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The Korea Herald
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THE INVESTOR
March 29, 2024

Hedera Hashgraph forecasts useful blockchain apps to hit market soon

  • PUBLISHED :February 21, 2019 - 14:30
  • UPDATED :February 21, 2019 - 17:17
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Blockchain and cryptocurrency markets have been on a downslide over the past year in line with the ever-falling digital currency values.

Despite the current difficulties facing the markets, the co-founders of Taxas-based public distributed ledger company Hedera Hashgraph said that they remain positive as the industries will soon pick up momentum again with more practical applications being available, and that the company that boasts transparency in governance will be in the lead.




“Hedera Hashgraph is a network to address obstacles for the mainstream adoption of blockchain, including performance, security, stability and governance, and we checked all those boxes,” said Mance Harmon, co-founder and CEO of the public leger firm, during a press conference on Feb. 20 in Seoul.

“Over the next couple of years, we will begin to see real applications that actually bring real value to both consumers and businesses.”

He cited micropayment services, which allow transactions of a very small amount of money online, or a website that gives rewards to content makers as some examples.

Harmon and Hedera Chief Scientist Leemon Baird said the current governing structure of many other blockchain protocols are one of major hurdles to go mainstream since they have either too many or too small decision-makers.

The company said it has solved the governance issue by building a council that will consist of 39 members, mostly leading companies that represent different industries, including finance, law, telecom and retail.

“When you think about governance models of any other public networks, the people that are making the decisions about software belong to a relatively small group, like their core developers, a foundation with a few members, or a company with a few owners,” said Baird, adding that Hedera’s 39-member council is diversified in terms of geography and industry.

On Feb. 20, the Taxas-headquartered firm held its first annual assembly in Seoul, where it announced the five inaugural members of the council -- Deutsche Telekom, Nomura Holdings, DLA Piper, Magazine Luiza and Swisscom Blockchain. The number of the members, now six in total including Hedera, will increase in the following months. They will be in charge of making decisions on product roadmaps, regulatory issues and product marketing.


Hedera Chief Scientist Leemon Baird(left) and Mance Harmon, co-founder and CEO.



The blockchain company was established in 2017 with aims to build a secure, fast and stable internet in the form of a public distributed ledger. The two co-founders, who used to work in the US Air Force together, are friends for 25 years and ran a couple of businesses in the past. Baird, a machine-learning expert, developed public distributed ledger technology Hashgraph in 2015.

The company said Hashgraph, which shows the highest performance in transferring data and has the strongest security in the distributed ledger technology market, will never fork, unlike other distributed ledger technology platforms. A fork, which refers to a change in protocol, is often pointed out as what undermines the stability of blockchain platforms.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)

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