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HIP 148: Reallocate Mobile Mapping Rewards

  • Author: @madninja
  • Start Date: 2025-09-23
  • Category: Economic, Technical
  • Original HIP PR: #1186
  • Tracking Issue: #1187
  • Voting Requirement: veHNT Holders

Summary

Currently, 20% of HNT emissions allocated to the Mobile network are reserved for Mobile Mapping rewards. Despite a growing number of mappers since Helium Mobile launched, mapping has not delivered the impact originally intended. This proposal aims to simplify the reward structure and refocus incentives by making the following changes:

  1. Return 10% of emissions from Mapping rewards to the the Service Provider Rewards Pool as originally specified in HIP-53, reverting the change introduced in HIP-79.
  2. Move the remaining 10% of Mobile Mapping rewards to the Data Transfer Pool for coverage deployers.
  3. Repeal HIP-79 and HIP-118 to reflect these changes.

In addition, this HIP proposes the following changes to Service Provider rewards to further simplify Mobile tokenomics:

  1. Remove the Oracle Operator rewards allocation (4%) and allocate it to the Service Provider Pool.
  2. Remove the proportional Service Provider rewards system based on DC burn introduced in HIP-87 and emit the full allocation to the Service Provider Pool.
  3. Remove the Referral program introduced in HIP-114 that allocated a portion of unused Service Provider rewards to token-based incentive programs.
  4. Repeal HIP-87 and HIP-114 to reflect these changes.

Motivation

The issues with Mobile Mapping include:

  1. The complexity of maintaining software that shares location regularly on diverse handsets. Battery, memory, and CPU impact with slow feedback to end users have plagued the system from the start.
  2. The sophisticated techniques used by gamers to maximize mapping rewards by gaming location data. This has polluted the mapping data set substantially, which has caused more work to clean up the data.
  3. Verification Mapping, where an active Helium Mobile mapper connects to a Helium Mobile Hotspot, has only been observed in under 5% of all mapping data. This number is even lower if the forced hotspot CDR verification methods required for PoC rewards are excluded.
  4. The number of Helium Mobile subscribers turning off mapping is quite high given the impact on battery and the lack of clear benefit to the end user once the focus shifted to normal, non-crypto subscribers.
  5. While the mapping data set has been used in an "observed demand" layer on Helium World, it has not been very useful in guiding deployers to locations to deploy at. This is partially due to polluted data sets, but mostly because carrier offload locations are a much higher quality signal of where to deploy than mapping data.

The Service Provider Rewards Pool was designed to reward multiple Service Providers based on their contributions to the network. To simplify technical implementation, we propose to emit the full allocation available from Service Provider Rewards and Oracle Operator Rewards to the single Service Provider Nova Labs, allowing Nova to use the pool as needed for protocol development, operations including Oracles, and subscriber incentives. This will simplify the distribution of rewards between deployers, stakers, and service providers.

Stakeholders

This proposal affects:

  • Legacy Crypto Mappers, who would lose their mapping rewards. The upside is that they retain a competitive cellphone plan.
  • Helium Mobile would see the rewards shift from per-subscriber mapping rewards to a simpler Service Provider rewards model.
  • Token-based Subscriber Referral Programs, which will be terminated as part of this HIP.
  • Nova as Oracle Operator will no longer have access to a future Oracle Operator Rewards Pool, as the rewards will be moved to the Service Provider Rewards Pool, which may be re-allocated for other uses in the future.

Detailed Explanation

Under this proposal, 10% of HNT emissions would be moved from Mobile Mapping back to the Service Provider Rewards Pool. The other 10% would be moved to the Data Rewards Pool.

The Incentive Escrow Fund would be terminated. This does not affect existing Service Provider Rewards and will simplify on-chain accounting and behavior.

Finally, the 4% Oracle Operator rewards would be emitted to the Service Provider Rewards Pool.

A table of the percentage changes over time is given below. The last column shows the new allocation proposed under this HIP.

HIP 53 HIP 79 HIP 146 HIP 148
Data Transfer
(unused to PoC)		 40% 40% 60% 70%
PoC 20% 20% 0% 0%
Service Providers 20% 10% 10% 24%
Mappers 10% 20% 20% 0%
Oracle Operators 4% 4% 4% 0%
Stakers 6% 6% 6% 6%
Total 100% 100% 100% 100%

Repeal of HIP-79, HIP-87, HIP-118, and HIP-114

HIP-79 defined an increase of the Mobile Mapping Rewards Pool by allocating an additional 10% of emissions from Service Provider Rewards to Mobile Mapping Rewards. HIP-118 defined a more granular breakdown of the Mobile Mapping rewards to include Verification Mapping behavior.

This HIP will remove the need for these two mapping-related HIPs. Future systems for Verification Mapping-like behavior will be defined as needed and can be achieved without a rewards system.

HIP-87 defined a proportional rewards system for Service Providers based on the amount of Data Credits (DC) burned. This was originally designed to reward multiple Service Providers based on their contribution to the network. To simplify technical complexity around tracking the DC burned, and questions as to what to do with any overage if the SP does not transfer enough data to earn the full pool, this HIP will repeal HIP-87. Service Provider Rewards will be emitted directly to the current single active Service Provider (Nova). If a new Service Provider is onboarded in the future as an on-chain entity rather than as an offload partner, the distribution of the Service Provider Pool can be revisited in a new HIP.

HIP-114 defined a mechanism for Service Providers to allocate portions of Service Provider Rewards to referral-like programs before any Service Provider Reward overage is burned. Given the repeal of HIP-87, this HIP will remove the associated complexity, so HIP-114 is no longer needed and will be repealed.

Adjustments to HIP-53

HIP-53 defined the original 10% reservation of HNT emissions to Mobile Mapping rewards. This HIP will adjust the reservation to move those 10% to the Data Rewards Pool.

In addition, HIP-53 also defined the 4% of emissions to Oracle Operators. This HIP will move the 4% to the Service Provider Rewards Pool.

Drawbacks

  • Without Discovery Mapping data, geographic user demand data for Helium Mobile will not be available in the same form. This will be mitigated by new approaches delivering a much larger volume of high-quality tower-based data to infer both valid subscriber activity and approximate demand areas.

Unresolved Questions

Deployment Impact

Core developers will complete the implementation of this HIP on approval.