Hedera was founded by Leemon Baird (inventor of Hashgraph) and Mance Harman in 2018. Its governing council consists of up to 39 global corporations including Google, IBM, Boeing, Deutsche Telekom, LG Electronics, Standard Bank, and others. Each council member runs a network node and rotates off after a maximum two-term. Shinhan Bank — Korea's second-largest bank — uses Hedera for stablecoin infrastructure in 2026.
Hedera uses a Hashgraph directed acyclic graph (DAG) consensus mechanism — not a traditional blockchain. This enables over 10,000 TPS, low fees, and fast 3-5 second finality. Use cases include enterprise tokenisation, supply chain tracking, micropayments, identity verification, and carbon credit markets. The DTCC has announced work with Hedera infrastructure for tokenised US Treasury settlement in 2026.
HBAR has a total supply of 50 billion tokens, with approximately 43 billion in circulation. The market cap is approximately $3.8 billion at current prices around $0.09. HBAR peaked at $0.57 in September 2021 — approximately 84% below that peak. New HBAR is released from a treasury reserve fund according to a scheduled release plan.
Hedera competes with enterprise blockchain platforms including Canton, R3 Corda, and Ethereum private deployments. Its governing council of global corporations is a strong differentiator for enterprise adoption.
Hedera is one of the most centralised major public blockchains. The governing council controls the network, protocol upgrades, and treasury. The HBAR price performance has been extremely poor despite 7 years of development and genuine enterprise deployments — the token has not captured value commensurate with network usage. The treasury's ongoing HBAR releases create regular supply pressure.
DTCC tokenised US Treasury settlement launches on Hedera infrastructure, Shinhan Bank stablecoin deployments drive measurable HBAR network fees, or the governing council attracts additional Tier-1 financial institution members.
DTCC selects a different blockchain for Treasury settlement, the treasury continues releasing HBAR into the market depressing price indefinitely, or enterprise blockchain deployments increasingly choose permissioned alternatives that do not require a public token.
We would become more positive if: DTCC Treasury settlement goes live generating real network fee burns, daily HBAR burn rate increases substantially, or the treasury release schedule is significantly reduced. We would become more cautious if: DTCC announces it is using a different blockchain, or the treasury continues releasing large amounts of HBAR regularly.
Hedera has genuine enterprise technology and a governing council most blockchains can only aspire to. But the persistent failure of HBAR to appreciate despite real enterprise deployments raises a fundamental question: does the token actually capture value from network usage? The DTCC Treasury tokenisation deployment in 2026 is a meaningful catalyst to watch, but the track record demands caution.