Hedera ranks #20 of 504 cryptocurrencies. On a list that also counts tokens, memecoins, wrapped coins, staked derivatives and stablecoins it appears at #32: 12 of the 31 assets ahead of it are not native coins but tokens or claims. A token is issued on a host blockchain rather than running its own; a claim stands for an asset already counted. Of the 19 non-native assets CoinSpectrum lists above it by market cap, 14 are claims on other assets and 5 are tokens.
| CoinSpectrum Grade | C · 55/100 · provisional |
|---|---|
| Rank among cryptocurrencies | #20 |
| Rank counting claims | #32 |
| Market capitalisation | $3.3B |
| Price | $0.0754 |
| Circulating supply | 44,327,157,611 HBAR |
| Maximum supply | 50,000,000,000 HBAR |
| Consensus family | Proof of Stake |
| Consensus mechanism | Hashgraph (gossip, aBFT) |
| Network purpose | Settlement ledger |
| Ledger type | Multi-asset ledger |
| Launch distribution | Presale |
| Regulatory class | Commodity |
Market figures from the 28 October 2026 build. Open the live view for every exchange's price, and charts.
C — 55 out of 100, provisional (from 19 of 20 criteria, 28 October 2026 build). With what is not yet measured anywhere from nothing to full marks, the score would be 52 to 59 (C to C).
| Criterion | Score | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Leading Consensus Mechanisms (Source) | 9.1 | group average |
| Consensus: leader ladder | 9.1 | Proof of stake: 9.1 of 10 on the ladder of consensus families ranked by their largest chain's market cap |
| Consensus: family ladder | 9.1 | Proof of stake: 9.1 of 10 on the ladder of families ranked by the combined market cap of their chains |
| Cryptocurrency Standards (Source) | 4.3 | group average, 12 of 13 measured |
| Sound Money Qualities (6 checks) | 6.3 | 3.8 of 6 points source |
| Scarcity: a fixed cap that holds, and a supply near 21 million | 7.6 | fixed maximum supply of 50 billion: supply scale 5.2, cap 10 |
| Durability: five years or more with no halt, freeze or reversal | ✗ | 7 full years since its first recorded price, one halt, freeze or reversal in five years |
| Fungibility: every unit interchangeable, none the protocol can freeze or set apart | ✗ | an authority can freeze funds: Council-controlled system keys can submit network freeze transactions, and on 2023-03-09 Hedera switched off all mainnet proxies to stop user transactions during an exploit. |
| Divisibility: the smallest unit worth a cent or less | ✓ | 8 decimal places, the smallest unit worth $7.5e-10 |
| Portability: fees of a cent or less and capacity for real demand | ✓ | typical fee $0.0001; about 10,000 transactions a second (10 on the throughput scale; 5 is the busiest networks' median demand) |
| Verifiability: open-source nodes and checking without a trusted server | ✓ | node software open source; pruned nodes validate everything |
| Privacy (5 checks) | 2 | 1 of 5 passed source |
| Whitepaper privacy: keys are not tied to an identity | ✓ | Anyone can create an account (or auto-create one by sending to a key alias) for the network fee; the ledger carries no identity check. |
| UTXO ledger: a new key for each payment, no account linking every coin | ✗ | |
| Network-level privacy: the node hides where a transaction came from (Dandelion++, Tor or I2P, on by default) | ✗ | Transactions go to a chosen consensus node directly; no origin hiding. |
| Hidden amounts (confidential transactions, RingCT, shielded pools, Mimblewimble) | ✗ | No confidential transactions. |
| Hidden sender and receiver (ring signatures or zero-knowledge proofs, one-time or stealth addresses) | ✗ | No sender or receiver hiding. |
| Scalability (fees, throughput, block time, block space, features) | 7.6 | average of 5 parts source |
| Fees ($0.001 or less 10, $1 or more 0) | 10 | typical fee $0.0001 |
| Throughput (2,478 a second, the busiest network's peak day, 10; 119, the median of the ten busiest, 5) | 10 | about 10,000 simple transactions a second |
| Block time (10 minutes 10, less either side) | 1.1 | a block every 2 seconds |
| Block space per 10 minutes (32 MB or more 10) | 10 | 129 MB limit (converted from its gas, compute, mass or count limit), 38700 MB per 10 minutes |
| Features (3 checks) | 6.7 | 2 of 3 passed |
| Payments safe to accept within seconds | ✓ | Hashgraph aBFT consensus gives deterministic finality in about 3-5 seconds. |
| Pruned nodes: a full node can validate and drop old history | ✓ | Consensus nodes keep current state only and stream records to mirror nodes, which hold history. |
| Light clients verify payments from headers or proofs, without a trusted server | ✗ | No light-client protocol on mainnet; clients trust mirror nodes for history and receipts. |
| Security (miner pay and 7 checks) | 5 | 5 of 9 points source |
| Miners paid a day ($1,000 0, $10 million or more 10), 2 points | 0 | not mined |
