Hedera Hashgraph

Hedera uses a directed acyclic graph (DAG) structure and a 'gossip about gossip' consensus mechanism with virtual voting, rather than the block-and-chain structure used by networks like Bitcoin or Ethereum. This allows Hedera to achieve high transaction throughput with fast finality—transactions settle in seconds rather than waiting for block confirmations. Hedera does not use mining or proof-of-work at all.

The Hedera Governing Council has included major global corporations such as Google, IBM, Boeing, LG Electronics, and Tata Communications, among others. Each council member runs a node and has equal voting power on network decisions, reflecting Hedera's enterprise-focused governance model. Council terms are term-limited to prevent any single entity from gaining permanent control.

HBAR is the native cryptocurrency of the Hedera network and is used to pay for transactions, smart contract execution, and file storage on the ledger. Users must spend small amounts of HBAR for every operation, similar to gas on Ethereum but at a fraction of the cost. HBAR is also staked to help secure the network.

Hedera is designed to process thousands of transactions per second, far exceeding the throughput of networks like Bitcoin or Ethereum mainnet. Transaction finality is achieved in approximately three to five seconds, which makes it suitable for enterprise applications requiring quick settlement. These performance figures are part of what attracted companies like Google and IBM to the governing council.