“Can a governed, enterprise-grade public ledger become the trust layer of the internet — enabling regulated financial infrastructure including stablecoins, tokenized assets, identity, and programmable payments at scale?”
Founded in 2018 as an enterprise-grade alternative to traditional blockchains, Hedera Hashgraph differentiated itself via the hashgraph consensus mechanism enabling high throughput, low latency, and deterministic finality. The platform expanded from a simple HBAR payment rail into a full-stack Layer 1 with Token Services, Smart Contracts (EVM-compatible), and Consensus Services. The Hashgraph Association and ecosystem partners have progressively built out embedded finance use cases — stablecoins, B2B lending, trade finance, and decentralized identity — positioning Hedera as infrastructure for regulated financial applications rather than speculative crypto.
Hedera Hashgraph processes payments through HBAR (self-operated native currency) and Hedera Token Service stablecoins (self-operated).
Hedera Hashgraph's embedded insurance is provided by The Institutes RiskStream Collaborative (ecosystem partner).
Hedera Hashgraph's crypto products run on GK8 (custody integration partner).
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 4 layers in Hedera Hashgraph's stack: Payments / PSP (HBAR (self-operated native currency) and Hedera Token Service stablecoins (self-operated)); Lending (B2B invoice financing (Isle Finance on Hedera), SMB debt-based lending (Hylobiz/Vayana on Hedera) and African trade finance tokenized invoices (EarnX on Hedera)); Insurance (The Institutes RiskStream Collaborative (ecosystem partner)); Crypto (GK8 (custody integration partner)).
Hedera Hashgraph was founded by Leemon Baird, Mance Harmon and Paul Madsen and is founded in 2018, headquartered in Dallas, TX (Hedera Hashgraph, LLC).
Hedera Hashgraph has raised $125.5M in total.
Get a read on where your own stack stands against Hedera Hashgraph and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.