History of Hedera

Tracing the Evolution of HBAR: A Deep Dive into Hedera’s Origins

Hedera Hashgraph’s journey began with a stark philosophical divergence from blockchain orthodoxy. In 2015, Dr. Leemon Baird introduced the hashgraph consensus algorithm through Swirlds, targeting faster and more secure consensus for enterprise-grade applications. Unlike traditional blockchain, which inherently replicates data across all nodes in chains of blocks, hashgraph operates as a directed acyclic graph (DAG), promising high throughput and finality without sacrificing security guarantees.

In 2017, leveraging this novel consensus framework, Baird and Mance Harmon co-founded Hedera as a public distributed ledger built on top of Swirlds’ technology. Hedera’s formation was accompanied by a legally grounded corporate structure: the Hedera Governing Council model, predicated on decentralized governance by large, diversified enterprises. This governance setup initially steered clear of permissionless decentralization, instead enshrining order through enterprise-grade members like IBM and Boeing.

The public release of the HBAR token came in 2019 with Hedera Mainnet's launch. It accompanied a carefully measured token economics model, locking the majority of HBAR's supply and implementing a time-based release schedule—a decision often debated in crypto circles for its centralizing tilt. The treasury structure and Swirlds’ retained equity stake attracted criticism from decentralization purists, some likening aspects of its governance to more corporatized blockchain efforts, sparking comparisons to similarly turbulent projects analyzed in Decentralized Governance The Decred Model Explained.

In the early stages, adoption was largely driven by enterprise-test cases rather than grassroots developer movements. This bifurcation isolated Hedera from the broader Web3 developer community, which tended to favor Ethereum-compatible ecosystems. Hedera's choice of being non-EVM compatible was viewed as both a barrier to fast adoption and a necessary tradeoff to maintain performance advantages of the underlying hashgraph architecture.

A critical historic flashpoint occurred with Hedera’s embrace of the Governing Council, under which members could serve limited terms, control software updates, and manage treasury funds. This placed Hedera closer philosophically to projects like Decred—known for its structured approach to governance and treasury management models—as discussed in Decoding Decred Insights into DCR Tokenomics.

Over time, the project has made strides toward greater accessibility, including open-sourcing components of its stack. But central questions linger around governance transparency, token supply control, and ecosystem decentralization—elements that continue to define debates in its historical narrative.

How Hedera Works

How HBAR Works: Hashgraph Mechanics, Consensus, and Network Design

Hedera's HBAR operates on a distinct distributed ledger architecture called Hashgraph, not traditional blockchain. This core divergence underpins both the performance and controversy surrounding HBAR’s infrastructure. Unlike blockchains that organize transactions linearly, Hashgraph uses a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) structure to record events in parallel. Each node “gossips” about transactions and timestamps them using virtual voting — a system where nodes deduce consensus without additional communication overhead. This approach results in high throughput and low latency, with finality typically reached within seconds.

Consensus in Hedera relies on an asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerant (aBFT) algorithm, making it resistant to malicious actors as long as fewer than one-third of nodes are compromised. Notably, Hedera’s implementation of aBFT does not require mining or staking for security, which sharply contrasts with networks like Ethereum or Cosmos. However, this advantage comes at a centralization tradeoff: the consensus nodes are currently permissioned and managed by a rotating council of 39 global enterprises, including large tech and finance firms.

This council-based governance model controls network upgrades, treasury management, and node onboarding, positioning Hedera far from permissionless ideals and closer to federated models. Critics compare this to governance models in projects like Decred, highlighted in discussions such as Decred-the-future-of-decentralized-cryptocurrency, which seeks wider community inclusion and on-chain voting.

HBAR plays dual roles in the ecosystem: it serves as the fuel for transaction and smart contract execution, and it functions as a means of network protection against Sybil attacks. HBAR must be staked by consensus nodes, though this feature is currently limited to council-run nodes, restricting broader validator participation. This structure has prompted criticism for restraining the decentralization that many in the crypto community deem essential for censorship-resistance.

