Hedera is a public distributed ledger technology that employs a unique consensus mechanism known as hashgraph. Unlike traditional blockchains, which rely on proof-of-work, Hedera operates on a proof-of-stake model, enabling it to achieve high transaction speeds—processing hundreds of thousands of transactions per second—while maintaining security and fairness. Its core services include Solidity-based smart contracts, which allow developers to create decentralized applications, and the Hedera Token Service, facilitating the minting and management of both fungible and non-fungible tokens. Governed by a council of leading global organizations, Hedera emphasizes decentralization and community-driven decision-making, making it an innovative option in the Web3 ecosystem for building scalable and efficient applications.
- Decentralized Governance: Managed by a council of leading enterprises, universities, and Web3 projects, ensuring a collusion-resistant and decentralized decision-making process.
- Asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerance (aBFT): Provides high security and resilience against malicious attacks, allowing the network to reach consensus even if up to one-third of nodes act dishonestly.
- High Throughput and Fast Finality: Capable of processing hundreds of thousands of transactions per second with immediate finality, making it suitable for real-time applications.
- Low and Predictable Fees: Transaction costs are low and consistent, typically around $0.0001 USD, which enhances accessibility for developers and users.
- Performance-Optimized Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM): Supports Solidity-based smart contracts that are optimized for speed and efficiency on the Hedera network.
- Fair Transaction Ordering: Consensus timestamps ensure fair ordering of transactions, preventing any single node from influencing the outcome.
- Robust Codebase: Built for scalability and reliability across its network infrastructure, ensuring that it can support a wide range of applications.
- Open Source: The Hedera codebase is open-source under the Apache 2.0 license, promoting transparency and community collaboration.
- Real-World Asset Tokenization: Hedera simplifies the tokenization of physical and digital assets, making them liquid, fractional, and transparent.
- Consumer Engagement & Loyalty: Brands can issue NFT membership and reward tokens in real-time, enhancing customer engagement and trust through loyalty programs.
- Sustainability Solutions: Leverage Hedera's low-energy network to build and deploy applications focused on sustainability, benefiting from its carbon-negative commitment.
- Decentralized Finance (DeFi): Create or migrate decentralized exchanges, lending protocols, and other financial services using performance-optimized EVM smart contracts.
- Decentralized Identity Management: Securely manage decentralized identity in a privacy-respecting manner, allowing users to control their personal information.
- Decentralized Logs: Generate scalable and verifiable logs of data with native consensus timestamps for applications like supply chain tracking and IoT data management.
- Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs): Develop NFT marketplaces or communities to mint unique tokens representing digital media, physical assets, or collectibles.
- Payments: Facilitate secure, real-time payments using HBAR or other cryptocurrencies with ultra-low transaction costs.
The process begins when a client creates a transaction:
- The transaction is cryptographically signed by the account responsible for paying the associated fees. Additional signatures may be required based on account properties.
- The client specifies the maximum fee they are willing to pay and, for smart contract operations, the maximum amount of gas.
- After signing, the transaction is submitted to any node on the Hedera network.
- The receiving node processes the transaction (e.g., verifying sufficient balance) and, if successful, submits it for consensus by adding it to an event and gossiping that event to other nodes.
- This event rapidly propagates through the network via the gossip protocol, with each node independently calculating a consensus timestamp based on when they received the event.
Hedera operates as a public ledger of transactions:
- It functions as a highly secure and distributed database accessible for reading and writing by all users.
- Each node stores a copy of the ledger that only retains the latest state, promoting trust through distributed consensus.
The public ledger is maintained on the mainnet, which consists of:
- Consensus Nodes: Responsible for validating transactions and maintaining the latest state of the network. These nodes will transition to being permissionless in the future.
- Mirror Nodes: Offer developers a cost-effective solution for storing and querying historical data for analytics.
Hedera provides a set of APIs that facilitate various functionalities:
- Token Service: Allows minting and management of fungible and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for payments or digital collectibles.
- Consensus Service: Records immutable, verifiable event logs suitable for any application or permissioned blockchain framework.
- Smart Contract Service: Enables deployment of Solidity smart contracts to create decentralized applications (dApps).
Each API call incurs a predictable transaction fee based on processing needs. Hedera SDKs support popular programming languages like JavaScript, Java, and Go.
Applications leveraging Hedera's public ledger foster greater transparency and trust:
- They enable innovative solutions such as direct payments to artists in music streaming services or decentralized ad networks that eliminate the need for audits.
- These applications collectively enhance network effects on Hedera, contributing to a more fair, secure, and decentralized future.
By utilizing hashgraph technology and robust network services, Hedera positions itself as a leading platform in the Web3 ecosystem.
- Hedera Token Service
- Hedera Smart Contracts Service
- Stablecoin Studio
- Asset Tokenization Studio
- NFT Studio
- Developer Toolings & Integrations
- Hedera SDKs
- Hedera Networks
- HBAR (Hedera's native cryptocurrency)
- Hedera Ecosystem