An accounting error in Binance led to a surprising price action for an altcoin project. The error pointed to an unexpected drop in Helium Network’s native HNT token for some users. According to people familiar with the matter, this has caused the world’s largest crypto exchange to shoulder a multi-million dollar deficit. Here are the details…
Surprising moves in altcoin HNT traded on Binance
Binance accidentally distributed HNT to some users. The approximately 4.8 million HNT tokens that were inadvertently distributed to users were sold almost instantly by some to make a profit. 4.8 million HNT is equivalent to about 19 million dollars. People said that the erroneous payments were due to the way Binance tracks token deposits from the Helium network. Helium has two tokens. The first is the HNT token. As we have also reported as Kriptokoin.com, HNT is used to pay users who hold the hotspot.
On the other hand, Helium has another token that it just launched last month: MOBILE. MOBILE is used to pay operators of the Helium 5G infrastructure. MOBILE currently lacks a liquid market and therefore no particular value. The error has since been fixed. However, instead of MOBILE, around 4.8 million HNT tokens had already been sent to users. The timing of the payments caused the price to drop from the $7 range to current levels. In other words, HNT experienced a huge drop from $ 7 to about $ 4 with the token sale. A spokesperson for the organization running the project used the following statements:
The Helium Foundation was informed late in the evening of September 15 that an accounting error had occurred with respect to HNT. We can confirm that this is not an on-chain issue and that this issue is exclusive to Binance. To our knowledge, no other exchanges or third parties were affected. We advise token holders to suspend HNT and MOBILE deposits on Binance until a comprehensive status update is provided.
Recent developments in the Helium ecosystem
Meanwhile, the Helium community is currently busy voting on a migration proposal to Solana (SOL). Helium developers shared the HIP 70 proposal that aims to move the entire Helium supply chain to Solana. The developers behind Helium stated that increasing the scalability, stability and speed of the network are the main motivations behind this move.
According to a Medium post by Solana on Aug. 31, the company has proposed migrating the Helium ecosystem from the L1 chain to its own “high-scale and fast blockchain.” This will provide “higher uptimes, user experience”. It will also provide secure and low-cost development while preserving the Helium experience.
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