Hedera’s smart contract layer, leveraging the EVM-compatible Hedera Smart Contract Service, employs the same DAG and aBFT consensus but faces limitations in composability and tooling compared to Ethereum-native protocols. Additionally, due to the deterministic nature of its virtual voting system, transaction ordering is more predictable — an aspect claimed to reduce MEV risk, yet one that invites scrutiny for front-running vulnerabilities in different attack surfaces.

Although a permissionless path is proposed via community-nodes onboarding in the roadmap, Hedera currently functions more like a distributed trust network than a fully decentralized platform.

Use Cases

HBAR Use Cases: Exploring Hedera’s Real-World Utility

Hedera Hashgraph’s HBAR token powers a DLT platform that aims for high throughput, finality, and energy efficiency. Its use cases span far beyond speculative trading, with actual integrations in enterprise applications, public infrastructure, proof-of-reserve systems, and digital identity.

Tokenizing Real-World Assets and Microtransactions

HBAR’s low, predictable fees position it as a fit for high-volume, low-value transactions. Enterprises have explored using Hedera for settlement of microtransactions in gaming, ad tech, and digital content monetization. However, while Hedera theoretically supports sub-cent transactions, adoption in consumer-facing apps remains limited. The ecosystem’s integration with enterprise actors has not yet translated into mass-scale third-party development.

Decentralized Identity and Public Records

One of Hedera’s longer-standing implementations is its use as a backend for verifiable credential systems and public record logs. Applications have included timestamping credentials or public documents in jurisdictions that lack reliable state infrastructure. Unlike public blockchains that may congest easily or suffer fee volatility, Hedera presents a consistent environment for such use.

Nevertheless, the relatively closed nature of Hedera’s validator set raises questions about decentralization in critical applications such as identity. This is especially relevant when compared with other platforms pursuing self-sovereign identity with fully open infrastructure—such as those discussed in decentralized-identity-enhancing-user-privacy-on-blockchain-platforms.

Supply Chain and Provenance Tracking

HBAR has been used to anchor supply chain events, ensuring immutable auditability of data in logistics and goods tracking. While tamper-evident logs preserve trust, most implementations remain pilot-level or within narrowly scoped environments. Supply chain data’s authenticity still relies on the honesty of the oracle or the off-chain input—highlighting the same oracle problem discussed in smart-contract platforms.

Carbon Markets and ESG Claims

Energy efficiency has led some organizations to adopt Hedera in facilitating tokenized carbon credits and ESG certification systems. Projects issue tokens attesting to sustainability credentials and use the immutable ledger to certify claims. Yet without independent and tamper-proof verification mechanisms, the tokenization itself is insufficient to ensure trust—raising similar concerns as highlighted in sustainability applications explored in blockchain-and-environmental-sustainability-in-supply-chains.

Governance Integration for Public Infrastructure

Some municipal-level digital infrastructure projects have explored using HBAR to manage IoT data integrity, such as tracking sensors in utility systems. The potential for trusted but private data pipelines remains largely untapped, possibly due to the onboarding complexity and a governance model that trades openness for corporate control—contrasting with community-controlled frameworks like those in decred-a-new-era-of-crypto-governance.

Hedera's use cases span enterprise, compliance, micropayments, and public-sector experimentation. However, barriers remain due to semi-permissioned governance, limited DeFi footprint, and reliance on consortium adoption over community-driven innovation.

Hedera Tokenomics

HBAR Tokenomics: Dissecting Supply, Emissions, and Governance Impacts

Hedera's native token, HBAR, exhibits a distinctive approach to tokenomics rooted in structured supply allocation, delayed emissions, and centralized oversight. With a fixed max supply of 50 billion HBAR, the entire token cap is pre-mined, distinguishing it from models that rely on infinite inflation or PoW-based issuance. However, control over unlock timing and distribution has led to persistent criticism, especially among decentralization purists.

