Bug Identified in Mobile Utility Score Calculation

@Community @5G Owner

Bug Identified in Mobile Utility Score Calculation

During the implementation of HIP-88, core developers identified a bug in the calculation of the MOBILE Utility Score. The impact of this is that a small amount of HNT was incorrectly credited to the MOBILE network’s treasury instead of the IOT treasury since the launch of MOBILE Subscriber rewards. This issue has been corrected and will be deployed after the end of the epoch at t:1694563200:f. No further updates are planned until the full implementation of HIP-88.

A more formal analysis with a more precise impact will be shared in the coming days. The bug was identified during an ongoing review of HIP-88 code currently under development. It was discovered that the active device count used in the DAO utility score inadvertently counted both Subscribers and Hotspots. The intended calculation, as defined in HIP-51, is to count onboarded and active devices only, specifically Hotspots. This has led to deviations in the calculated utility score since the launch of Subscribers.

A hotfix has been implemented, and for a more robust and long-term solution, the implementation of HIP-88 is anticipated to permanently rectify the situation as all active device calculations will happen on-chain and will include exact onboarding fees.

The core developers have decided to defer the deployment of this hotfix to after the end of the epoch as it will change the MOBILE utility score by less than 1% and a full epoch with the updated score is preferable.

Review details about Utility scores here: https://docs.helium.com/governance/faq/#what-is-the-dao-utility-score