In this educational guide, we’re going to explore the altcoin named Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR). We’ll cover its fundamentals and planned roadmap, so you can use it to make your own price prediction.
HBAR functions as a distributed ledger that makes use of a new consensus mechanism called a hashgraph, which helps it to process faster and more transactions at scale than traditional proof-of-work blockchains like Bitcoin.
As of the time of writing, HBAR currently ranks in the #35 of top cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. Let’s explore the value, implementations, and price of Hedera Hashgraph’s native HBAR token.
What is Hedera Hashgraph and how does it work?
Hedera is a blockchain protocol that claims to be 10x faster than blockchain alternatives, carbon negative, and with always predictable gas fees.
It is known for using a unique consensus protocol called the Hedera Consensus Service (HCS) which acts as a layer for any application and allows for the creation of an immutable and verifiable log of transactions. This ledger of transactions in Hedera’s case is known as a DLT, or distributed ledger technology.
Blockchains are types of DLTs and Hedera uses a consensus model called a hashgraph, which offers the noted improvements in performance over other blockchains. Unlike recording information on the ledger in a sequence of blocks like the Bitcoin network does on its ledger, the Hedera network uses a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG), which records information non-linearly.
Hedera’s native token is HBAR. The Hedera Governing Council runs the mainnet nodes which store Hedera’s state. These nodes are responsible for securing and validating the ledger of Hedera, which ensures the transactions noted are valid and in the correct order.
As a network, Hedera provides two core services—the Hedera Consensus Service (HCS), which allows clients to submit messages to the Hedera network for consensus timestamping and ordering.
The Hedera Token Service (HTS) is the second service which allows for native tokenization, allowing for the creation and management of various token types, without the need to deploy a smart contract. With this service, clients can also manage KYC and supply, and Hedera is also able to offer native atomic swaps and multi-sig capabilities.
Some benefits Hedera offers over other blockchains such as Ethereum are its high TPS (transactions per second), which are claimed by the team to be over 10,000 TPS, compared to 15-30 TPS for Ethereum as of the time of writing. The latency is also lower than for other blockchains such as Bitcoin, and Hedera also offers smart contracts service and file storage amongst its total service offerings.
HBAR Tokens
The HBAR token is used for payments on the Hedera network and is a native token. Besides being used for transaction fees for the network, the HBAR token is also used for network security via staking. Staking rewards are also given to nodes.
In summary, below are the 3 main use cases of the HBAR token:
- Transaction fees: For transactions to be added to the ledger of the blockchain network, the client must pay a fee in the form of HBAR tokens for processing of the transaction by consensus nodes. These fees help make DDos attacks cost-prohibitive. The fees are denominated in USD but charged in HBAR.
- Staking to create validation and security of the network: The nodes securing the network must stake HBAR. The influence a single node has on the consensus process is weighted by the number of HBARs the node has in its account, as well as the amount of HBAR delegated to this node.
- Staking rewards: HBAR node operators are rewarded with HBAR tokens. Similar to how Bitcoin miners secure the network and get paid with BTC, individuals who secure and add value to the Hedera network earn HBAR tokens for their service. Node operators, and those who proxy their own HBAR to nodes via delegating, receive daily rewards payments as per the participation in validating transactions.
Token Distribution
HBAR has a total supply of 50,000,000,000 tokens, which is a fixed supply. As of the time of writing, in March 2022, there is 19.75B HBAR in the circulating supply (39.5%). There is a maximum total supply of 50 billion HBAR tokens.
6.7 million HBAR were set aside during this initial minting process for the community testing program, while the rest remained in the Hedera Treasury account. At the public launch of the network, 45.09% of the supply was allocated to insiders, advisors, and employees, SAFTs (Simple Agreement for Future Tokens), investors, enterprise, and grants. The remainder remained in the Hedera treasury.
Hedera is planned to remain a permissioned network (in contrast to permissionless networks like Ethereum), until the total value of all circulating HBAR is high enough to be cost prohibitive for malicious parties to conduct an attack on the network. Less than 34% of the total HBAR supply is expected to be released until 2025.
Hedera issued 3 SAFTs which comprised 17.45% of the total HBAR supply for sale in these private rounds.
In summary, for the total supply, 80.13% is split amongst the founders and the project, 17.45% is for the investors, and 2.42% was set aside for premined rewards and airdrops.
Source: Messari.io
The Hedera Consortium was created in 2018 as a Delaware LLC and the technology was first shared at a TechCrunch conference in CA, USA. The mainnet launched in August 2019 and minted 50 billion HBAR for its initial supply. The Hedera Consensus Service was launched in early 2020, and the Hedera Token Service was launched a year later.
Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR) Price History & Technical Analysis
As of the time of writing, in March 2022, the price of HBAR is at $0.218, with a market capitalization of $4.3 billion USD.
