Hedera is designed and built to provide a fast and secure platform for decentralised applications (dApps). It has its own native cryptocurrency also called Hedera (HBAR) which gets used to pay for transactions, smart contracts and security. This article explores why this might be useful.
Hedera is a hashgraph-based technology that uses a directed acyclic graph (DAG) and a gossip protocol to achieve faster transaction speeds and better energy efficiency compared to other ledger technologies. Users can access services including smart contracts, tokenisation and identity management.
It’s an emergent example of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that uses hashgraph consensus, as opposed to established blockchain tech, to facilitate and record transactions. The ‘gossip protocol’ communicates between parts of the network and arrives at a consensus on transactions.
As a public, open-source network, it’s designed and built to provide a fast and secure platform for decentralised applications (dApps). The Hedera platform has its own native crypto-asset also called Hedera (HBAR) which gets used to pay for transactions, smart contracts and security.
HBAR also protects the network by facilitating ‘proof of stake’ through weighted voting, which makes it expensive and difficult for outside influences to affect internal consensus.
Hedera is distributed across a network of independent computers known as ‘nodes’ and uses a technology called Asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerance (ABFT) for extra security. ABFT is effectively an algorithm that governs the consensus, allowing ‘honest’ nodes to agree that a transaction has happened, even if some nodes aren’t working properly.
The decentralised governance element of Hedera is very important too. It has a governing council of 39 member institutions and organisations including Google, Dell and Ubisoft. As of October 2025, HBAR has a market cap of $7.15bn and a circulating supply of 42.41bn from a total supply of 50bn.
There are two potential reasons to buy and invest in Hedera; speculation on the value of the coin and owning the coin to participate in the Hedera ecosystem as a developer.
Hedera is an interesting example of a coin that offers a range of utility to the underlying ecosystem. And the ecosystem has potential mass appeal as a piece of infrastructure for alternative finance and associated processes, like tokenisation and identity services.
However, as of October 2025, due to the value of the coin the Hedera ecosystem appears to be optimised for liquidity rather than value growth of the coin itself. On the one hand, this means Hedera will potentially not become volatile, because there’s a 7.51bn surplus of coins.
But with this in mind, it would take an extremely large increase in demand for the coins themselves to become scarce enough to start increasing significantly in value.
Hedera is, however, uniquely positioned as an enterprise-grade DLT and stands to potentially benefit from mainstream adoption of public DLTs. The question is not about whether Hedera will win the race for DLT dominance, but whether public DLTs themselves will win the race for mainstream adoption or large institutions will opt for building their own private ledgers.
The coin and the ecosystem also have potential uses for traceability in supply chains, micropayments and non-fungible token (NFT) trading.
Buying Hedera is simple. Follow these steps to start your HBAR journey:
To buy Hedera, you’ll need a trusted exchange. Look for ease of use, strong security, transparent fees and features like staking or recurring purchases.
You can:
Sign up on your chosen platform with a secure password and enable two-factor authentication (2FA). Complete identity verification (KYC) by submitting a government-issued ID, which is a standard process to ensure compliance and account protection.
Before buying HBAR, deposit funds into your account:
Once your account is funded:
After buying HBAR, you can choose between different wallets:
Learn more about opening a crypto trading account
Like all crypto assets, Hedera may be a good fit for some and not for others. It’s all about finding the right digital asset to match your risk appetite, financial goals and personal circumstances.
Strengths
Weaknesses
As with all crypto, the first thing to know is that the value of any asset can quickly increase or decrease. And all investments of this nature can lose money as well as gain it.
Thinking about Hedera specifically, it’s worth bearing in mind that it remains a relatively niche asset. So it’s very important to do your own research to understand its potential as an investment and as something that provides in-demand utility to the Ethereum ecosystem.
Given its status as a relatively niche asset, Hedera may be something of a longer term investment, as demand for the coin remains low relative to more popular options like Bitcoin.
If you’re unsure whether a crypto investment is right for you, sit tight and monitor the price. While this may mean you potentially miss out if the price rapidly increases, you’ll at least be able to see how volatile it is in a short term window.
If the price movements and direction align with your financial goals, it may be worth investing. But it bears repeating, crypto can be quite volatile, especially compared to more mainstream investments like bonds and shares.
Investing should never be a big gamble. Only invest what you can afford to lose, and take a long term approach. Remain patient and avoid the temptation to buy or sell on the back of price movements.
By starting small, you can manage the financial risks of investing with a little more control. Going ‘all in’ at the start of your journey is not a good strategy. By keeping investments modest, it’s possible that you’ll learn as you go and develop a deeper understanding of the crypto markets and asset markets more generally.