The total supply is split across network participants: ecosystem development, governing council members, purchase agreements, and early investors. A significant portion (~26%) is allocated to Hedera’s governing council or entities tied to them. This compositional decision, while oriented toward project stewardship and funding, concentrates financial influence and risks fostering a quasi-corporate concentration of power. Hedera’s treasury management approach echoes concerns seen in other governance-heavy assets — see the analog in Decred’s treasury system discussed in Decoding Decred: Insights into DCR Tokenomics.

Vesting schedules for HBAR have also undergone revisions, raising transparency concerns. Originally more conservative, emissions were expedited via revised unlock schedules for ecosystem incentives and early SAFT participants. These adjustments, while framed as catalyzing adoption, introduce supply shocks and reduce predictability — a risk factor for ecosystem participants staking or holding HBAR. Unlike Bitcoin’s simple halving or Ethereum’s fee-burn model, Hedera’s release mechanism remains a black box operated via council discretion.

Token utility serves three purposes: network fee payment, staking for consensus nodes, and compensating network services. The staking component, however, diverges from conventional DeFi yield mechanisms. Until recently, staking yields were pseudo-fixed, and only authorized nodes (select governing council members) could operate consensus nodes, effectively restricting consensus-level rewards to a closed cohort. This undermines incentives for greater validator decentralization, especially in contrast to open-access networks like Cosmos, explored in Unpacking the Criticisms of ATOM in Cosmos.

Token burns are not part of HBAR’s design. This absence of deflationary counterbalance, coupled with potential for large token dumps from corporate entities, subjects the token to dilution risk. While capped supply limits inflation long-term, short- to mid-term volatility in circulating supply remains a key critique.

In essence, HBAR's tokenomics model prioritizes corporate-grade governance and long-term ecosystem support but comes at the cost of decentralization and short-term monetary transparency. These tradeoffs echo broader debates in governance-centric networks — see comparative insights in Decred vs Rivals: A Governance Showdown in Crypto.

Hedera Governance

HBAR Governance: Exploring the Council-Driven Model

Hedera (HBAR) employs a unique governance model centered around a council of global enterprises and institutions, rather than a more conventional token-holder voting mechanism. The Hedera Governing Council consists of up to 39 diversified organizations that span industries and geographies. These members include academic institutions, enterprises, and technology leaders who each hold equal voting power—an intentional design to avoid the kind of cartelization seen in some token-weighted governance models.

Each council member operates a mainnet node and participates in crafting policies around software upgrades, treasury management, and network economics. The intent behind this model is to achieve decentralization through organizational diversification instead of token distribution. However, this approach diverges significantly from fully permissionless governance frameworks and has triggered ongoing debate in decentralization circles.

Unlike fully decentralized models found in networks like Polkadot or Decred—which you can explore further in this breakdown of Decred's decentralized governance—Hedera’s governance is intentionally permissioned. It trades off immediate community governance inclusivity for perceived security, regulatory alignment, and real-world accountability. Critics argue this runs contrary to the ethos of blockchain, questioning whether decentralization is truly achievable when governance is limited to an exclusive council.

One constraint that fuels critique is the process of council member selection. While current members are publicly named and rotated on staggered terms to limit consolidation, the initial onboarding process is opaque to external observers. This lack of transparency undermines trust among decentralization maximalists. Moreover, council members hold a significant say in the management of the HBAR token's treasury allocations and network upgrades, bypassing community token holders altogether.

On-chain governance may be introduced in the future, but its roadmap remains vague. For now, Hedera’s approach contrasts starkly with systems like Decred that blend proof-of-stake and proof-of-work with direct token-holder voting, as detailed in Decred: Redefining Governance in Cryptocurrency.

Another commonly cited concern in the HBAR ecosystem is the long-term risk of regulatory pressure shifting the behaviors of council members. While institutional governance creates stability and legal alignment, it may also suppress innovation and resistance to censorship.

