160 per cent price growth: Hedera Hashgraph rivals Ethereum

Hedera Hashgraph has had a massive price rally, growing by almost 160 percent in the last seven days – could the project become a competitor to Ethereum?

Hedere Hashgraph was founded by Mance Harmon and Leemon Baird in 2016. Similar to IOTA (MIOTA), HBAR does not use a Bitcoin Revolution blockchain, but an alternative distributed ledger technology (DLT). This is based on the so-called asynchronous Byzantine error-tolerant consensus algorithm and enables transactions to be carried out cheaply and without a miner. In this way, Hedera Hashgraph wants to simplify global payment transactions, among other things. It should also be possible to programme smart contract applications.

Since the beginning of 2021, the price of the cryptocurrency HBAR has grown by over 1,000 per cent. At the time of going to press, the Hedera Hashgraph price is 0.4075 US dollars.
Ethereum project moves to Hedera Hashgraph

Recently, SUKU, a supply chain project based on blockchain technology, announced its switch from Ethereum to Hedera Hashgraph. SUKU is the first company to use the Hedera Token Service (HTS) and the Hedera Conensus Service (HCS).

One of the first applications to be fully transferred to Hedera Hashgraph is SUKU’s new sneaker tracking app INFINITE. The app uses Hedera’s DLT to verify the authenticity of sneakers.

The reason for the migration of SUKU is the high gas fees of the Ethereum Blockchain. Users of SUKU on Hedera should accordingly benefit from extremely low transaction fees and a better user experience. SUKU’s switch is another sign that more and more projects are looking for alternatives to Ethereum.

Nevertheless, the Hedera ecosystem is still tiny compared to Ethereum – but that could change. It will be interesting if well-known companies like Google or IBM also build smart contract applications on Hedera Hashgraph.

Africa’s largest bank joins Hedera Governing Council

Hedera Hashgraph has already partnered with well-known companies such as Google, IBM and LG and is now looking to expand in Africa. As such, the company has partnered with Africa’s largest bank by assets, Standard Bank Group.

According to a press release, they want to jointly tackle the problems of developing cross-border trade in Africa. Standard Bank Group also plans to set up the African continent’s first Hedera Hashgraph Node.

The major bank has used blockchain technology in the past to trade foreign exchange. However, it has found that blockchain technology has certain issues that can prevent a seamless and transparent payment experience, and so it wants to look at alternatives.

Ian Putter, Head of DLT and Blockchain at Standard Bank Group, believes that DLT will play a crucial role in the future of the banking world:

‚With the increasing interest in central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), asset tokenisation and the use of stablecoins, it is becoming increasingly clear that the digitisation of assets will impact all facets of our business. This is why we need to form strategic partnerships.

For this reason, Standard Bank Group is joining the Hedera Hashgraph Governing Council. This already includes well-known companies and organisations such as Avery Dennison, Boeing, Dentons, Deutsche Telekom, DLA Piper, eftpos, FIS (WorldPay), Google, IBM, LG Electronics, Magalu, Nomura, Swirlds, Tata Communications, University College London (UCL), Wipro and the Zain Group.