price in the larger crypto markets.
What Is the DAO Utility Score?
The DAO Utility score is described in HIP-51
Every epoch, a fixed amount of HNT is allocated to all subnetworks. Each subnetwork receives a share of this fixed amount. The sizes of the shares are determined by the Utility Scores of each subnetwork of Helium.
The higher the Utility Score of a subnetwork is in relation to the Utility Scores of all other subnetworks combined, the higher its share of the total HNT allocated to all subnetworks. As the DAO Utility Scores are calculated each epoch anew, the share of HNT a subnetwork receives may change from epoch to epoch.
Delegating veHNT to IOT or MOBILE increases the V value in the
HIP-51 DAO Utility Score
calculation.
The two other ways the DAO Utility score can be increased are:
- Increasing the amount of data usage on the subnetwork, i.e., the Data Credits burned. This
increases the
Dvalue in the Utility Score. - Increasing the Data Credits used to onboard the number of Hotspots for that subnetwork. This
increases the
Avalue in the Utility Score.
Will My Subnetwork Earnings Remain The Same Over The Time Period Lock-Up?
No, they are calculated and paid to the lock-up position per epoch - daily. They may increase when:
- More veHNT is delegated in the subnetwork you delegated to - your treasury gets more HNT.
- More Hotspot onboarding fees are burned in the subnetwork you delegated to.
- More data is transferred and burned in the subnetwork you delegated to.
They may decrease when:
- More veHNT is delegated in the subnetwork you delegated to - your share is reduced
- More veHNT is delegated to other subnetworks - other treasuries get more HNT.
- Your delegated veHNT decays over time after you entered the cooldown.
- More Hotspots are online in other subnetworks with a non-zero onboarding fee.
- More data is transferred and burned in other subnetworks.
Thus it can be observed that delegating more or all of your veHNT to a specific subnetwork has the opportunity to both increase or decrease your subnetwork earnings from delegation.