In sum, Hedera’s governance framework prioritizes corporate-grade accountability and operational stability over grassroots decentralization. This makes it an anomaly among cryptocurrencies and invites ongoing scrutiny, especially when comparing it to open, participatory systems built for community-driven evolution.

Technical future of Hedera

HBAR's Evolving Technical Infrastructure and Development Roadmap

Hedera Hashgraph’s underlying consensus mechanism—aBFT-based Hashgraph—offers a unique departure from conventional blockchain structures. Rather than block-based ledgers, Hedera maintains an asynchronous directed acyclic graph (DAG), which enables high-throughput (over 10,000 TPS), low-latency finality, and fair transaction ordering. However, the benefits come with technical trade-offs. The protocol currently relies on a permissioned council governance model, and while this facilitates stability, it also limits decentralization in its current state. The transition to a permissionless validator pool remains a pivotal technical milestone.

One of Hedera’s central development priorities is "Smart Contract 2.0," an overhaul to its EVM-compatible smart contract service. Built on the Besu Ethereum client, this upgrade aims to drive enterprise and DeFi adoption on Hedera by reducing latency in contract execution and improving fee predictability. However, the developer tooling and infrastructure around Hedera’s EVM integration still lags behind that of more mature ecosystems like Ethereum or Avalanche. Without a parallel advancement in toolsets (debuggers, auditors, hardened libraries), the network risks stagnation in smart contract adoption—even with high throughput and low fees.

On the interoperability frontier, Hedera intends to broaden its scope via cross-chain communication protocols. While the HIP (Hedera Improvement Proposal) process has already introduced mechanisms such as HTS for fungible and non-fungible tokens, native bridging remains underdeveloped. External bridge integrations have been limited, posing a risk of fragmentation and centralization in cross-chain liquidity movement. By contrast, interoperability-first chains such as Cosmos or Polkadot have more mature SDK frameworks and IBC solutions, which Hedera has yet to replicate in function or ease of implementation.

Decentralized file storage and the Hedera Consensus Service (HCS) continue to be active development focus areas, particularly for supply chain and IoT use cases. The HCS allows for ordering events on a DAG-based hashgraph, and although it provides tamper-evidence with low resource requirements, scaling privacy-preserving metadata through this layer poses technical bottlenecks. HCS lacks the zero-knowledge or multi-party computation capabilities found in privacy-preserving protocols, which could restrict its appeal outside of compliant enterprise scenarios.

Efforts to reach sustainability-focused objectives—such as carbon reporting and provenance verification—are also underway but remain more reliant on external partners than native ledger functionality. Unlike ecosystems emphasizing native identity or governance modules (like Decred's model explored in Decred-A-New-Era-of-Crypto-Governance), Hedera outsources key functions. This technically limits protocol-layer composability, increasing reliance on centralized app frameworks for execution.

Validator staking infrastructure, which is essential for transitioning to a permissionless model, is still in progress. Until this shift occurs, full network-level decentralization remains aspirational, not actualized.

Comparing Hedera to it’s rivals

Avalanche vs. Hedera: Consensus Models, Performance Divergence, and Developer Strategy

While both Avalanche (AVAX) and Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR) aim to deliver scalable distributed ledger technology, their approaches reflect a fundamental divergence in consensus architecture, scalability methodology, and decentralization philosophy. The critical point of departure is the consensus mechanism: Avalanche employs a Snowball-based probabilistic consensus, whereas Hedera relies on aBFT-based gossip-about-gossip and virtual voting—yielding entirely different security and finality characteristics.

Avalanche’s network architecture features a tri-blockchain setup (X-Chain, P-Chain, C-Chain), separating asset creation, chain coordination, and smart contract execution. This enables validator specialization but adds architectural complexity. Hedera, in contrast, maintains a single-layer architecture governed by a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG), not a traditional blockchain. This enables high throughput with low latency, sometimes surpassing 10,000 TPS without L2 reliance. However, Hedera routes all transaction validation through a limited number of permissioned nodes managed by its Governing Council, raising decentralization concerns among protocol purists.

