What Is Hedera? Not a Blockchain, and Run by a Corporate Council

What it is, and the one detail most summaries get sloppy on

Hedera is a public network whose native token is HBAR, and it’s commonly described as a blockchain, which is technically inaccurate in a way worth actually understanding rather than glossing over. Hedera doesn’t use a blockchain at all; it uses a data structure and consensus method called a hashgraph, invented by computer scientist Leemon Baird and licensed to Hedera through a company called Swirlds. If the basic idea of a blockchain isn’t solid yet, start with What Crypto Actually Is before this distinction will make much sense.

Hashgraph vs. blockchain, in plain language

A blockchain, as the name says, is a chain: transactions get bundled into blocks, and blocks get added one after another in a single sequence, with every new block referencing the one before it. That’s simple and battle-tested, but it means the network can only confirm one block’s worth of transactions at a time, and it has to wait for that step to finish before starting the next one.

Hashgraph is structured differently: it’s a directed acyclic graph (DAG), meaning transaction records branch and interconnect rather than forming a single line. Instead of waiting for one node to propose a block and everyone else to vote on it, Hedera’s nodes constantly share information with each other about what they’ve each heard, a process called “gossip about gossip,” where each new message also carries a record of the last exchange. Because every node ends up with a shared, verifiable history of who told whom what and when, each node can independently calculate, rather than vote on, which transactions happened and in what order. This is what lets Hedera process transactions with high throughput and fast, final confirmation without the step-by-step bottleneck of block-by-block chains. It’s a genuinely different engineering approach to the same underlying problem a blockchain solves: getting a distributed network of computers to agree on a shared history without a referee.

The hashgraph algorithm itself was patented, which is unusual in an industry that treats open-source code as close to a religious principle. In 2022 the Hedera Governing Council voted to buy those patent rights and release the algorithm under an open license, which addressed the sharpest version of that criticism, though Hedera’s specific implementation and network remain something only Hedera runs.

Who actually runs it: the Hedera Governing Council

This is the second thing that makes Hedera genuinely different from most public networks, and it’s not a minor detail. Rather than an open, permissionless set of validators anyone can join by staking tokens (the model Ethereum and Solana use), Hedera’s network nodes are run by members of the Hedera Governing Council, a fixed body of up to 39 named organizations, each serving limited terms and each holding one equal vote regardless of size. As of 2026 the council has grown to roughly three dozen members, drawn from sectors like technology, telecoms, logistics, and finance; membership has included companies such as Google, IBM, Boeing, Deutsche Telekom, LG Electronics, Standard Bank, and more recent additions like FedEx and McLaren Racing, though the exact roster changes over time as terms end and new members join, so treat any specific list, including this one, as a snapshot rather than a permanent fact. The council doesn’t just run nodes; it also approves network upgrades and oversees the HBAR treasury.

That governance model is a deliberate tradeoff, not an oversight, and it’s worth being direct about both sides of it. The upside is real: known, accountable enterprises with reputations on the line, rather than anonymous validators, running the infrastructure, which is part of Hedera’s pitch to businesses that want predictable, auditable infrastructure for things like supply chain tracking or tokenized real-world assets. The downside is equally real: this is a much smaller, more centralized, and more permissioned set of parties controlling the network than a typical public blockchain’s validator set, and it puts Hedera philosophically at odds with the “no single point of control” idea that motivates a lot of the rest of crypto, discussed in What Crypto Actually Is. Whether that’s a reasonable price for stability and enterprise-grade governance, or a disqualifying compromise on decentralization, depends entirely on what you value in a network, and it’s a genuinely contested question within the industry rather than a settled one.

What Hedera is actually used for

Hedera’s pitch, consistent with its enterprise-heavy governance, has been aimed less at retail trading or meme culture and more at things like tokenizing real-world assets, supply chain and provenance tracking, and infrastructure for businesses that want a shared ledger without running their own private one. It has also picked up use in stablecoin issuance and other DeFi-adjacent activity, though its DeFi ecosystem remains considerably smaller than Ethereum’s or Solana’s.

How to actually trade or hold it

HBAR trades on spot markets at most major exchanges; see our exchange comparisons to check availability and fees where you are. If you’re new to buying crypto, Spot Trading Explained covers order types and custody basics before you commit real money. Because Hedera’s value proposition is tied to enterprise and institutional adoption rather than retail-driven speculation or a payments narrative, its price behavior can move on different news, partnership announcements, council additions, tokenization deals, than a more retail-facing coin.

For the current price, market cap, and 24-hour chart, see our live Hedera page.

Frequently asked questions

Is Hedera a blockchain? No, strictly speaking. It uses a hashgraph, a directed acyclic graph structure with a different consensus method than a blockchain’s sequential blocks. It solves a similar problem (getting distributed computers to agree on a shared transaction history) with different underlying technology.

Who controls Hedera? Network nodes are run by members of the Hedera Governing Council, a fixed group of up to 39 named companies and institutions serving limited terms, each with one equal vote. This is a more centralized, permissioned model than most public blockchains, by design.

Is the hashgraph algorithm open source? Yes, as of 2022. The Hedera Governing Council purchased the underlying patent rights and released the algorithm under an open license, though Hedera’s own network and implementation are still run specifically by council members, not by anyone who wants to.

Is Hedera the same as Hashgraph? Hashgraph is the underlying technology (the data structure and consensus algorithm); Hedera is the specific public network built using it, with its own token, governance, and applications. You’ll see both terms used, sometimes loosely, to refer to the network.

Risk