$0.0831

Hedera is a public network designed for the decentralized economy, aiming to be widely used, sustainable, and suitable for enterprise applications. It lets individuals and businesses build decentralized applications (DApps) and is intended to overcome issues like slow performance and instability found in older blockchain platforms. The network was funded through an initial coin offering (ICO) in August 2018, and its mainnet opened to the public in September 2019. HBAR, the native token, serves two main purposes: it powers network services such as smart contracts and file storage, and it helps secure the network through staking. Hedera positions itself as an alternative to traditional blockchain technology, focusing on speed, efficiency, and security.

Hedera Hashgraph was founded by Dr. Leemon Baird and Mance Harmon. Dr. Baird is the inventor of the hashgraph consensus algorithm and serves as the chief scientist. He has over a decade of experience in computer science and security, previously working as a senior research scientist at the Academy Center for Cyberspace Research. He is also co-founder and CTO of Swirlds Inc. Mance Harmon is the CEO, with about two decades of executive experience in technology and IT security companies. He is also co-founder and CEO of Swirlds Inc. The leadership team includes more than a dozen other members, many with distinguished careers.

Hedera Hashgraph stands out because it does not use a conventional blockchain but a novel distributed ledger technology called a hashgraph. This allows improvements in speed, cost, and scalability. Transaction fees average $0.0001 and finality is reached in under five seconds. The platform claims to handle over 10,000 transactions per second, much higher than proof-of-work blockchains. It offers services including a token service for creating fungible and non-fungible tokens, a consensus service for secure event logging, smart contract tools for DApp development, and decentralized file storage with features like proof-of-deletion and controlled mutation.

HBAR has a maximum supply of 50 billion tokens. As of January 2021, nearly seven billion were in circulation, about 14% of the total. Hedera publishes regular reports on token unlocks. The two founders each have grants of two billion HBARs (4% of supply each), vested over six years. Senior executives who joined before 2018 have grants of 250 to 300 million coins, vested until December 2021. According to the June 2020 Economics Whitepaper, around 17.03 billion HBAR (34% of supply) is expected to be in circulation by 2025.

Hedera uses a hashgraph consensus mechanism for security. A governing council of up to 39 diverse organizations from up to 11 industries oversees the codebase, makes platform decisions, and runs initial network nodes. Hedera employs a form of proof-of-stake where users can stake HBAR to help protect the network. Currently, nodes are run by Hedera and council members, but plans exist to move to a permissionless system. This setup provides asynchronous Byzantine fault tolerance, ensuring transaction timing and order even if data is delayed or lost.

HBAR is available on several major exchanges, including Binance, Bittrex, and Huobi Global. Common trading pairs are HBAR/USDT, HBAR/BTC, and HBAR/ETH. Fiat trading options include HBAR/USD, HBAR/KRW, and HBAR/INR. For more details on buying cryptocurrencies with fiat, refer to our comprehensive guide.