Hedera Hashgraph ecosystem expands

The Hedera Governing Council has announced the approval of a plan to allocate 10.7 billion hbars (approximately 20% of total supply), currently worth US $5 billion as of September 16th, 2021, towards the development of the Hedera ecosystem. The resolution was approved at the July 14th Governing Council meeting, at which time the value of the allocation was approximately US $2 billion.

Hedera Governing Council allocates $5B to expand the Hedera Hashgraph ecosystem

Hedera's Governing Council has initially earmarked up to 5.35 billion hbars, worth approximately US $2.5 billion as of Sept 16th, to the newly established independent HBAR Foundation. The HBAR Foundation will have autonomy over the administration, development, and deployment of its hbar distributions, and will provide grants to developers, startups, and other organizations to accelerate the development and adoption of the Hedera network for a wide variety of applications in decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), gaming and other industries. The HBAR Foundation will be led by Shayne Higdon, a hands-on enterprise software executive with significant venture capital and private equity experience, having led 40+ M&A and corporate venture transactions in areas such as SaaS, multi-cloud, application performance, and identity management.

"The Hedera network is the most widely used public ledger in the world, and with the establishment of the HBAR Foundation, we aim to drive exponential adoption, growth, and value. Our mission is to fund a future where entrepreneurs form digitally native economies and ecosystems, controlling their own assets, identities, data, marketplaces, and more. We are excited to engage with and support organizations and teams that share this vision," said Shayne Higdon, Executive Director and CEO of the HBAR Foundation.

The remainder of the allocation will be designated for partnerships and other initiatives designed to strengthen the development of the Hedera ecosystem. Hbar to be allocated to these initiatives will be moved from Hedera Treasury accounts.

Hedera's Governing Council currently comprises 23 organizations from around the world and is the most diverse by sector and geography of any public decentralized network. Participating organizations are responsible for governing the network (including treasury allocation) and operating nodes. Hedera network nodes, which are hosted by individual Council Members, now exist on every continent except Antarctica.

"We believe that for the Hedera network to reach its full potential as the trust layer of the internet, we must continue its strategy of decentralizing the governance of the ecosystem, which started with its unique Hedera Governing Council structure. Our aim with the transfer of these assets is to ensure that decisions about the growth of the network will continue to be further decentralized through the role of the independent HBAR Foundation," said Mark Radcliffe, Partner at DLA Piper, a member of the Hedera Governing Council.

"Two years have passed since Open Access, and the Hedera network is now the most used, energy-efficient, enterprise-grade public ledger on the market. In our mission to make the Hedera network the de facto standard for the decentralized economy, it is now time to empower additional organizations to speed up network adoption. We are pleased that the Hedera Governing Council has made such a significant commitment to accelerate the decentralized growth and usage of the network," said Mance Harmon, CEO of Hedera Hashgraph.