Helium is expanding to Brazil through a joint venture with Mambo WiFi, announced in December 2025, pairing its DePIN model and Solana-based settlement with Mambo’s network of more than 40,000 hotspots to accelerate local Wi-Fi and mobile offload capacity. The move marks a strategic push for decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) in Latin America by leveraging existing assets and community participation to scale coverage.
DePIN expansion via local operator integration
The joint venture integrates Mambo WiFi’s installed base of more than 40,000 hotspots into Helium’s decentralized coverage model. Mambo, described as a Brazilian SaaS operator, contributes local scale and operational know-how, while Helium supplies its protocol stack and token-driven incentive structure to substitute traditional capital-intensive builds with community-hosted access points. The model enables rapid market entry without erecting new towers or fiber backhaul, relying instead on distributed hotspot deployment.
Helium’s strategy has evolved from an IoT-focused LoRaWAN network toward Wi-Fi and 5G offload use cases. The migration to Solana in April 2023 is cited as a key enabler, providing higher throughput and lower transaction costs to process large volumes of network events and payouts. That shift is credited with supporting millions of daily connections and scaling Helium into what was described as the largest decentralized LoRaWAN network prior to the Wi-Fi pivot.
The economic argument for DePIN in Brazil centers on lowering deployment costs while incentivizing users. The partnership leverages Helium’s Proof-of-Coverage (PoC) mechanism, a protocol-level process that verifies a hotspot’s radio coverage through cryptographic challenges and reporting. Participants host hotspots and receive token rewards, creating an organic, demand-driven expansion model anchored in local connectivity needs.
Comparisons cited alongside the announcement place IoT connectivity on Helium’s model at roughly $1.75 per device per year versus $18–$30 charged by traditional cellular providers. Early DePIN deployments delivered only modest rewards to initial hosts—described as “pennies” in early cycles—but proponents argue that evolving tokenomics and expanded mobile use cases could support more sustainable economics for operators. At the same time, observers flagged tokenomic complexity and regulatory ambiguity as continuing risks to monetization and institutional adoption.
The broader industry context referenced with the deal highlights partnerships that extend Helium’s utility, including mobile-operator collaborations for Wi-Fi offload. These integrations are positioned as ways for Helium to complement, rather than replace, incumbent mobile services by absorbing traffic and improving network economics at the edge. This hybrid approach is presented as a more realistic path to adoption than attempting a full displacement of existing carriers.
The Helium–Mambo WiFi joint venture ultimately tests the DePIN replication thesis in a large emerging market. Rapid scale via local operator integration, low marginal deployment cost and blockchain-based settlement are the core variables that traders and infrastructure managers will watch to assess whether the Brazilian rollout can serve as a repeatable blueprint.
