Hedera Hashgraph Gets $155M Fund To Drive DeFi Development

The Fund will focus is on increasing the network’s total value locked while providing “key” grants to DeFi developers, the foundation said

article-image

Blockworks exclusive art by axel rangel

share

key takeaways

  • The HBAR Foundation said it has launched its fund to drive DeFi innovation on the Hedera Hashgraph network
  • Non-custodial liquid staking platform Stader Labs has become one of the first developers to be awarded a grant from the fund

The HBAR Foundation has launched its $155 million Crypto Economy Fund in an effort to drive DeFi development on the Hedera Hashgraph network.

According to a statement on Tuesday, the fund is focused on increasing accessibility into and within the network while furthering the growth of the HBAR Economy.

The foundation is responsible for the development of the Hedera ecosystem by providing grants and other resources. Up to $60 million in grants from the fund are expected to go to decentralized exchanges which may be used as liquidity rewards, per the statement.

Non-custodial liquid staking platform Stader Labs has been awarded an undisclosed sum, among other developers.

Liquid staking enables staked assets to be used as collateral for lending, yield farming and other DeFi (decentralized finance) opportunities while allowing users to continue accruing rewards.

Stader will attempt to create a more “secure” decentralized staking infrastructure that “evolves” the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, the foundation said.

“Our goal is to bring the DeFi ecosystem to Hedera so that users can benefit from the scale and low-cost,” said HBAR Foundation CEO Shayne Higdon. “This level of cost, performance and scale is critical as more institutions and consumers come to Hedera for issuing tokens, swapping assets, and engaging in the crypto economy.”

Hashgraph utilizes a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) structure which the foundation said increases transactional speed and efficiency as more transactions are added to the network. Hedera processes around 2.6 million transactions per day, with transaction finalization times of roughly 5 seconds.

Other protocols using a DAG as their distributed ledger of choice, rather than a blockchain, include IOTA, Nano, and Fantom.


Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter.

Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Tags

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked by Template.png

Research

RTK networks are critical to enabling a world of ubiquitous autonomous drones, vehicles, and industrial robots. We believe the GEOD token enables both a cost and product advantage for the GEODNET RTK network, which will allow it to out-compete multi-billion dollar incumbents Trimble and Hexagon.

article-image

Hunter Horsley says Solana is one of this cycle’s breakout successes that he thinks clients will want to access

article-image

SOL has climbed more than 2,000% in the past two years

article-image

MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor alluded to Marathon’s CEO during a X Spaces on Tuesday

article-image

Crypto’s calls are equally as juiced as puts, creating a “smile” in the volatility surface

article-image

Turns out that owning the end-user via a crypto wallet is quite a prosperous business

article-image

The announcement followed growing speculation that Gensler would announce his exit before Trump takes office next year