The total value of Hedera’s network will function similar to a social network, meaning as more people use the network, its market capitalization will continue to increase.
As demand for the usage of the HBAR token goes up, its price will increase in turn, especially due to its fixed supply. While address growth alone does not necessarily translate to the growth of users, it is still a way to gauge growth. Metcalfe’s Law states that the value of a network is directly related to the number of users of that network.
What Expert Analysts say about Hedera Hashgraph:
- CRYPTOPOLITAN says, "Although everything is possible, we do not think that the Hedera Hashgraph price has a chance to reach $100 in the near future. However, this cryptocurrency still has some good long-term prospects. Its previous price action indicates that HBAR coin is likely to experience some slow but consistent growth over the next few years, and may even go up to as high as $3 – at least if the most optimistic Hedera Hashgraph forecast is to be believed."
- Changelly Blog says, "Experts mostly predict a relatively calm year for HBAR in 2022. Various Hedera Hashgraph price predictions expect the cryptocurrency to hover around the $0.7 mark up until December, when it should experience some moderate growth, rising up to $1.1.
Wallet Investor, however, is far more pessimistic—according to their HBAR price prediction, Hedera Hashgraph price will not be able to break through the $0.7 mark in 2022. Also read which cryptocurrencies will grow in March 2022." - Coinpedia says, "The HBAR price predictions by Govcapital say that the price is expected to reach around $0.7 by the end of this year. The price is believed to escalate and reach a new milestone of $5 in the next five years."
Hedera Hashgraph Partnerships
Hedera Hashgraph seeks to become a highly utilized platform for individuals and businesses around the globe. As such, Hedera runs a partner program that enables systems integrators, technology partners, and enterprise applications to incorporate Hedera to grow their business.
IBM, Envision Blockchain, LimeChain, and Luther are partners with Hedera as systems integrators to bring developer tools and core services that make a positive impact to the broader Web3 community.
ServiceNow has implemented trusted SLAs on Hedera via the Hedera Consensus Service.
Google, IBM, LG, Tata Communications, Avery Dennison, Boeing, Deutsche Telekom, and T Mobile, among others, are part of the Hedera Council. Hedera is owned and governed currently by this council of the world’s leading organizations.
Google Cloud is onboard as a preferred cloud provider for the initiative's public testnets and Hedera Consensus Service ecosystem.
Eftpos, Australian payments company, is participating in the development of 'next-generation' micropayments technology with Hedera.
Ubisoft, the French videogame developer, is partnering with Hedera to support gaming and entertainment innovators. As part of this partnership, Ubisoft joined Hedera’s Governing Council and operates a node on the company’s network. In addition to this, the HBAR Foundation is teaming up with the Ubisoft Entrepreneurs Lab, which is an incubator program that helps entertainment-focused startups to develop a Hedera-dedicated track within the lab.
Hedera Hashgraph Price Prediction: 2022-2026
HBAR’s price remained under $0.07 during the first one and a half years of trading until January 2021, when it broke out of that area and ran hard until a peak of $0.45 shortly thereafter.
The price then retraced during May 2021, while the overall crypto market was bearish, and then peaked again even higher at $0.57 in September 2021. This is the current all-time-high for HBAR and since then, the price has declined and failed to reach beyond $0.60.
However, the market is following an overall rising trendline—the last time its support around $0.15 was tested was in July 2021. The market stalled over it for a while. Even despite the bearish price pressure during the beginning of 2022, the market has still not touched that support, and instead continues to hover above $0.20, which is a great sign.
With more and more enthusiasts coming in and joining Hedera’s significantly improved DLT architecture, investors of HBAR expect and hope to see it go much higher than the last all-time high before 2026. If the market structure remains unchanged for HBAR, we might see it go beyond $1.00.
Hedera Hashgraph Price Prediction 2022
With the price continuing to hold well above summer 2021’s lows, and Hedera’s continued strong partnerships and developing roadmap which includes improved and scalable smart contracts in 2022, Hedera’s growth continues to look positive.
This makes some analysts predict that Hedera will see above its previous all-time high of $0.57 during 2022.
Hedera Hashgraph Price Prediction 2023
With the growing necessity for highly scalable blockchain architecture and throughput, we expect to see continued growth of such strong offerings such as Hedera. Given its roadmap and expansions to its governing council, we expect to see Hedera above $1.00 by 2023.
Hedera Hashgraph Price Prediction 2024
The Hedera roadmap provides us a glimpse of planned improvements to the protocol, and the growing market capitalization looks promising. It would not be unreasonable to see Hedera reach a $30B market capitalization during or before 2024, which is more than a 7X increase from its current $4.3B market capitalization.
Provided the overall crypto market remains bullish and we can avoid an economic downturn and bear market overall, this could mean we have the potential to see HBAR at $1.5 by 2024.
