What is Hedera?
Hedera is a public distributed ledger, a shared database copied across many computers. It opened to the public in 2019. The project was founded by Leemon Baird, who invented the hashgraph algorithm, and Mance Harmon.
HBAR is the network's native coin. It is used to pay fees and to help secure the network through staking. Hedera's code was later contributed to an open-source project called Hiero, hosted by the Linux Foundation's LF Decentralized Trust.
How does it work?
Instead of grouping transactions into a chain of blocks, Hedera uses hashgraph. Computers on the network share information with each other at random, a process called gossip, and record who told whom and when. From that shared history, each computer can work out how the others would vote without sending actual votes. This is called virtual voting. Hedera describes the result as asynchronous Byzantine fault tolerant, meaning it is designed to reach agreement even if some participants are faulty or dishonest.
Hedera is governed by the Hedera Council, a group of companies, universities and other organizations that serve limited terms. The council oversees the network's security, strategy and treasury, and its members have run the network's nodes.
What is it used for?
Hedera aims to serve businesses as well as individual users. Network fees are set in US dollar terms and paid in HBAR.
- Paying for transactions, token creation and smart contracts
- Staking HBAR to network nodes to help secure the network
- Issuing tokens and recording time-stamped data for business applications
Key facts
- Open access launched: 2019
- Founders: Leemon Baird and Mance Harmon; governed by the Hedera Council
- Consensus: hashgraph (gossip and virtual voting)
- Native network: Hedera, a hashgraph rather than a traditional blockchain
- Supply: 50 billion HBAR were created at network launch
Explainer written by Finvane from official project documentation. It is not investment advice.