SEC Dismisses Claims Helium Sold Unregistered Securities

Helium, a Solana DePIN protocol, is celebrating a major legal victory following the SEC’s dismissal with prejudice of its lawsuit against its parent company, Nova Labs.

The SEC’s dismissal of the lawsuit eliminates a serious obstacle to Helium’s expansion, which has proliferated in 2025 through a growing number of Web2 partnerships.

SEC Backs Away From Helium Legal Battle

Marking a critical win for Helium and its supporters, the SEC has formally dismissed with prejudice its lawsuit against Nova Labs, the DePIN project’s founding team.

Served the day before the Trump administration took office, the SEC’s lawsuit against Nova Labs claimed that the company was distributing unregistered securities via its mobile hotspot installations.

The SEC’s dismissal of the lawsuit signals a critical turning point not only for Helium, but for the DePIN industry at large. Under newly confirmed SEC Chair Paul Atkins, the dismissal sets a precedent that tokens distributed via DePIN models will not be inherently classified as unregistered securities.

Beyond enabling Helium to direct its full attention to ongoing growth and development, the decision eliminates legal uncertainty for DePIN projects offering crypto incentives to establish real-world infrastructure.

Additionally, the SEC’s dismissal with prejudice ensures that the agency cannot bring these charges against Helium again in the future, giving the protocol greater clarity moving forward.

Over 90,000 Mobile Hotspots Deployed Worldwide

Aiming to democratize internet access and transparently reward network contributors, Helium has enjoyed rampant growth in recent months. In February, Helium partnered with Movistar to deploy over 300 new mobile hotspots and reach 2.3M new subscribers.

Flipping the traditional Telco model on its head, Helium also launched the world’s first free mobile plan, breaking new ground in the connectivity sector.

Today, the Helium Network supports over 658k users across the U.S. and Mexico, with further expansion across more countries expected in the future. Network contributors have deployed over 91,000 hotspots, transferring over 28 TBs of carrier offload data per day, with the average operator earning over $50 per month.

After stagnating towards the end of 2024, the number of direct Helium Mobile subscribers has accelerated in 2025. No doubt due to Helium’s expansion efforts and the introduction of the Zero Plan, Helium’s subscriber count increased by 28.08% in Q1 2025, up from an 11.29% increase in Q4 2024.

Markets have reacted positively to the announcement, with Helium’s native token $HNT up 10.62% in the last 24 hours, rising from $2.62 to currently trade hands at $2.91, based on DexScreener data.

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