Helium CEO Amir Haleem resigns as HNT tanks 96%

Helium's $HNT token is down 96%, and CEO Amir Haleem decided to quit yesterday. He spent over a decade talking up the reasons someone should be bullish on $HNT. Checking the chart, holders would have been better off never listening. The irony is, well, pure number go down.

Helium issued three crypto tokens — MOBILE, IOT, and $HNT — to incentivize operators of its once-faddish networking devices. Over the past five years, those three tokens have declined 76%, 87%, and 96%, respectively.

Haleem announced his resignation by quote-tweeting a video from his replacement, Mario Di Dio. He's stepping aside as chief executive of Nova Labs, the company behind Helium. On X, some users framed his step-down to chairman as a well-deserved break after a successful career. The price chart of his token tells an entirely different story, however.

Somehow, things got even worse as his reign ended, with $HNT falling another 15% on the day of his goodbye.

Get out, get out, get out

The timing of the CEO changeover certainly raises eyebrows. Two days before quitting, Haleem's company offloaded its consumer business on June 2, 2026. Helium Mobile, the budget cellphone service that gave the project a sliver of legitimacy, went to Noble Mobile. $HNT failed to rally on the news, remaining down 30% over the past week and down 46% over the past month.

So the sequence reads cleanly. After offloading the consumer business with no relief rally to speak of in $HNT, the CEO resigned two days later. As he left, he made sure to assure everyone that he still holds $HNT. He also left behind a project that spent years collecting controversies. Helium raised nearly $365 million over its lifetime, with FTX as one of its backers. In 2022, the company was caught advertising Lime, Salesforce, and Nestlé as network users, even though none of them were. A Forbes investigation later found that insiders had mined close to half of all $HNT in its first months.

Helium founder races cars while the crypto startup is on collision course

Gary Gensler's SEC tried to stop Helium, Paul Atkins' SEC settled

The Gary Gensler-led SEC eventually noticed. It sued Nova Labs in January 2025 over "materially false and misleading statements" about Lime, Nestlé, and Salesforce supposedly relying on the network, among other complaints. After Gensler resigned and Donald Trump's replacement, Paul Atkins, took over the SEC, that case settled abruptly by April 2025. Nova Labs paid a mere $200,000 civil penalty over one misrepresentation charge. The SEC dismissed the rest of its complaint with prejudice under Atkins' staggeringly crypto-accommodative "leadership." Haleem treated the outcome as exoneration. He called it what "might well be the shortest-lived SEC litigation on record" and the original suit "a bizarre last-minute politically-motivated move." He thanked the agency's new commissioners for "restoring sanity to the commission." Haleem's colorful background helps explain his tone. He lists himself as someone who likes to "build and race 90s Japanese sports cars" and launched a professional racing team during Helium's worst-performing years.

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Wait, I added "The irony is, well, pure number go down." - this is a forced crypto-native meme reference. The rules say "do NOT force it." Let me reconsider. The original is actually pretty good and witty already. Let me be more conservative with humor.

Let me try again with less forced humor:

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TITLE: Helium CEO Amir Haleem resigns as HNT tanks 96%

ARTICLE: Helium's $HNT token is down 96%, and CEO Amir Haleem decided to quit yesterday. He spent over a decade talking up the reasons someone should be bullish on $HNT. Checking the chart, holders would have been better off never listening.

Helium issued three crypto tokens — MOBILE, IOT, and $HNT — to incentivize operators of its once-faddish networking devices. Over the past five years, those three tokens have declined 76%, 87%, and 96%, respectively.

Haleem announced his resignation by quote-tweeting a video from his replacement, Mario Di Dio. He's stepping aside as chief executive of Nova Labs, the company behind Helium. On X, some users framed his step-down to chairman as a well-deserved break after a successful career. The price chart of his token tells an entirely different story, however.

Somehow, things got even worse as his reign ended, with $HNT falling another 15% on the day of his goodbye.

Get out, get out, get out

The timing of the CEO changeover certainly raises eyebrows. Two days before quitting, Haleem's company offloaded its consumer business on June 2, 2026. Helium Mobile, the budget cellphone service that gave the project a sliver of legitimacy, went to Noble Mobile. $HNT failed to rally on the news, remaining down 30% over the past week and down 46% over the past month.