From a governance lens, Avalanche’s validator set is open, allowing anyone to become a validator given they stake 2,000 AVAX and meet uptime/network performance targets. Hedera’s governance remains restricted to a rotating council of major corporations, invoking parallels to the hybrid structures seen in networks like Decred, which emphasizes community-inclusive governance—a topic covered in Decred Redefining Governance in Cryptocurrency.

On smart contract performance, Avalanche supports the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) natively via the C-Chain, producing frictionless deployability for Solidity-based dApps. Hedera, on the other hand, supports the EVM in a containerized environment but lacks the same Ethereum tooling fluidity. Although Hedera excels in low transaction fees and rapid finality, its smart contract ecosystem has seen slower organic uptake from Ethereum-native developers.

In terms of ecosystem funding, Avalanche’s incentives have aggressively targeted DeFi and GameFi migration through structured grants on Subnets—a mechanism that permits custom VM deployments. Hedera’s enterprise focus has steered funding toward ESG tracking, digital ID, and supply chain tools, but less toward financial primitives. Consequently, the respective ecosystems reflect this: Avalanche is home to DeFi staples, while Hedera remains dominated by enterprise integrations and fewer compelling DeFi liquidity hubs.

Both AVAX and HBAR avoid direct Layer 2 dependency for scaling, but Avalanche’s Subnet architecture functions similarly to L2s in terms of network modularity. Hedera’s throughput is handled at Layer 1, but limitations exist in composability due to network design choices—particularly in cross-contract messaging and interoperability layers.

This stark divergence in philosophy, tooling prioritization, and validator composition creates a meaningful distinction between HBAR and AVAX beyond surface technical metrics.

Algorand vs Hedera: Comparing ALGO’s Architecture and Governance with HBAR

While both Hedera (HBAR) and Algorand (ALGO) position themselves as high-performance layer-1 platforms aimed at enterprise adoption, their architectural principles and consensus mechanisms diverge sharply — creating distinct trajectories for decentralization, throughput, and governance.

Algorand employs a pure proof-of-stake (PPoS) protocol built around its Byzantine Agreement model. This randomized selection of validator committees enables fast block finality and prevents forks, a contrast to Hedera’s Byzantine Fault Tolerant (aBFT) consensus based on the asynchronous gossip-about-gossip and virtual voting model. HBAR’s use of Hashgraph allows for extremely high throughput and low-latency finality, but it notably lacks the probabilistic fork resolution found in traditional blockchains like Algorand’s structure.

On the topic of governance, Algorand has recently emphasized community participation via its Algorand Governance program, allowing ALGO holders to vote on protocol decisions. However, criticism has emerged over voting power centralization. Despite the decentralized premise, whale wallets and early stakeholders exert oversized influence — a factor explored in detail in Algorand Under Fire: Key Criticisms Explained. By comparison, Hedera employs a unique model with its Governing Council — 39 enterprises and institutions with equal voting rights, bringing a more formalized but permissioned layer into consensus and decision-making.

Developer experience and tooling also draw stark contrasts. Hedera provides fixed APIs and native services like the Hedera Token Service (HTS) and Consensus Service, aiming to abstract complexity for regulated enterprises. In contrast, Algorand caters more directly to Web3-native development with Algorand Smart Contracts (ASC1s) and a growing DeFi ecosystem. That said, developer adoption remains a consistent challenge for ALGO, especially when compared to rapidly expanding ecosystems on chains with Solidity compatibility.

Tokenomics also reflect ideological differences. ALGO’s emission was initially fast-tracked, but the foundation adjusted the vesting schedule due to community pushback. Despite detailed updates like those in Understanding Algorand's Tokenomics A Deep Dive, critics point to supply manipulation risks and the foundation's outsized control. Hedera, meanwhile, maintains a strict treasury lockup with foundation-controlled release schedules, bolstering trust among institutional participants — though critics argue this retains centralization in Treasury governance.