This can be a useful way of managing some of the psychological factors that can influence investment decisions. Dollar cost averaging (DCA) involves allocating a regular investment of a fixed amount over time, for example $200 per month over two or three years.
DCA takes away the temptation to ‘pick’ the right time to buy. Instead, you are committed to making a set, sometimes automated investment, regardless of how much the asset is priced. This means the volume of assets you buy will vary, but your financial commitment remains stable. This approach can help with budgeting.
With DCA, it can be simpler to work out an aggregated return on investment. Let’s use a couple of simple, unrepresentative examples for education purposes. If HBAR is worth $1 in month 1 and $2 in month 2, the average cost per asset you’ll have paid is $1.50.
Or let’s say you set aside $200 per month for a year. You start in June when the value of Hedera is $1.50. If the value drops in July, your unrealised loss applies only to the June investment, not your entire budget.
An established risk mitigation strategy, diversification spreads exposure across multiple assets, rather than concentrating it in one asset. Let’s say you invest entirely in Hedera and the value drops by 50%. The total value of your investment drops by the same amount.
If you invest 25% of your capital into Hedera, 25% into Bitcoin, 25% into Solana and 25% into USDC and the value of Hedera drops by 50%, and the rest remain stable, that’s a total drop in value of 12.5% (50% of a 25% chunk of your portfolio).
Hedera’s price will vary according to a range of influences, including demand from within the Ethereum ecosystem, interest from investors, liquidity and adoption of Hedera as an element of mainstream financial infrastructure.
One of the main factors affecting price in the short term is likely to be use of the coin with the Hedera and broader Ethereum developer community. As of October 2025, its primary use is as a voting token and payment method for developers.
In the medium term, demand for distributed ledger technology will likely have an influence on the price of HBAR. This will vary depending on HBAR’s position as a leading example of that kind of technology. Demand for DLTs to support things like identity services, alternative payments and file storage will be something to watch.
Trends in the wider crypto markets will also have an influence on the price of HBAR, as will any new regulatory moves. Money markets more generally will have an impact. For example, when interest rates drop, cash savers may become more interested in investing in crypto-assets.
When this happens, the crypto markets in general may experience price movement. This is because low-rate environments in traditional centralised financial markets become less appealing to investors, so they seek out alternative investments like crypto, potentially increasing their value.
There remains no specific consensus on HBAR’s long term fortunes. It’s a relatively niche ‘altcoin’, albeit with mainstream potential. However, analysts do appear optimistic about the future of DLT and the ways Hedera may benefit.
One interesting development in particular would suggest the broader fortunes of DLT could be worth watching. In October 2025, the Bank of England, the central bank for England, reported that it had been running an experiment to test the performance of DLTs.
Hedera was one of the participating technologies. This could be a positive sign. According to a Bank spokesperson: “If new technologies, such as DLT, become widely used in wholesale settlement, ensuring compatibility with central bank money is important to maintain trust and stability in the financial system.”
About the experiment, analyst Ahmed Ziyad writing for 99 Bitcoins said: “The Bank of England is officially committing to exploring DLT innovation, and Hedera’s inclusion is a big deal. It could play out really well for Hedera, especially with institutional interest in crypto heating up lately.”
Steve Taylor, writing for crypto blog Changelly.com is optimistic about the short term performance of Hedera, predicting modest price increases.
It’s an alternative to blockchain used for a range of things, including DLTs, facilitating identity services, smart contracts, payments, voting and decentralised apps. Like a lot of crypto-assets, it can also be used as a store of value and investors may speculate on its performance.
This depends on your specific financial goals, financial situation and your understanding of the underlying technology and ecosystem. HBAR remains a relatively niche asset with high liquidity. And while some analysts are optimistic about the future, any investment can lose value. Never invest more than you can afford to lose.
Buying it through a trusted, centralised platform that is voluntarily compliant with a range of global regulations, like the Crypto.com App, can be a good starting point. Popular, well regulated platforms provide certain protections and reassurances. But no investment is 100% risk free.
While it’s possible that Hedera may increase significantly in value, your investment strategy should never be based on this assumption. It is also possible that Hedera does not increase in value or loses value. Investing in Hedera, like any crypto investment, may result in a financial loss or gain.
Hedera offers a degree of utility to developers working within the Ethereum ecosystem. It also has potential applications outside of Ethereum, such as providing distributed ledger technology services to mainstream financial services providers and central banks. It also has potential as a standalone DLT with uses outside of finance.
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