| Its own hashrate: at least half its algorithm's largest, not merge-mined | ✗ | not mined |
| Largest pool or validator under 50% | ✓ | 3.8% |
| Largest three under 75% | ✓ | 11.3% |
| More than one maintained client | ✗ | 1 |
| Node software is open source | ✓ | The consensus node moved to the Hiero project (LF Decentralized Trust, Apache 2.0) in 2024, but Hashgraph employs nearly all its developers and the Hedera Council approves every network upgrade. |
| Real on-chain use: 1,000+ transactions a day | ✓ | about 930,000 a day |
| No 51% attack or deep reorganisation in five years | ✓ | |
| Programmability (tokens, contracts, 5 checks) | 7.8 | 7 of 9 points source |
| Token issuance at protocol level, validated by its own nodes | 2 | Hedera Token Service, native to the network and open to any account for a fee, plus ERC-20 contracts on its EVM-compatible Smart Contract Service. |
| Smart contracts: a general-purpose contract system | 2 | Hedera Smart Contract Service runs EVM contracts deployable by any account. |
| Multisig and time locks | ✓ | Native threshold keys and key lists (m-of-n) on accounts, and scheduled transactions with wait_for_expiry (HIP-423) that execute at a set time. |
| Atomic swaps with other chains | ✓ | EVM HTLC contracts (hash lock plus timelock refund) on the Smart Contract Service. |
| An exchange built into the protocol | ✗ | No exchange in the network services; SaucerSwap and others are contracts. |
| Cross-chain messaging the chain verifies itself | ✗ | No protocol messaging to other chains; bridges are third-party. |
| Non-fungible tokens | ✓ | Native non-fungible tokens in the Hedera Token Service, created without contracts. |
| Decentralisation | 3.2 | section average, 7 of 8 measured |
| Censorship resistant (Source) | 0 | An authority can halt the chain or freeze funds: Council-controlled system keys can submit network freeze transactions, and on 2023-03-09 Hedera switched off all mainnet proxies to stop user transactions during an exploit. source |
| No central team (Source) | 0 | A central team directs it: The consensus node moved to the Hiero project (LF Decentralized Trust, Apache 2.0) in 2024, but Hashgraph employs nearly all its developers and the Hedera Council approves every network upgrade. source |
| Who can mint (Source) | 7.6 | Proof of stake: 8.6 of 10 on the ladder of who produces blocks, less 1 point: block producers are admitted from a permissioned list (allow list, federation or council) |
| Nodes (Source) | 5 | 31 reachable nodes source |
| Holder concentration (Source) | — | Not yet measured |
| Premine (allocated at launch) | 0 | 100% of today's supply allocated at launch to founders, a company, a foundation or investors. The entire fixed 50B HBAR supply was created at mainnet launch (Aug-Sep 2018) and is held/released by Hedera Hashgraph LLC/Hedera Council; no further issuance (current total 50B). source |
| Fundraising | 0 | Sold by its issuer or insiders: 100% of supply was theirs to sell, 22.8% sold so far. Hedera's treasury report (6 Oct 2026) books all HBAR sold under regulated sales contracts as 'Purchase Agreements'. Released through Q3 2026: SAFT fundraising ~8.695B, SAFT exchange-offer bonus ~0.707B, later TPA sales ~2.018B = ~11.419B HBAR, / 50B fixed supply = 22.8%. The planned allocation for the category is 12.698B (25.4%), so the figure can rise slightly as remaining contracted HBAR is released. About $124M raised in 2018 via SAFT rounds (first SAFT series $4.7M from 40 purchasers; reported ~$100M private SAFT round) plus an Aug 2018 crowdsale at $0.12 restricted to accredited investors; sources disagree on the private/public split. source |
| Developer share (after launch) | 10 | No developer share: every new coin goes to the miners or validators who produce blocks. No issuance: the fixed 50B HBAR supply was created at launch, and staking rewards are paid out of the pre-minted treasury, so there is no new issuance to cut. source |
| Supply & Demand | 6.7 | group average |
| Supply & Demand (Source) | 8.2 | average of 6 measures |
| Exchanges (10 or more: 10) | 10 | 36 exchanges |
| Daily volume ($10K 0, $1B or more 10) | 7.4 | $36,700,592 traded in 24 hours; #52 by volume on the exchanges the site reads (scored on the median day of the last 30, $49,327,805) |
| Turnover (volume ÷ market cap, 5% a day: 10) | 6.9 | 1.3% of its market cap a day, median of the last 30 days |
| Order-book depth (bids and asks within 2% ÷ market cap, 1%: 10) | 8.3 | $10,319,012 within 2% of the price on 9 exchanges, 0.31% of its market cap, median of the last 2 days |
| Market cap ($1M 0, $10B or more 10) | 8.8 | $3.3B, 8.8 on a scale of 2.5 points per tenfold |
| Paper trading (futures, options and margin ÷ market cap, 0%: 10, 100%: 0) | 7.8 | futures, options and margin positions 4.8% of its market cap |
| Supply (smaller is better) | 5.2 | fixed maximum supply of 50 billion |
