San Jose Becomes First City To Fund Low-Income Internet Access With Help Of Helium Crypto Mining

San Jose, California became the first city Wednesday to join a rapidly expanding ecosystem and use Helium’s blockchain-based incentive model to increase internet access for more than 1,300 low-income families.

The Details: These households will receive a $120 payment on a gift card to help pay for home broadband service. 

The cryptocurrency mined by Helium nodes fund the pilot program.

Helium wireless hotspot token rewards will be used to pay for the grants for eligible residents.

The Context: For the 95,000-plus citizens lacking internet access in San José, this vision is both life-changing and timely, significantly as the digital divide has only increased during the global pandemic, according to the Helium blog post. 

According to the report, Helium’s low-energy network is designed only for devices like sensors and trackers. As a result, it cannot handle connections from laptops and smartphones.

San Jose has deployed 20 Helium nodes around the city, and volunteers and small businesses operate them.

So, if someone shares the wireless connectivity with nearby devices, each node “mines” or earns Helium’s HNT reward tokens. 

Later on, those can be swapped for other cryptocurrencies at an exchange.
Image: Unsplash.