Helium vows to fight SEC lawsuit as founder calls allegations baseless

The decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN) network Helium has promised to defend itself against the recent Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit. Helium Network founder Amir Haleem decried the lawsuit as the last gasp of a failed anti-crypto crusade.

In a statement on X, Haleem said that the SEC claims against Helium are baseless and highlighted how the agency has failed to regulate the crypto industry in the US. According to him, the regulator has spent the last two years trying to find evidence of wrongdoing against Helium and eventually settled on these accusations when it could not find anything tangible.

He said:

“The SEC has wasted two years of our time and millions of our dollars pursuing any claim they could think of. first it was that the coverage map was fake, then that the cellular radios weren’t really cellular, then that the IOT hotspots didn’t really work, literally chasing anything that might stick.”

This reaction follows the SEC’s announcement of legal action against Helium network and its developer, Nova Labs, on January 17. In what was likely Gary Gensler’s last official act, the regulator sued Helium for violating securities law by offering unregistered securities, including “Hotspot” devices used to mine the HNT token and the “Discovery Mapping” program, which rewards users for sharing their private data.

Haleem noted that the claim is absurd, implying that the SEC considers wireless access points as securities and sees sharing location data in exchange for reward as unlawful. He promised that the Solana-based platform would strongly fight the lawsuit and is confident of victory

He observed that the lawsuit poses a danger to Helium and other DePIN projects because “If Helium hotspots are securities, it puts all DePINs in danger.”

Helium founder says there was no misrepresentation to investors 

The Helium founder also criticized the SEC for alleging that the Helium network defrauded its investors. The SEC has stated in its lawsuit that Helium’s claim that popular companies such as Lime, Salesforce, and Nestle were active users of its network was misleading.

However, the DePIN project insists that it has already addressed this issue, and all these companies have told the SEC that they have worked with Helium.

Haleem wrote:

“We’ve addressed this in the past, and have worked with every company on Helium mentioned in the complaint. apparently written testimonials from the companies themselves are insufficient for Gensler and his goons.”

With Helium promising to challenge the lawsuit, many in the crypto industry support its stance. Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron noted that the project’s combative stance is good, while many other stakeholders expect that the case could be dropped or settled under the new SEC leadership.

Haleem also expressed willingness to work with the new administration.

HNT down 17% in 24 hours and almost 30% in 2025

Meanwhile, the HNT token has been down 17% in the last 24 hours, a massive decline that continues a long-term trend of poor performance. It has fallen 7.62% in the last seven days, 35% in the last thirty days, and almost 29% this year alone.

Its performance today is not necessarily a standout compared to other DePIN projects. CoinMarketCap data shows that the DePIN sector saw an average decline of more than 4%, with the market cap for DePIN projects falling 5% to $28.62 billion.

Other DePIN tokens, including RENDER, Bittensor TAO, Filecoin FIL, and BitTorrent BTT, have also declined in the last 24 hours. However, the massive decline in HNT’s value suggests that the SEC lawsuit might be impacting its token performance even as investors try to remain bullish.

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