Understanding Hedera Hashgraph (Hbar)

What is Hashgraph? Hedera uses a special technology called hashgraph to keep track of transactions. It's faster and more secure than traditional blockchains. Created by Hedera's co-founder Leemon Baird, hashgraph ensures that transactions are verified quickly and safely, preventing any tampering or attacks. It can handle over 10,000 transactions per second and finalizes them in just a few seconds.

How Transactions Work in Hashgraph:

1. Creating a Transaction: When you want to make a transaction, you create it and sign it. The account paying for the transaction must always sign it, and sometimes more signatures are needed.

2. Submitting the Transaction: After signing, you send the transaction to any node (computer) on the Hedera network.

3. Processing the Transaction: The node checks if the account has enough funds to pay for the transaction. If everything is fine, the transaction is shared with other nodes in the network quickly.

4. Reaching Consensus: All nodes independently agree on the time and order of the transaction, ensuring it's recorded accurately.

Public Ledger: Hedera keeps a public ledger, a secure and distributed database that anyone can read from and write to. This ledger is stored on each node and only keeps the most recent state of transactions, making it a trusted way to store and verify information.

Network Nodes: Hedera’s network consists of two types of nodes:

• Consensus Nodes: These nodes validate and order transactions while keeping the latest state of the network.

• Mirror Nodes: These nodes store historical data, making it easy for developers to access and analyze past transactions.

Hedera Network Services: Hedera offers various services through APIs, which are tools for developers to interact with the network. With these APIs, you can create accounts, mint tokens, write data, call smart contracts, and more. Each action has a set fee, and the APIs are easy to use with popular programming languages.

Key Services:

• Token Service: Create and manage digital tokens, whether they are fungible (like money) or non-fungible (like collectibles).

• Consensus Service: Record and verify events in a tamper-proof way, useful for any application needing a secure log of activities.

This simplified explanation helps you understand the basic concepts and functionalities of Hedera Hashgraph without needing to know technical jargon.