Maybe There’s a Use for Crypto After All

"One of the most frequent questions asked by crypto skeptics is: What can you actually do with crypto, besides financial speculation and crimes?

It’s a tough question to answer, in part because most of the successful (and legal) uses of cryptocurrency so far have been in finance or finance-adjacent fields. There are plenty of crypto exchanges, NFT trading platforms and video games that involve buying and selling crypto tokens. But so far, not many crypto projects have had what I’d call “normie utility” — solving problems that exist for people outside the crypto world, that aren’t primarily about buying or selling digital assets and that would be impossible to solve with normal, non-crypto technology.

Recently, though, I discovered one that does.

It’s called Helium. And while it’s not the most attention-grabbing crypto project out there — no cartoon apes or copies of the Constitution are involved — trying it out has helped me understand how crypto can be quite useful in solving certain types of problems.

On a basic level, Helium is a decentralized wireless network for “internet of things” devices, powered by cryptocurrency.

The network is made up of devices called Helium hot spots, gadgets with antennas that can send small amounts of data over long distances using radio frequencies. These hot spots, which cost roughly $500 apiece and can reach 200 times farther than conventional Wi-Fi hot spots, share their owners’ bandwidth with nearby internet-connected devices — like parking meters, air-quality sensors or smart kitchen appliances.

Anyone can use the Helium network, although most of its users so far are companies like Lime (which has used Helium to keep tabs on its connected scooters) and the Victor mousetrap company (which uses it for a new line of internet-connected traps). More than 500,000 Helium hot spots are in use around the world, with thousands being added to the network every day.

Here’s where the crypto part comes in: In addition to transmitting data, Helium hot spots reward their owners for participating in the network by creating units of a cryptocurrency called $HNT. These tokens can be bought and sold on the open market like any other cryptocurrency, and the more a hot spot is used, the more $HNT tokens it generates.

Helium, which was founded in 2013, didn’t start off as a crypto company. Its founders originally tried to build a long-range, peer-to-peer wireless network the old-fashioned way — by persuading people and businesses to set up hot spots and stringing them together. But they struggled to get enough participants, and the network stalled.

Frank Mong, Helium’s chief operating officer, told me that the company was running out of money in 2017 when an engineer suggested, during an all-hands Scotch-drinking session, that more people might be willing to set up hot spots if they could earn cryptocurrency by doing it.

“That incentive model, powered by crypto, actually made sense in this case,” Mr. Mong said.

So the company tore up its old business model and settled on a new one. Instead of building its network itself, Helium would make it fully decentralized and let users build it themselves by buying and connecting their own hot spots. Participants would be paid in crypto tokens, and they’d get to vote on proposed ideas for changes to the network. If the price of those tokens rose, they’d make even more money, and set up even more hot spots.

The new model, which was released in 2019, worked like a charm. Crypto fans raced to set up Helium hot spots and start generating crypto tokens. They traded tips on Reddit and YouTube for increasing the range of their hot spots, by attaching them to tall buildings or putting antennas on their roofs. Some hot spot owners claim to have made thousands of dollars a month this way, although earnings have fallen as more hot spots have been added to the network.

This, I’ve learned, is one of crypto’s superpowers — the ability to kick-start projects by providing an incentive to get in on the ground floor. Not everything could be improved by attaching itself to a cryptocurrency mining scheme. But in Helium’s case, crypto made sense as a way to encourage participation and give hot spot owners the satisfaction of building something they owned.

Arman Dezfuli-Arjomandi, a computer programmer in Philadelphia who hosts a podcast about Helium, told me that the network’s decentralization was the biggest selling point.

“If this network was built on some centralized platform, there’s always the chance that the platform I.P.O.s or they get acquired, and suddenly this whole physical infrastructure that was built by loads of people is at the whims of whichever company owns it,” he said.

I can find a lot to like about Helium. Unlike many crypto projects, it’s a real product used by real people and companies every day. The people involved in it aren’t brazen speculators, and most appear to be genuinely interested in creating a decentralized wireless network. (A cardinal rule of Helium’s 140,000-member Discord chat server is that you’re not allowed to discuss token prices.) And it’s going to become more useful in the coming months, as new kinds of 5G hot spots make it possible to send data over the network at higher speeds.

In addition, Helium’s blockchain is secured with a type of algorithm known as “proof of coverage,” which requires much less energy than the “proof of work” algorithms used by Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and is significantly less harmful to the environment. (Helium says its hot spots use about the same amount of energy as a 5-watt light bulb.)

 

Just to make sure I’m not being bamboozled here, let’s put Helium through my normie-utility test.

Does it solve a non-crypto problem? Yes. There are millions of connected devices in the world, and connecting these devices to the Helium network is significantly cheaper than buying a cellular data plan for each device. Because of the hot spots’ long range, Helium’s network can also reach places that typical Wi-Fi and cellular networks don’t.

Is it useful for something other than speculation? Also yes. The Helium network itself has value, and although hot spot owners can (and do) profit when the price of $HNT rises, the main way they’re making money is by adding new hot spots, not by day-trading $HNT tokens on a crypto exchange.

Could Helium have worked without crypto technology? Not really. The company tried the non-crypto approach, and it nearly went bankrupt. But adding tokens to the mix solved what technologists call the “cold start problem” — the fact that attracting the first users to a new network is often hard, because the network isn’t very valuable yet.

