HSCSSmart Contract Service
Runs Solidity smart contracts on an EVM-compatible engine. Developers can use familiar Ethereum tools such as Hardhat, Foundry, ethers.js and MetaMask through a JSON-RPC relay.
Used for → DeFi, NFTs, on-chain logic
An independent field guide
What is Hedera?
A public network for recording who owns what and what happened when — fast, cheap and final, without mining or blocks.
- Type
- Public, proof-of-stake distributed ledger
- Consensus
- Hashgraph (aBFT)
- Native coin
- HBAR (ℏ)
- Max supply
- 50 billion HBAR
- Mainnet
- Open access since 2019
- Codebase
- Open source (Hiero, Linux Foundation)
Tap a dot to see everything that event knows.
§ 1
The short answer
Four things to know first.
If you only read one section, read this one. Everything else on the page is detail on these four ideas.
- 01
It is a public ledger
Like Bitcoin or Ethereum, Hedera is a shared record of transactions that anyone can read and anyone can write to by paying a small fee. Nobody needs permission to open an account.
- 02
It is not a blockchain
Instead of chaining blocks together, Hedera uses an algorithm called hashgraph. Nodes gossip transactions to each other and reach agreement on their order mathematically, without mining.
- 03
It is built for predictability
Transactions settle with finality in a few seconds, and fees are set in US dollars, so a token transfer costs roughly the same fraction of a cent today as it will next month.
- 04
It is governed by a council
A rotating council of large, independent organizations from different industries and countries runs nodes and votes on network decisions, rather than a single company or anonymous miners.
§ 2
How it works
Consensus by gossip, not by mining.
Every distributed ledger must answer one question: in what order did things happen? Bitcoin answers it with a race to solve puzzles. Hedera answers it with hashgraph, an algorithm invented by Dr. Leemon Baird that lets nodes agree on order just by talking to each other.
- 1
Gossip
Each node repeatedly picks another node at random and tells it everything it knows that the other does not, including new transactions. Information spreads through the network exponentially fast.
- 2
Gossip about gossip
Every sync is recorded as an "event" that contains the hashes of the two events before it. Those links form a graph — the hashgraph — so each node also knows who told whom what, and when.
- 3
Virtual voting
Because every node holds the same history, each one can calculate how the others would vote on transaction order without sending a single vote message. The result is the same everywhere.
- 4
Fair, final order
Transactions get a consensus timestamp based on when most of the network received them. Once ordered, they are final — no forks to wait out, no blocks to be reorganized.
§ 3
What you can build
Four network services, one ledger.
Rather than doing everything through smart contracts, Hedera offers purpose-built services. Each is a set of transaction types the network understands natively.
HTSToken Service
Creates and manages fungible and non-fungible tokens natively, without writing a contract. Tokens can carry built-in rules such as custom fees, KYC flags, freezing and supply keys.
Used for → Stablecoins, loyalty points, tokenized assets
HCSConsensus Service
Lets applications post messages to a topic and get back a trusted, ordered, timestamped record — a verifiable audit log for data that lives elsewhere.
Used for → Supply chains, audit trails, carbon credits
HFSFile Service
Stores small files directly on the ledger. The network uses it for its own configuration, such as the address book and fee schedules, and apps can use it for reference data.
Used for → Configuration, certificates, metadata
§ 4
The coin
HBAR: fuel and security.
HBAR (symbol ℏ) is Hedera’s native cryptocurrency. Its supply was fixed at 50 billion when the network launched — no more will ever be created — and it is released into circulation over time.
Paying fees
Every transaction, from a simple transfer to a contract call, is paid for in HBAR. Fees are targeted in USD and converted to HBAR at the current exchange rate.
Securing the network
Hedera is proof of stake. The more HBAR staked to a node, the more weight that node carries in consensus, which makes attacking the network extremely expensive.
Earning staking rewards
Any account can stake to a node directly from a wallet. There is no lock-up period and no slashing — your HBAR never leaves your account and stays spendable.
Fee receipt
Approximate USD fees from the published fee schedule.
| Transfer HBAR | $0.0001 |
| Submit an HCS message | $0.0001 |
| Transfer a token (HTS) | $0.001 |
| Create a new token | $1.00 |
Paid in HBAR at the current exchange rate. Fees can change; check the official schedule before relying on them.
§ 5
Who runs it
A council, not a company.
Hedera is governed by the Hedera Council: up to 39 organizations from different industries and regions, including household names like Google, IBM, Deutsche Telekom and LG. Members serve limited terms, each gets one vote, and no single member can control the network. They run consensus nodes, set fees and approve software upgrades.
- 2012–2016
Dr. Leemon Baird develops the hashgraph consensus algorithm and co-founds Swirlds with Mance Harmon.
- 2018
Hedera Hashgraph LLC is formed to run a public network on hashgraph, with a governing council of large organizations.
- 2019
Mainnet opens to the public and HBAR begins circulating.
- 2022
The council acquires the hashgraph intellectual property and open-sources it under Apache 2.0. Native staking launches.
- 2024
The codebase is contributed to the Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust as the Hiero project.
§ 6
Side by side
How it compares.
A simplified view. Each network makes different trade-offs, and figures such as finality vary with conditions.
| Feature | Hedera | Bitcoin | Ethereum |
|---|---|---|---|
| Data structure | Hashgraph (DAG) | Blockchain | Blockchain |
| Security model | Proof of stake | Proof of work | Proof of stake |
| Time to finality | Seconds | ~60 minutes (6 blocks) | ~13 minutes |
| Fee model | Fixed in USD | Market auction | Market auction |
| Smart contracts | Yes (EVM) | Limited scripting | Yes (EVM) |
| Governance | Governing council | Open developer community | Open developer community |
§ 7
Questions
Frequently asked.
Not technically. It is a distributed ledger that uses a directed acyclic graph (the hashgraph) instead of a chain of blocks. In everyday conversation it is grouped with blockchains because it does the same job: a shared, tamper-evident record that no single party controls.
Hashgraph is the consensus algorithm. Hedera is the public network that runs it. HBAR is the network’s native cryptocurrency, used to pay fees and secure the network through staking.
It is a work in progress, and the answer depends on what you measure. Anyone can use the network and the code is open source, but consensus nodes are currently run by council members and a limited set of other operators. The stated plan is to move toward permissionless nodes over time.
Mostly, yes. The smart contract service runs the EVM, and a JSON-RPC relay lets wallets like MetaMask and frameworks like Hardhat talk to Hedera as if it were an Ethereum-style network. Some Hedera-native features, like HTS tokens, have their own SDKs too.
Hedera accounts have short numeric IDs in the form shard.realm.number — for example 0.0.12345 — and can also have an EVM-style address. Creating an account costs a small fee, and accounts can be controlled by one or many keys.
Fees are set by the council in US dollars, not auctioned off in a bidding war for block space. The network converts the USD price into HBAR using an exchange rate, so the dollar cost stays roughly constant even when the HBAR price moves.
This site does not give financial advice. Like any cryptocurrency, HBAR can be extremely volatile. Do your own research and never invest more than you can afford to lose.