At this moment, when many hear the term “cryptocurrency,” they think of those making headlines: Bitcoin and Dogecoin.
However, Hedera Hashgraph, a Dallas-based distributed public ledger platform, is launching the Hedera Token Service, which can essentially create a crypto-token out of any asset of value.
“Just like everything on paper ended up in databases… the same thing here. Everything of value will end up with tokens,” said Leemon Baird, co-founder and chief scientist at Hedera, at an online launch event. “It just says take anything of value… and tokenizes it, which means creating a representation in the computer which tells us who owns it and what the rules are.”
Mance Harmon, Hedera’s co-founder and CEO, describes the Hedera Token Service (HTS) as a “table of records.” Through it, users can record the value of an asset they own and convert that into a crypto-token that can be traded across the Hedera platform. Users can set the rules of the tokens' use and control how much is distributed and burned.
“The idea is that anyone at any time can carve out a piece of cyberspace for themselves and create new things,” Baird said. “So, everyone is creating value, and we can transfer that value back and forth. If we can do that… it creates a new world in which we do have cyberspace empowering everything.”
But the service isn’t limited to tokens created on the Hedera platform. The HTS technology can trade tokens created on one ledger to another. It can also allow things like a dollar bill controlled by a centralized system to be “wrapped” in the HTS system and traded on the Hedera ledger.
“Creating a token that represents the item being produced makes it possible not only to record that same information… but it enables the buying and selling of that same asset,” Harmon said at the event.
Already exchanges like Bittrex Global and CoinZoom are integrating with HTS. And wallets like Mingo, Coinomi and Hedera’s own MyHBARWallet are supporting tokens created on HTS.
News of the announcement helped push the value of Hedera’s HBAR token up to about 12 cents per token, a nearly 18% increase from the last 24 hours. According to CoinMarketCap, there are about 7 billion HBAR tokens, with a market cap of nearly $892 million.
HTS marks an expansion of Hedera’s platform. Since launching in 2018, the company has been building out its “consensus system,” controlled by its governing council. The council has about a dozen members, including names like Google, IBM and Boeing. It serves to help govern changes to Hedera’s software and setting policies and provide stability and scalability for companies using the platform.
“The vision of Hedera from the beginning is to build a trusted, secure, empowered digital future for all,” Baird said.
The company’s open public network uses algorithms to help enterprises and developers create online spaces and applications. It also can process about 10,000 transactions per second, with an average fee of about $0.0001.
According to Crunchbase.com, Hedera has raised about $118 million of five rounds of initial coin offerings. It is backed by BlockTower Capital and Digital Currency Group, among others.
“Hello, future. Hello, tokenization. Everything in the world will end up being tokenized directly or wrapped, and so indirectly tokenized,” Baird said.
