Hedera Hashgraph Launches Mainnet Open Beta and Token Distribution

Enterprise-grade distributed ledger platform Hedera Hashgraph announced the launch of the public Open Access (OA) to its mainnet beta.

According to Hedera’s blog post published on Sept. 16, during the OA period, anyone from the general public can create an account while developers can start building decentralized applications, also known as DApps, on the platform. The post continues:

“With hundreds of developers already building on the network over the last few months during its closed beta, the Hedera mainnet launches with 26 DApps and solutions now running live. [...] With Open Access, the Hedera Hashgraph network offers three services: 1) Cryptocurrency, throttled to 10,000 transactions per second, 2) Smart Contract and 3) File Service. Hedera’s smart contract and file service offerings are both currently throttled to 10 transactions per second.”

Methodic acceleration

Per the announcement, Hedera plans to increase the network’s speed methodically throughout the remainder of 2019. At the same time, the recently announced Hedera Consensus Service will be publicly available later this year.

With the start of the OA period, the Hedera treasury is also set to begin distributing the platform’s native HBAR tokens, according to the economics whitepaper. The document explains:

“Less than 8% of the total hbar supply is expected to be circulating before the end of 2019 and less than 34% is expected to be circulating for the first five years after network launch. This release schedule is one of the mechanisms that will ensure that no attacker will be able to disrupt the network. It also will ensure the price of hbars is determined primarily through market forces, rather than by the Hedera Council.”

15-year distribution plan

The whitepaper notes that investors who participated in Hedera’s three rounds of a $124 million crowdsale from March 2018 to August 2018 will be the first to receive HBARs — overall, more than 379 million tokens. Another 1.95 million tokens will go to advisors, vendors and other participants. The network’s governing council plans to release the total 50 billion HBARs supply over the next 15 years.

Initially, 14 cryptocurrency exchanges and over-the-counter desks announced their plans to list Hedera’s HBAR tokens for trading: AlgoZ, BitOoda, Bering Waters, Bittrex, Carbon, Galaxy Digital, Galois, GSR, Liquid, OkCoin, OKEx, OSL, Upbit and xFutures.

Decentralized governing council

According to the platform’s official website, Hedera’s governing council consists of the world's leading organizations such as aircraft giant Boeing, technology behemoth IBM, Japanese financial holding company Nomura Holdings, Indian telecom Tata Communications, financial services firm FIS Global and others.

On Hedera’s council, each member runs its own node via hashgraph — a patented algorithm claiming to provide basic benefits of blockchain such as decentralization and security, without major blockchain-associated drawbacks such as low scalability.

As Cointelegraph reported on Sept. 11, crypto exchange OKEx became the latest to announce the listing of Hedera Hashgraph’s token HBAR on its platform.

On Aug. 30, major global aerospace manufacturer Boeing has reportedly joined the governing council of Hedera Hashgraph.