Hedera Hashgraph Price Prediction 2025
2025 is still far away at the time of this writing. The continued developmental challenges in blockchain are uncertain to extrapolate that far out, along with growth in Web3. However, Web3 does depend on smart contracts and blockchain technology, and the top performers will win. Hedera is a great contender. We predict we will see Hedera at $2.00 or above by 2025.
Hedera Hashgraph Price Prediction 2026
The crypto market overall could very well be worth $10T in total market capitalization by 2026. Depending on regulations and the overall economic cycles of the economy, we may see Hedera as high as $3.00 by 2026.
None of these predictions are financial advice, and are educated guesses as to where Hedera’s price may be at each time interval. It should be noted that any major financial hack or error could change these predictions. For example, the protocol and its smart contracts could be hacked, regulatory laws could put HBAR or much of crypto in hot water, or companies could always abandon a project. While these are unlikely compared to an overall economic downturn or contraction, they are all possibilities that can affect the price.
Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR): Conclusion Price Prediction
On one hand, Hedera is a top contender long-term that anyone can retain in his or her wallet for the long haul and not worry about day-to-day price fluctuations.
Hedera has no plans to stop expanding, innovating in its smart contract features, and increasing throughput. Even today, Hedera offers far faster transactions per second than both Bitcoin and Ethereum combined, far lower transaction fees, much faster transaction confirmation, and extremely low energy usage per transaction.
Many investors are hesitant to commit their money into an asset for an extended period of time due to the volatility of the cryptocurrency markets. However, it’s great to see lots of major companies such as IBM and Google join the governing council, so it’s clear that top private enterprise considers Hedera to be a worthy choice. So, there is clearly potential for HBAR as a great investment longer term.
FAQs
How is Hedera Hashgraph gaining traction?
Many people are interested in Hedera Hashgraph’s price and potential because of its significant technological advantages and partnerships with top companies such as IBM and Google. Investors trust this cryptocurrency and see the value of HBAR. Any cryptocurrency would lose value if no one bought it, and people continued to sell. Because the overall market believes in the technology Hedera offers, the price continues to hold and increase.
Where can I buy Hedera Hashgraph?
HBAR, the token, can be bought and traded on all major centralized platforms and exchanges such as Binance, KuCoin, and Voyager, and others for all major fiat currencies such as USD, GBP, and EUR, or even for crypto pairs such as trading BTC or ETH for HBAR.
In comparison to other cryptocurrencies, how can Hedera Hashgraph secure privacy?
Hedera is a public blockchain, meaning all transaction data is publicly available on the network for any party to see. Please see this article on how HBAR secures privacy from a Privacy Strategist on Hedera’s team.
Is it possible to stake Hedera Hashgraph?
Yes, HBAR tokens can be staked by node operators to earn HBAR staking rewards. Users can also delegate their HBAR to node operators for staking.
Why is Hedera Hashgraph on the rise?
HBAR is on the rise because of its use case as a blockchain network, its strong partnerships, and its advantages offered in its unique consensus model as well as its advantages over other blockchain networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum in transaction throughout and cost.
Is Hedera Hashgraph completely anonymous?
No, all public ledgers are completely visible for all transaction data to all parties on the blockchain. Hedera is a public blockchain, so any party can see all transactions, though it may be pseudonymous, meaning the user’s name is not necessarily linked to the transactions or wallet addresses. However, depending on where the users sources their HBAR tokens and funds it with fiat, blockchain forensics can easily identify the user’s identity.
Is HBAR considered a currency?
Yes. HBAR function as a currency for use and payment for transactions on the Hedera network.
Is it possible to generate profits with Hedera Hashgraph?
Yes, it may be. Hedera is expected to grow over the years and months to come. However, all investors must do their own research, due diligence, and ensure that they are comfortable with the amount of risk they are taking. All cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile and risky. Always proceed with caution.
Why do people believe in Hedera Hashgraph?
Some analysts believe that HBAR is the one of the most advanced, highest throughput, fastest blockchain that is being used en masse by private enterprise.
Is Hedera Hashgraph supply limited?
Yes, Hedera Hashgraph has a fixed supply of 50 billion HBAR tokens. As such, as the demand for HBAR tokens goes up, the price of HBAR rises.
How does the Hedera Hashgraph team investigate suspicious or fraudulent transactions?
Hedera helps mitigate fraud and build trust for all stakeholders of online applications and digital transactions. Hedera enables verifiable logging of business transactions, and decentralized identifiers that adhere to the W3C Decentralized Identifier (DID) standards, for any new or existing application. This ensures all participants are trusted and associated systems have a real-time view of transactions used for predictive analysis and detection of fraudulent activities.
DISCLAIMER
This is not financial advice, only observations and speculation. All investors should do their own research and due diligence. The crypto markets are extremely volatile and losing your investment is possible.
