The Helium co-founder moves to chairman as Mario Di Dio takes the top job, days after Nova Labs sold its consumer mobile carrier to Andrew Yang’s Noble Mobile.
Amir Haleem has stepped down as chief executive of Nova Labs, the company behind the Helium decentralized wireless network, handing the role to Mario Di Dio. Haleem moves to chairman. The transition, announced Thursday in a Helium Blog post written by Di Dio, comes as HNT — Helium’s native token — trades roughly 99% below its 2021 peak.
HNT Price Context
HNT hit an all-time high of $54.88 on November 12, 2021, according to CoinGecko. The token now trades at $0.515, a decline of 99% from that peak and a drop of 28% over the past week alone. Market capitalization stands at $94 million.
The slide predates the leadership change. HNT crashed alongside the broader crypto market in 2022, and the token never recovered to prior levels even as Helium shifted its focus toward carrier offloading and institutional partnerships.
Nova Labs Exits Consumer Mobile
The CEO transition follows Nova Labs’ sale of its consumer wireless business. On June 2, Noble Mobile — founded in 2025 by former US presidential candidate Andrew Yang — announced it was acquiring Helium Mobile, the direct-to-consumer cellular service Nova Labs had operated since December 2023.
Nova Labs retains the underlying Helium Network and its carrier-offloading business, which cuts data-transfer deals with major mobile operators. The company closed a multi-year deal with a large US carrier at the end of 2025, Fortune reported, and will continue to develop the network as a connectivity platform for third parties, including Noble Mobile.
Di Dio’s Background
Di Dio had been GM of Networks at Nova Labs, running carrier partnerships and Wi-Fi infrastructure. He spent his career in enterprise telecom before joining Helium. In his blog post, Di Dio credited Haleem for building the network from the ground up over a decade. “Amir Haleem dreamed up a better way to connect the world, spent a decade building it, and grew Helium into a Network that millions of people rely on every day,” Di Dio wrote.
Haleem co-founded Helium in 2013 and built it from an IoT network into a DePIN (decentralized physical infrastructure) protocol that attracted partnerships with AT&T and two of the three largest US carriers. The Defiant covered the AT&T partnership in April 2025.
Nova Labs has not disclosed financial terms of the Helium Mobile sale. The company is private and has not filed with the SEC.