Helium isn’t perfect. Like many crypto projects, it exists in a regulatory gray area, and users could be in for a shock if Washington decides to crack down. (Federal regulators have suggested that lots of crypto tokens may qualify as securities, which could make Helium hot spot owners subject to all kinds of thorny securities laws.) And right now, most hot spots are in high-density cities, making it less useful to people in more remote areas.

Putting a Helium hot spot in your house might also technically violate your internet service provider’s terms of service, since it involves reselling a portion of your bandwidth. The terms of service for Comcast Xfinity subscribers, for example, prohibit using your connection “for any purpose other than personal and noncommercial residential use.” So far, internet service providers haven’t cracked down on Helium users en masse, but that could change.

“We are hopeful that the I.S.P.s are open-minded to exploring what Helium’s all about,” Mr. Mong of Helium told me.

What I like about Helium, despite these limitations, is that it has largely avoided the hype and inflated claims that surround many crypto projects. It’s not promising to revolutionize commerce and culture, to deliver us from government censorship or to change the fabric of our daily lives.

 It’s just a useful piece of real-world infrastructure, attached to a crypto-mining scheme that allows the whole thing to work without a big company standing in the middle.

I’ve been testing out a Helium miner in my home office for about a week. It’s a gold-colored box, about the size of a thick deck of cards, with a long antenna on top. In the first few days after I plugged it into my Wi-Fi router, it generated about $7 worth of $HNT — not a huge sum, but enough that if I left it running for a few months, I could pay back the cost of the device. (I’ll be sending the device back to Helium, and discarding whatever tokens I generate.)

Participating in the Helium network, even in such a small way, feels good. I’m earning a little bit of money, while enabling devices in my neighborhood to connect more cheaply to the internet.

I’m sticking it to the man, in the most mundane and low-stakes way possible. And after a few days, I understood the emotional appeal of other crypto-powered schemes, which reward you for taking a chance on something new and unproven.

I’m not going to get rich off Helium tokens. But not every crypto project needs to be a lottery ticket in disguise. Maybe, for some, being useful is enough."

Omikron ir ligoninės

 

    „Vis dėlto „omikron“ banga perkrovė Niujorko ligonines, kurios vis tik pasirodė atsparios, nes sveikatos priežiūros darbuotojai, nepaisant didelio išsekimo, 2020 m. išmoko iš sunkiai įgytos patirties, kaip apriboti sunkias ligas ir mirtį, sakė pareigūnai ir darbuotojai.

 

    Jie suvokė, kad, kai įmanoma, vengtina pintubuoti pacientus, nes sužinojo, kad daugelis žmonių, kuriems yra skirtas ventiliatorius, neišgyvena. Vietoj to, jie rėmėsi mažiau invaziniais būdais tiekti papildomą deguonį ir geriau naudojo dideles steroidų dozes uždegimui kontroliuoti.

 

    Ligoninės administratoriai suaktyvino skubios pagalbos planus, kad atidarytų viršįtampio padalinius, ir reguliariai konsultuodavosi vieni su kitais, kad pasidalintų patarimais ar paprašytų pastiprinimo.

 

    Nors omikron dažnai sukelia lengvesnes ligas suaugusiesiems, kartais jis daro sunkesnį poveikį vaikams, ypač tiems, kurie per maži, kad būtų galima skiepyti, todėl sveikatos priežiūros darbuotojams kyla naujų iššūkių. Vaikų hospitalizavimo rodikliai išaugo greičiau, nei ankstesnėse bangose, o tai atspindi tendencijas kitur."

 

    „Mūsų ligoninės, ypač skubios pagalbos skyriai, ir – šiek tiek mažiau – mūsų intensyviosios terapijos skyriai patyrė įtampą, palyginti su ankstesniais antplūdžiais“, – sakė miesto sveikatos komisaras daktaras Dave'as A. Chokshi. "Bet jie laikėsi linijos."

 

    Vis dėlto „omikron“ variantas parodė, kad ligoninės išliko pažeidžiamos dėl didelio pacientų skaičiaus ir kad pagalba ne visada greitai sulaukiama. Savanoriška sistema, skatinanti geriau finansuojamas ligonines priimti pacientus iš skurdesnių, lėmė kai kuriuos perkėlimus, tačiau per mažai, kad sąlygos būtų suvienodintos."

 

The Omicron wave strained the New York City’s hospitals

"The Omicron wave nonetheless strained the New York City’s hospitals, which still proved resilient because health care workers, despite widespread exhaustion, had learned from hard-won experience in 2020 how to limit severe illness and death, officials and workers said.

They knew to avoid intubating patients when possible, having learned that many people who are put on ventilators never come off. Instead, they relied on less invasive ways of providing supplemental oxygen and made better use of high-dose steroids to control inflammation. 

Hospital administrators activated emergency plans to open surge units, and consulted one another regularly to share advice or ask for reinforcements.

While Omicron often causes milder illness in adults, it sometimes has a more severe impact on children, particularly those too young to be vaccinated, creating new challenges for health care workers. Hospitalization rates for children rose more quickly than in previous waves, mirroring trends elsewhere.

“Our hospitals did come under strain, particularly emergency departments, and — a little bit less so — our intensive care units compared to prior surges,” said Dr. Dave A. Chokshi, the city’s health commissioner. “But they held the line.”

Still, the Omicron variant showed that hospitals remained vulnerable to being overwhelmed by a surge in patients — and that help is not always quick to arrive. A voluntary system that encourages better-financed hospitals to take patients from poorer ones resulted in some transfers, but too few to equalize conditions."