Hedera Council allocates billions in HBAR to grow network

In a significant move to bolster the development of its network, the Hedera Council is allocating an additional 4.86 billion in its native HBAR token.

The council, which oversees the running of the Hedera network, announced the decision, which underscores Hedera’s increased commitment to ecosystem development, in a Jan. 12 blog post.

The Hedera Council has today announced that it has voted to give the board approval to allocate 4.86 billion HBARs of additional funds toward further development of the Hedera network and enabling its decentralized governance.

The vast majority of that allocation – 4.248 billion…

— Hedera (@hedera) January 12, 2024

According to the post, the lion’s share of this allocation, 4.248 billion HBARs, is set to be distributed amongst existing initiatives, including the HBAR Foundation, the Hashgraph Association, and the DLT Science Foundation.

The disbursement of these funds is planned for the first quarter of 2024 to the HBAR Foundation and Hashgraph Association, while the DLT Science Foundation will receive grants as they achieve milestones throughout the year.

Additionally, the Hedera Council plans to utilize 614.06 million HBARs for operational expenses and payments to early simple agreements for future tokens (SAFT) purchasers.

Hedera Council’s chief financial officer, Betsabe Botaitis, noted in the post the accelerated adoption of the Hedera network in 2023, with more than 33 billion real-world transactions processed. 

She credited much of that success to the pivotal role played by Hedera ecosystem partners in bringing applications to market and onboarding new users. 

With this robust foundation in place, Botaitis affirmed the Hedera Council’s commitment to extending further support to the network’s development and usage through the new grants.

News of the funds allocation comes soon after the HBAR Foundation introduced the DeRec Alliance in conjunction with the Algorand Foundation on Jan. 11. Aimed at developing a decentralized recovery system for crypto assets, the alliance seeks to simplify the process and align it with traditional web2 practices.

The initiative was unveiled during a panel that included co-founders Leemon Baird of Hedera and John Woods of Algorand (ALGO).

The DeRec Alliance is calling for industry-wide collaboration to create standards and open-source codes for user-friendly key recovery procedures.

Baird stressed the participation of banks, credit unions, and various wallet software projects, demonstrating the initiative’s reach beyond Hedera and Algorand.

The unveiling of the Decentralized Recovery open-source protocol, employing secret sharing among selected helpers, marks a significant stride towards ensuring secret recovery without information exposure.