Helium Token Nearly Doubles as Texas City Converts Public Wi-Fi Into Mobile Coverage — BigGo Finance

A small Texas city’s decision to repurpose its existing public Wi-Fi network as a mobile coverage layer triggered a dramatic rally in Helium’s HNT token over the weekend, with the cryptocurrency nearly doubling in value within a day.

Celina, a fast-growing municipality north of Dallas, activated Helium’s carrier offload feature at several city-owned locations on Aug. 28. The deployment covers the Celina Public Library, the Ralph O’Dell Senior Center, and a handful of participating downtown businesses. Because these sites already had Wi-Fi infrastructure in place, the city avoided any new construction costs.

The mechanism allows supported carrier subscribers to connect automatically through Passpoint authentication, eliminating the need for apps, passwords, or manual network selection. According to Helium, the enabled sites are already processing roughly 100 GB of data per day, with additional locations expected to come online this fall.

Amy Alexander, Celina’s information technology director, framed the initiative as a practical solution for a city experiencing explosive growth. “Helium let us turn Wi-Fi we already own into coverage our residents’ phones use automatically, without spending a dollar on new towers,” she said.

The carrier integration behind the automatic connections dates back to April 2025, when AT&T began using Helium’s Wi-Fi network for subscriber offload. That earlier agreement laid the groundwork for the seamless handoff Celina residents now experience.

Market Reaction

The token’s price action was swift and outsized relative to the deployment’s current scale. BeInCrypto reported that HNT had gained approximately 97.4% over 30 days, with nearly all of that gain arriving in the final 24 hours. The surge added about $37 million in market value, while roughly $44 million changed hands in a single day — more than half of the token’s reported $79 million market capitalization.

HNT traded near $0.42 at the time of the report. Despite the sharp rebound, the token remains down 85.6% over the past 12 months and sits far below its 2021 peak of $54.88.

Why Celina Matters

The broader significance of the Celina deployment lies in what it represents for Helium’s business model. By demonstrating that existing Wi-Fi infrastructure can be converted into functional mobile coverage without new towers, the project offers a template for other rapidly expanding communities facing connectivity challenges.

U.S. Census Bureau estimates show Celina added 12,710 residents between July 2024 and July 2025, a 24.6% increase that lifted its population to 64,427. That growth rate led all U.S. cities with more than 20,000 residents, underscoring the pressure on local infrastructure.

Note: Population figures from U.S. Census Bureau estimates; token data from market reports at the time of publication.

The scale of Celina’s current deployment — one library, one senior center, and a few shops — is modest. Yet the market’s reaction suggests investors are pricing in the potential for Helium to replicate this model across other fast-growing municipalities, rather than the immediate revenue from a handful of Texas locations.