Many crypto investors are shaken after the last few weeks' price drops, with the last few days of steep declines painfully punctuating the downward trend. Despite the volatility, it seems unlikely that blockchain will just suddenly fade away into the night.
Rather, crypto investors now face the question of whether to take this opportunity to increase or rebalance their holdings. This appears to be a great time to pick up some excellent deals on the cryptos that are most likely to strongly rebound. However, it is more important than ever to focus on cryptos with strong fundamentals and forward-looking use cases. For those looking to add a new cryptocurrency to their radar: look no further than Helium (HNT -4.53%).
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Making a comeback
Helium is one of the cryptos that appears to have begun a rebound: it's currently at $28.63, up more than 19% from where it started on Tuesday. But let's take a step back to consider its market performance over the past year. Helium's extremely successful 2021 peaked with a November high price of $52.71. Which is a far jump from where it currently stands.
Helium doesn't get as much press as the top few most-popular cryptos, but it holds a solid spot at #40 in market capitalization. It also has an extremely practical use case: it offers a decentralized, blockchain-powered wireless network that transmits data for Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Its closing 2021 Helium blog claims it is achieving the fastest rollout of a wireless network in history.
How does it work?
The technical solution that the Helium Network provides is to allow battery-powered devices to send small amounts of information over long distances via an open-source protocol called LongFi. It currently boasts over 500,000 hotspots across more than 163 countries. In 2021, Helium announced a "Helium 5G" hotspot partnership with the DISH Network. Also in 2021, Helium began a pilot program to provide San Jose, CA with IoT infrastructure as part of the city's journey to become a smart city. As a boost to the local community, that initiative will also help to provide internet access to low-income families.
Like many new cryptos, it's faced its fair share of technical challenges. So far, most have been related to its high usage and fast growth: the Helium Network experienced some disruptions in November 2021 due to unanticipated network block sizes and states. The team fixed the issues relatively quickly -- no data was lost -- and additional optimization and design protections have been added as a result. Hotspot hardware has also at times faced supply availability constraints, but the community now supports an expanded range of third-party hardware vendors. So far, Helium has flown high, gracefully learned some lessons, and is continuing to grow quickly. At today's bargain prices, it seems to be a crypto worth stocking up on.
