Hedera
- Ticker
- HBAR
- Category
- Smart-contract platform
- Risk profile
- Volatile
What it is
A public ledger that records transactions in a gossip-based graph rather than a chain of blocks, and whose consensus nodes are run by a defined council of named organisations.
Why this risk level
- Consensus comes from nodes gossiping about what they heard and when, from which each node can compute the same ordering without a leader — a different construction from a chain of blocks, with fast finality as the design goal
- Governance is explicitly not open: a council of named organisations operates the consensus nodes and votes on protocol and pricing, which is a trade of permissionless participation for accountable, identified operators
- HBAR pays transaction and service fees and is the asset staked to nodes; the network exposes fixed-fee services such as consensus timestamping and token issuance alongside EVM-compatible contracts
A plain-English risk overview for education, not investment advice. Risk profiles describe the asset's own characteristics, not a price forecast — always do your own research before buying.
Other coin guides
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