The Hedera Hashgraph team has announced the successful launch of its public blockchain mainnet on Sept. 16, which includes 26 decentralized applications.
Hedera Launches Public Mainnet
According to the release, Hedera Hashgraph is now open to the general public after months of being in a closed beta network for select developers.
Hedera claims to be have a faster consensus algorithm than the blockchain used by Ethereum and Bitcoin, capable of supporting 10,000 transactions per second. The open-access mainnet also allows users to operate smart contract and files services, with the team planning to increase the network’s speed “methodically throughout the remainder of 2019.”
Heredera’s Hashgraph achieves this transaction throughput thanks to a unique feature called gossip, which sees nodes within its network share information – gossip – on transactions, and subsequently gossip on gossip to record each event on the network and create a hashgraph of information.
The network reportedly achieves consensus and is secure by a virtual voting process, where the hashgraph technology uses nodes to ensure Byzantine fault tolerance. Hedera further has a Consensus Service under development that will be made available to the public later in the year.
Mance Harmon, co-founder and CEO of Hedera Hashgraph, said,
We are thrilled that, through open access, dozens of decentralized applications are now live and running on the mainnet, along with mirror nodes and other parts of the ecosystem designed to expand Hedera’s reach and adoption.
Hedera uses “council members” to run nodes and maintain the decentralization of the blockchain. The 39 council members, which include IBM and Boeing, also govern changes to the software.
The enterprise-focused network has earlier this week seen its cryptocurrency, HBAR, get listed on leading cryptocurrency trading platform OKEx as three new trading pairs – HBAR/BTC, HBAR/USDT, and HBAR/USDK were added.
In a press release Andy Cheung, OKEx’s Head of Operations, stated:
Hedera and OKEx share the same goal of building a trusted, safe, and fair digital future for everyone through developing a neutral, open-access infrastructure. With such a powerful, enterprise-grade ledger technology, we believe it is a big step forward in mainstream adoption of decentralization. We are excited to support the Hedera platform and continue to lead this industry forward.
To celebrate listing HBAR, the cryptocurrency exchange launched a 500,000 token giveaway that will see holders and market makers who create maker orders on OKEx have a chance to win a share of the HBAR tokens being given away.
The first 5,000 traders to trade a HBAR trading pair, OKEx’s announcement reads, are also entitled to a share of 150,000 of the half a million HBAR being given away, in proportion to the volumes they trade.
Featured Image Credit: Photo via Pixabay.com
