Summary
Primary-source vote-tally screenshots from the Helium Vote governance portal for HIP-143 (Decoupling Service Provider Pricing from Governance). The vote occurred April 3, 2025 at 1:13 PM. The proposal passed overwhelmingly (90.53% for) — but the voter breakdown shows the proposer (Nova Labs) and a co-author (ferebee) controlled 50% of the yes votes via their own proxies.
Key Points
Vote tally:
- For HIP 143: 691,254,123.19 veHNT (90.53%)
- Against HIP 143: 72,249,632.58 veHNT (9.46%)
- Total veTOKENS cast: 763,503,755.78
- Approval threshold: 67% of voting power; quorum: 100,000,000 veHNT — both met decisively.
- Vote date: April 3, 2025 at 1:13 PM
Voter concentration (top 6 voters, all proxies):
| Proxy | Vote | Power | % of Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nova Labs | For | 199,790,816.87 veHNT | 26.00% |
| ferebee | For | 183,846,182.84 veHNT | 24.00% |
| HKcAP…NxqoJ | Against | 63,622,983.73 veHNT | 8.00% |
| 93Dz8…dScH8 (no proxy name) | For | 43,969,699.22 veHNT | 5.00% |
| Jay M. | For | 40,119,856.34 veHNT | 5.00% |
| 95VLQ…fpbG7 (no proxy name) | For | 25,246,965.95 veHNT | 3.00% |
The proxy concentration finding:
- The Nova Labs proxy and the ferebee proxy together controlled 50% of all yes votes for HIP-143.
- HIP-143 was authored by “Inversion Capital, zer0tweets, Nova Labs, ferebee” — so the two largest “yes” proxies represent the proposing entity (Nova Labs) and a co-author (ferebee).
- The proposal granting Nova Labs unilateral pricing authority was approved by votes Nova Labs and its co-author controlled.
- The single largest “against” vote was an anonymous proxy at 8.00% — no organized opposition above that threshold.
Provisions of the proposal (from companion proposal text):
- Nova Labs authorized to negotiate Data Transfer pricing with mobile network operators without involving Helium governance.
- Nominal rate of $0.50/GB preserved (HIP-53); Nova Labs can adjust Rewarded vs. Unrewarded Data ratio (HIP-129).
- 1-year delegation period from implementation; auto-renews for additional year if no overriding HIP passes.
- As of Q4 2025 (Messari report), no superseding HIP had been passed — auto-renewal would occur around April 2026.
Newsletter Angles
- The proxy voting is the smoking gun. The “DePIN mullet” thesis (centralized control dressed as community governance) is documented one level deeper: in the case of HIP-143, the entity authorized by the proposal controlled 26% of the votes approving it. The co-author controlled another 24%. The proposal couldn’t have failed.
- The veHNT design — voting power scales with lock duration up to 4 years — concentrates governance with whales who can lock for the longest periods. The 90.53% approval looks like community consensus until you see that two proxies = half the yes votes.
- Total turnout was 7.6× the 100M veHNT quorum. High formal participation, extreme concentration. This is what “decentralized governance” produces at scale.
Entities Mentioned
- Nova Labs — proposer and 26% of yes votes via own proxy
- Helium Network — the protocol being governed
- ferebee — co-author of HIP-143; 24% of yes votes via own proxy
Concepts Mentioned
- DePIN — governance theater documentation
- Tokenomics — veHNT lock-duration voting power concentration
Notes
Primary source: two PNG screenshots of the Helium Vote portal preserved at raw/assets/. The vote portal is JS-rendered and could not be scraped automatically — the user manually captured the vote breakdown.
The proxy names are public on-chain identifiers. “Nova Labs” appearing as a proxy label means the wallet address voluntarily set its public proxy name to “Nova Labs” — this is the corporate entity behind the proposal acknowledging its own vote, not an inference.