One of the most ambitious real-world applications of crypto
At Nova Labs, creators of the Helium Network, I contributed to one of the most ambitious real-world applications of crypto. Helium is a decentralised wireless network for IoT, powered by nearly a million user-deployed hotspots globally. The platform rewards hotspot owners with $HNT tokens, building community-powered network infrastructure and pioneering the DePIN movement before migrating to Solana for scalability.
My work centered on 1663, an IoT data aggregation and intelligence platform. The system transforms raw wireless telemetry into actionable insights by aggregating sensor data, normalising formats, and delivering real-time analytics for logistics, agriculture and environmental monitoring.
One of the most ambitious real-world applications of crypto.
Challenges
Designing 1663 meant addressing real-time IoT data complexity at global scale. Devices produce heterogeneous telemetry in inconsistent formats and intervals, so the UI had to accommodate varied device types while staying unified and usable.
Real-time responsiveness was the next obstacle. Thousands of concurrent devices meant handling latency, gaps and noisy signals through fallback states, intelligent polling and progressive loading.
Balancing technical depth with usability was the third. Engineers needed raw query access, business users needed high-level insight. That layered complexity shaped design decisions throughout the platform.
~1M
Hotspots on the Helium Network
Two
User modes: engineer and operator
APIs
Programmatic access alongside dashboards
Live
Real-time data at scale
Two readers on one surface
The platform had to serve two audiences without fragmenting into two products. Engineers needed raw query access and configurable panels. Business users needed high-level answers, where the anomalies are and what needs attention today.
The default view is the business user's, with drill-down paths that hand control to the engineer when they want it. Contextual controls expose depth where it is useful and hide it where it is noise.
- Figma
- React
- TypeScript
Outcome
Shipped
Enterprise dashboards + APIs
Logistics
Applied to real customer workloads
Agriculture
Environmental + agricultural telemetry
Helium
Later migrated to Solana
1663 shipped as the enterprise surface of the Helium ecosystem, serving logistics, agricultural and environmental customers. The Helium Network itself later migrated to Solana for scalability, a reminder that the platforms carrying this kind of data are still moving underneath the products built on them.