| Record | 7.3 | group average |
| Record (origin, claims, halts) | 9 | 2 positive, 1 negative source |
| Positive record | ||
| Launched with a stated purpose, not as a joke | ✓ | |
| No claims by its founders that contradict its own design | ✓ | |
| Negative record | ||
| Halt, freeze or reversal, 2023-03-09 | ✗ | After a Smart Contract Service exploit drained HTS tokens from DEX liquidity pools, Hedera turned off all mainnet network proxies (20:14 UTC), blocking user transactions until a Council-approved patch; resolved 2023-03-11 02:08 UTC. |
| Age (years since genesis) (Source) | 7 | 7 full years since 2019-09-17, the first day with a recorded price (genesis not yet researched, so the age can only be understated). |
| Development (work, improvements, unfixed issues) | 6 | 1 positive, 0 negative, 3 not yet researched source |
| Positive | ||
| Steady work, 6 of 6 | ✓ | 6,903 commits in 12 of the last 12 months (github.com/hiero-ledger/hiero-consensus-node); hiero-consensus-node builds and release candidates through 2026-10-24 (continuous mainnet upgrades). |
| Not yet researched | ||
| Shipped a security fix in two years | – | |
| Shipped a scaling upgrade in two years | – | |
| Shipped a new capability for users in two years | – | |
Twenty criteria, weighted equally. The Cryptocurrency Standards have six sections: sound money qualities (six checks: scarcity, durability, fungibility, divisibility, portability, verifiability), privacy (five checks), scalability (four measures and three features), security (miner pay and seven checks), programmability (token issuance, smart contracts and five checks) and decentralisation (censorship resistance, no central team, who can mint, nodes, holders, premine, fundraising and developer share). Provisional: criteria marked — are not yet measured and are left out of the average. A rating of structure and market depth, not a price forecast or investment advice. How the grade is built · Highest-graded cryptocurrencies.
44,327,157,611 of a maximum 50,000,000,000 HBAR are in circulation — 88.7% of the total that will ever exist.
| Premine (allocated at launch) | 100% of today's supply |
|---|---|
| Sold by the issuer or insiders | 22.8% of today's supply |
| Developer share received since launch | 0% of today's supply |
| Developer share of new coins today | 0% |
| Nodes or validators | 31 |
| Fundraising | Private or venture funding |
The entire fixed 50B HBAR supply was created at mainnet launch (Aug-Sep 2018) and is held/released by Hedera Hashgraph LLC/Hedera Council; no further issuance (current total 50B).
About $124M raised in 2018 via SAFT rounds (first SAFT series $4.7M from 40 purchasers; reported ~$100M private SAFT round) plus an Aug 2018 crowdsale at $0.12 restricted to accredited investors; sources disagree on the private/public split.
Hedera's treasury report (6 Oct 2026) books all HBAR sold under regulated sales contracts as 'Purchase Agreements'. Released through Q3 2026: SAFT fundraising ~8.695B, SAFT exchange-offer bonus ~0.707B, later TPA sales ~2.018B = ~11.419B HBAR, / 50B fixed supply = 22.8%. The planned allocation for the category is 12.698B (25.4%), so the figure can rise slightly as remaining contracted HBAR is released.
No issuance: the fixed 50B HBAR supply was created at launch, and staking rewards are paid out of the pre-minted treasury, so there is no new issuance to cut.
Sources: hederacouncil.org · hedera.com · docs.hedera.com · hedera.com · hedera.com · theblock.co. Researched 2026-10-24, high confidence.
Named a digital commodity in the joint SEC-CFTC interpretation (Mar 17, 2026).
The regulator's position, reported as stated, not CoinSpectrum's. Assets nobody has ruled on are left unclassified rather than sorted by a guess.
Hedera is #20 among cryptocurrencies and #32 in the market ranking, which lists wrapped coins, staked derivatives, stablecoins and tokens alongside them. CoinSpectrum counts an asset once, and counts only cryptocurrencies: assets with their own blockchain and their own consensus. A wrapped coin, a staked derivative or a stablecoin is a claim on something already counted; a token, memecoin or otherwise, runs on another chain's blocks. All of them are listed, each in its own section, and none is added to the total. The 12 places between Hedera's two ranks are held by claims and tokens, not by other networks. The methodology sets out the rule and the counting rule argues for it.
The price above is the median of the exchanges the site reads live, checked every minute and cross-checked against a market snapshot (how market data is gathered). The grade is scored on published criteria, each with its source (the method). The site is independent, nothing on it is a paid placement, and its statements are signed (about CoinSpectrum, the manifesto).
See the 1 wrapped and staked claim on Hedera →