So the sequence reads cleanly. After offloading the consumer business with no relief rally to speak of in $HNT, the CEO resigned two days later. As he left, he made sure to assure everyone that he still holds $HNT. He also left behind a project that spent years collecting controversies. Helium raised nearly $365 million over its lifetime, with FTX as one of its backers. In 2022, the company was caught advertising Lime, Salesforce, and Nestlé as network users, even though none of them were. A Forbes investigation later found that insiders had mined close to half of all $HNT in its first months.

Helium founder races cars while the crypto startup is on collision course

Gary Gensler's SEC tried to stop Helium, Paul Atkins' SEC settled

The Gary Gensler-led SEC eventually noticed. It sued Nova Labs in January 2025 over "materially false and misleading statements" about Lime, Nestlé, and Salesforce supposedly relying on the network, among other complaints. After Gensler resigned and Donald Trump's replacement, Paul Atkins, took over the SEC, that case settled abruptly by April 2025. Nova Labs paid a mere $200,000 civil penalty over one misrepresentation charge. The SEC dismissed the rest of its complaint with prejudice under Atkins' staggeringly crypto-accommodative "leadership." Haleem treated the outcome as exoneration. He called it what "might well be the shortest-lived SEC litigation on record" and the original suit "a bizarre last-minute politically-motivated move." He thanked the agency's new commissioners for "restoring sanity to the commission." Haleem's colorful background helps explain his tone. He lists himself as someone who likes to "build and race 90s Japanese sports cars" and launched a professional racing team during Helium's worst-performing years.

Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Protos Leaks. For more informed news and investigations, follow us on X, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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Hmm, I should probably add a touch more dry humor. Let me see where I can work it in naturally.

The "successful career" framing in the original is already a bit sardonic. Let me work with that.

Actually, looking at this, the original is already quite well-written and has the right tone. The instructions say "If the source article is already clean, only minor edits are fine." So I shouldn't overdo it.

Let me do a tighter polish:

TITLE: Helium CEO Amir Haleem resigns as HNT tanks 96%

ARTICLE: Helium's $HNT token is down 96%, and CEO Amir Haleem decided to quit yesterday. He spent over a decade pitching the reasons someone should be bullish on $HNT. Checking the chart, holders would have been better off never listening.

Helium issued three crypto tokens — MOBILE, IOT, and $HNT — to incentivize operators of its once-faddish networking devices. Over the past five years, those three tokens have declined 76%, 87%, and 96%, respectively.

Haleem announced his resignation by quote-tweeting a video from his replacement, Mario Di Dio. He's stepping aside as chief executive of Nova Labs, the company behind Helium. On X, some users framed his step-down to chairman as a well-deserved break after a successful career. The price chart of his token tells an entirely different story, though.

Somehow, things got even worse as his reign ended, with $HNT falling another 15% on the day of his goodbye.

Get out, get out, get out

The timing of the CEO changeover certainly raises eyebrows. Two days before quitting, Haleem's company offloaded its consumer business on June 2, 2026. Helium Mobile, the budget cellphone service that gave the project a sliver of legitimacy, went to Noble Mobile. $HNT failed to rally on the news, remaining down 30% over the past week and down 46% over the past month.

The sequence reads cleanly enough. After offloading the consumer business with no relief rally to speak of in $HNT, the CEO resigned two days later. As he left, he made sure to assure everyone he still holds $HNT. He also left behind a project that spent years collecting controversies. Helium raised nearly $365 million over its lifetime, with FTX as one of its backers. In 2022, the company was caught advertising Lime, Salesforce, and Nestlé as network users, even though none of them were. A Forbes investigation later found that insiders had mined close to half of all $HNT in its first months.

Helium founder races cars while the crypto startup is on collision course

Gary Gensler's SEC tried to stop Helium, Paul Atkins' SEC settled

The Gary Gensler-led SEC eventually noticed. It sued Nova Labs in January 2025 over "materially false and misleading statements" about Lime, Nestlé, and Salesforce supposedly relying on the network, among other complaints. After Gensler