HBAR is the native currency of the Hedera Hashgraph network, an open-source, decentralized public ledger that employs the Hashgraph consensus mechanism instead of blockchains to improve both speed and security simultaneously. HBAR facilitates transactions for decentralized applications, enables peer-to-peer transactions, and maintains network security against potential malicious actors. ^[3]

Tokenomics

Hedera had the initial token launch for HBAR in September 2019. The maximum supply of HBAR is capped at 50,000,000,000, with an inflationary type emission rate since genesis. ^[2]

32.41% was allocated to Hedera Pre-Minted Treasury, 23.99% to Ecosystem Development, 17.4% to SAFTS, Purchase Agreements, 13.8% to Founders, 7.96% to Swirlds, and 4.44% was allocated to Employees. ^[2]

According to Hedera's Economics Whitepaper^[5] (published June 2020), around 17.03 billion HBAR is estimated to be in circulation by 2025 — equivalent to 34% of the total supply. ^[1][5]

The slow release schedule of the network is designed to ensure its stable and orderly growth, allowing it to scale without compromising its safety. Additionally, the release schedule is tailored to meet projected user needs and discourage excessive speculation in the coins. ^[5]

Utility

$HBAR is the fuel that powers Hedera services, such as smart contracts, file storage, and regular transactions. Second, it is used to help secure the network, since HBAR users can stake their tokens to assist with maintaining the integrity of the platform. ^[2][1]

Network fuel

$HBAR is used by developers to pay for various network services, such as transferring HBAR, managing fungible and non-fungible tokens, and logging data. Transactions submitted to the network are compensated using HBAR, which is used to remunerate network nodes for the bandwidth, compute, and storage utilized. ^[4]

Network protection

Hedera's public network uses $HBAR, which can be staked or proxy staked, to weigh votes on transactions in order to reach consensus through a Proof-of-Stake mechanism. This weighted voting system with $HBAR is designed to make it challenging and costly for malicious actors to affect consensus, as it would necessitate them owning and staking over one-third of the network's total supply of $HBAR. This will not be feasible for the first five years of the network's operation. ^[4]