Ultimately, while ALGO shares the ambition of enterprise-grade scalability with HBAR, its reliance on probabilistic consensus, less predictable token dynamics, and ongoing governance centralization debates distinguish it sharply from Hedera’s deterministic, council-driven architecture. For deeper insights into Algorand’s ecosystem and community direction, explore A Deepdive into Algorand ALGO and the governance-model critique in Decoding Algorands Innovative Governance Model.

Hedera (HBAR) vs Solana (SOL): Architectural Trade-Offs and Ecosystem Design Compared

When comparing Hedera (HBAR) to Solana (SOL), the differences lie in their fundamental architecture, consensus mechanisms, and tolerance for decentralization/security trade-offs. Hedera operates with a unique Hashgraph consensus—aBFT, asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerant protocol leveraging virtual voting and gossip-about-gossip—while Solana relies on a combination of Proof of History (PoH) and Tower BFT. This has significant implications on performance, resilience, and network assumptions.

Solana often showcases its high throughput potential, often capable in theory of up to 65,000 TPS without sharding. However, this pursuit of speed stems from tight validator synchronization requirements and a single-threaded runtime environment using Sealevel. In practice, Solana’s architecture has shown vulnerability to validator centralization and operational instability. Network-wide congestion and downtime across DeFi events and bot attacks have exposed systemic fragilities—particularly due to the lack of transaction prioritization mechanisms and mempool flexibility.

In contrast, HBAR’s use of Hashgraph offers remarkable efficiency in consensus finality and predictable transaction ordering—a major edge under adversarial network conditions. Yet Hedera takes a different stance on decentralization. While it promotes council governance among reputable enterprises to ensure stability and compliance, this model limits permissionless validator participation, a notable divergence from Solana’s more accessible validator set—albeit one heavily reliant on expensive hardware and geographic co-location for latency minimization.

Solana supports on-chain programs compiled to eBPF, enabling advanced parallel execution logic, but this yields high complexity at the cost of tooling maturity. By contrast, Hedera focuses on Java SDKs and RESTful services with fee predictability, making it more enterprise-aligned. Solana’s account model is more advanced in composability but exposes applications to shared state congestion—the “global account state bottleneck”—which has created notable issues in NFTs and DeFi applications.

From an ecosystem perspective, developer traction in Solana is tied to tight-knit DeFi integration and subsidized hackathons, but recurring instability has impacted user trust. Hedera lacks as many grassroots projects but boasts robust enterprise support from its Governing Council, which includes brands with significant industries across supply chain, telecom, and IoT.

Both platforms raise critical governance contrasts. While Hedera uses council-based updates with transparency, it restricts on-chain governance to appointed members. This invokes governance parallels to models like Decred's hybrid PoW/PoS approach, which attempt to balance stakeholder influence, though via more open participation models.

Ultimately, comparing Hedera to Solana is less about TPS scores and more about architecture choices determining failure modes, validator economics, accessible programmability, and the governance-social contract underpinning the protocol.

Primary criticisms of Hedera

HBAR Criticisms: Centralization, Governing Council Control, and Transparency Concerns

One of the most significant criticisms aimed at HBAR and the Hedera network stems from its fundamentally centralized architecture compared to other Layer 1 blockchains. While many projects in the crypto space pride themselves on decentralized consensus mechanisms driven by anonymous validators or permissionless nodes, Hedera operates under a permissioned model controlled by the Hedera Governing Council. This council is composed of up to 39 global enterprises and institutions, including large multinationals across key industries. Although this model is marketed as a feature that provides stability and trusted governance, skeptics argue that it erodes one of the core tenets of blockchain technology: decentralization.

