Helium has entered Brazil through a strategic partnership with local provider Mambo WiFi, deploying into a market where more than 100 million people frequently rely on shared or public Wi-Fi. The move pairs roughly 40,000 existing Mambo hotspots with Helium’s decentralized network architecture and a Solana-based protocol stack, creating a major DePIN deployment aimed at carrier offload and lower network operating costs.
Solana-based architecture for scalable DePIN
Since migrating to Solana in April 2023, the network architecture underpinning Helium has prioritized high throughput and low transaction costs to make large-scale, decentralized wireless interactions feasible. Project engineers argue that Solana is the only realistic option to grow with Helium’s scale while still delivering the interfaces required for a responsive user experience.
DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network) is a model that uses distributed, community-owned devices to provide infrastructure services. In Helium’s design, ordinary Wi-Fi hotspots are repurposed as network nodes that provide coverage, cryptographically verify service and receive rewards, with Solana enabling those verifications and token-reward flows to operate at scale without prohibitive cost.
Mambo WiFi’s footprint of about 40,000 hotspots gives Helium an immediate infrastructure layer that can be leveraged for mobile data offload. Helium’s network leadership frames the initiative as an effort to tackle the Brazilian telco market by proving that people-powered networks can deliver affordable, reliable coverage at scale.
The expansion follows earlier strategic steps such as a $20 unlimited 5G plan in the United States and carrier collaborations in Latin America, including work with Telefónica in Mexico. Positioning Brazil as the next major pilot for carrier integrations allows Helium to test whether its community-driven model can plug into existing operator economics rather than compete purely as an over-the-top alternative.
Market commentary around the launch cited projections that DePIN networks could reach a $3.5 trillion market cap by 2028. For operators and treasury managers, the near-term commercial vector is traffic offload, using Helium-connected hotspots as a variable, community-sourced layer to absorb data without large capex while creating new revenue streams for hotspot hosts.
Operational risks are non-trivial. Deploying a token-incentivized coverage layer at scale depends on reliable telemetry and transparent reward mechanisms to prevent fraud and ensure traceable service attribution, with the Solana stack positioned as the backbone to meet those requirements.
The Brazil initiative underscores a pragmatic go-to-market strategy: integrate with an existing local provider to accelerate coverage instead of attempting a greenfield build. Helium’s partnership with Mambo WiFi establishes a sizeable, Solana-backed DePIN presence in Brazil that will test whether tokenized, community-driven infrastructure can integrate with incumbent carriers while delivering carrier offload, reduced network costs and rapid coverage scale.
