coindesk.com
The surging price of MOBILE token is driving new signups – and plenty of suspicious accounts – to Helium Mobile, which on Monday tweaked the rules governing its cell plan's crypto rewards payouts.
New subscribers to Helium Mobile must wait eight days before they can claim any MOBILE tokens they're set to receive in exchange for having shared their location through Discovery Mapping, according to the company's terms of service, updated Dec. 18.
The shift is meant to combat growing pains at Helium's partially crowdsourced cellular network. Since launching nationwide at the beginning of December, the low-cost phone plan has seen an explosion of new customers as well as interest in its unique mechanism for paying its users in cryptocurrency.
Helium Mobile's cell service runs on a mix of T Mobile towers and Helium's own hotspots, which are hosted by individuals. Those hotspot operators receive MOBILE tokens as payment, as do phone subscribers who opt into Helium Mobile's location tracking service, theoretically meant to help guide where new hotspots should go.
At current levels, subscribers to Helium Mobile who use Discovery Mapping are earning over 2000 MOBILE tokens per day, CoinDesk found. That is enough to cover the cost of Helium Mobile's $20 monthly subscription in just two days.
The booming price of MOBILE – its up over 2000% this month – has helped attract thousands of new customers to Helium Mobile as well as its mapping service. On Sunday over 6,700 wallets received MOBILE rewards, per data site Helium Geek, more than double the number a week earlier.
"Helium Mobile has seen so many sign ups, with some a bit more suspicious than others," said Coco Tang, director of product for Helium Mobile's parent company Nova Labs, in a Discord post Monday afternoon.
Apparently, some customers were farming MOBILE tokens for seven days and then canceling the phone plan, walking away with a full refund and potentially hundreds of dollars in MOBILE tokens. The changes will stop their ability to game the program.