The current consensus model, which relies on a restricted group of permissioned nodes—run exclusively by council members—further exacerbates the perception of centralized control. Unlike networks where users can spin up validator nodes to participate in consensus and security provisioning, Hedera limits such access. Despite long-standing roadmap promises of open participation, the timeline and execution remain vague. This control-plane centralization greatly reduces the surface area for community-driven innovation and protocol hardening, elements critical in the eyes of decentralization purists.

Moreover, the Hedera Hashgraph consensus algorithm, while technically distinct from blockchain, is yet to achieve the peer-reviewed transparency expected in an open-source crypto ecosystem. Although the algorithm is patented and licensed under Apache 2.0, the underlying governance and strategic decisions remain under the purview of the council. This raises conflict-of-interest concerns, particularly in scenarios involving on-chain governance upgrades, token economics, or ecosystem fund allocation.

Another frequently cited issue is a lack of transparency regarding treasury management, particularly around the large reserves of HBAR held by the Hedera Foundation and related entities. These controlled token unlocks inject trust assumptions not generally acceptable in more permissionless environments. Comparisons can be drawn to governance-centric models like Decred, where treasury usage is publicly debated and community-elected proposals determine funding paths. Interested readers can explore how governance transparency operates in contrast by reviewing Decred Governance: A Model for Cryptocurrency Democracy.

Critics also question whether the governing council structure—comprising entities with vested interests—is truly aligned with the long-term growth of HBAR’s decentralized ecosystem. The influence of corporate entities on protocol direction risks mirroring the same central planning issues that crypto was initially created to disrupt. With no strong mechanisms for grassroots community involvement in Hedera’s strategic roadmap, the current setup limits ideological cohesion with the broader crypto ethos.

Founders

Meet the Founders Behind HBAR: Hedera’s Centralized Origins

The story of Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR) is tightly bound to its co-founders: Dr. Leemon Baird and Mance Harmon. Unlike many blockchain projects that emerged from anonymous developers or activist collectives, Hedera takes a more corporate-technocratic approach, which is evident in both its leadership and architecture.

Dr. Leemon Baird is the inventor of the hashgraph consensus algorithm—an asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerant (aBFT) protocol. While promoted as an alternative to blockchain, hashgraph is patented and licensed exclusively to Hedera through Swirlds Inc., a company also founded by Baird. This legal structure gives Baird and his associated entities unique control over the core technology behind HBAR, drawing criticism from decentralization purists. In contrast to open-source projects like Bitcoin or even governance-focused networks like Decred (explored in articles such as Decred Pioneering Governance in Cryptocurrency), Hedera’s reliance on IP protection puts it in a distinct category of permissioned cryptonetworks.

Mance Harmon serves as the business strategist and CEO figure within the founding pair. His background includes roles at the U.S. Air Force, senior positions at tech firms, and co-founding work with Baird at Swirlds. Harmon is often credited for architecting the governance council model, which relies on large enterprises (such as Google, IBM, and others) to manage network decisions—introducing a corporate layer rather than following a distributed model. Critics argue this structure is antithetical to the ethos of decentralization. Supporters, however, praise the stability and enterprise appeal it provides.

Notably absent from Hedera’s founding is a meaningful grassroots or community-driven origin story. Unlike the community-building emphasis seen in projects such as A Deepdive into Kaspa (KAS), Hedera’s inception and funding were top-down. Token allocations favored early insiders during its SAFT fundraising rounds, and Swirlds Inc. retained financial control prior to Hedera’s council-based governance rollout.

The result is a tension between a secure, high-performance consensus layer and a governance model perceived by many as centralized. For a user or investor aligned with decentralization values—a growing focus in projects dissected in Decred's Vision Future Roadmap and Innovations—Hedera’s founding choices present a philosophical rift.

Thus, while Hedera’s founders brought academic credentials and strategic leadership, the project remains an anomaly among DLTs for its IP-locked core and enterprise-first governance structure.

Authors comments

This document was made by www.BestDapps.com

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