The Hedera Governing Council recently announced that it had allocated 10.7 billion HBAR, Hedera Hashgraph’s native token, to fund the development and expansion of the ecosystem.

The official announcement revealed that the amount worth approximately $4.5 billion at the current market price ($0.42) represents 20% of the token’s total supply.

Interestingly, the value of the 10.7 billion HBAR has more than doubled since the Governing Council approved the allocation at a July 14 meeting. The tokens were worth about $2 billion on that date.

DeFi, NFTs, CBDCs and iGaming on Hedera

The Hedera council said it had already designated half of the funds to its recently established independent HBAR Foundation. The autonomous organization would be responsible for the distribution of the remainder.

As per the announcement, the remaining half of the fund currently held in Hedera treasury accounts will be deployed to partnerships and other initiatives that will strengthen the ecosystem.

The foundation will oversee the administration and development of the Hedera ecosystem by providing grants to developers, startups, and other organizations with the goal of expanding the network across products like DeFi, NFTs, CBDCs, and iGaming.

Hedera’s Governing Council also picked Shayne Higdon to lead the foundation. Higdon is a serial blockchain executive with significant experience in venture capital and private equity and has led 40 M&A and corporate venture transactions in related fields.

Commenting on the development, Shayne Higdon noted that Hedera is the most widely used public ledger globally and the newly established HBAR Foundation will help foster adoption.

“Our mission is to fund a future where entrepreneurs form digitally-native economies and ecosystems, controlling their own assets, identities, data, marketplaces, and more. We are excited to engage with and support organizations and teams that share this vision,” he added.

Promoting a Decentralized Economy

Hedera’s Governing Council is a group of diverse organizations that currently consists of 23 members worldwide, including LG, Google, IBM, and Boeing. The council is responsible for governing the network, its funds, and operating nodes.

“In our mission to make the Hedera network the de facto standard for the decentralized economy, it is now time to empower additional organizations to speed up network adoption.

We are pleased that the Hedera Governing Council has made such a significant commitment to accelerate the decentralized growth and usage of the network,” said Mance Harmon, CEO of Hedera Hashgraph.”