Hedera Now Live: An open-source, carbon-neutral blockchain

The tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs) has emerged as a transformative force in the blockchain industry. By digitizing tangible assets such as real estate, commodities, and securities, blockchain technology democratizes investment opportunities, making them accessible and efficient for a global audience.

Hedera is a leading blockchain for real-world assets, and to make it more accessible to everyone, QuickNode has integrated the Hedera Mainnet and Testnet.

Now, let's do a small deep dive on Hedera.

What is Hedera?

Hedera is an open-source, decentralized public ledger that operates on a proof-of-stake model. It leverages the innovative asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerance (aBFT) consensus algorithm within its Hashgraph protocol. This design aims to overcome the performance, security, and governance challenges typically associated with traditional blockchain systems.

Hashgraph Consensus Algorithm

Hedera's unique Hashgraph protocol records transaction history using a directed acyclic graph (DAG), enabling faster confirmations and high transaction throughput. The 'gossip about gossip' mechanism, a crucial part of the Hashgraph protocol, allows nodes to share transaction information and arrival orders efficiently. This mechanism involves nodes sharing their own transactions and the transactions they have received from other nodes, thereby ensuring security and scalability​​.

Decentralized Governance

The Hedera Governing Council, a unique platform feature, comprises 31 global organizations, such as Google, IBM, and Chainlink Labs. This council's role is pivotal in ensuring no single entity controls the network, promoting balanced decision-making and distributed power​​.

EVM Equivalence

Hedera utilizes the Besu Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), allowing developers to execute smart contracts rapidly and cost-effectively. This ensures a seamless transition for developers familiar with Solidity and Vyper, leveraging existing EVM tools and libraries​​.

Sustainability

A key differentiator for Hedera is its energy-efficient design, consuming significantly less energy per transaction than traditional blockchains. This commitment to sustainability positions Hedera as a green alternative in the blockchain space​ , appealing to environmentally conscious users.

Token and Consensus Services

Hedera offers robust token services, enabling the creation and management of fungible and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) following ERC-20 and ERC-721 standards. Additionally, the Hedera Consensus Service (HCS) allows the integration of consensus timestamps into smart contracts, ensuring fair transaction ordering and immediate finality​​.

Why QuickNode for Hedera Development?

Anyone can start building on the Hedera chain by signing up for a QuickNode account and creating a Hedera JSON-RPC endpoint. The following are the benefits of using QuickNode for Hedera development:

• Dedicated Endpoints: Public endpoints are great for getting started, but since they are free and available to everyone, they are rate-limited to avoid abuse from a single user. With QuickNode, you can create a dedicated endpoint to interact with Hedera nodes. So, you don't hit those rate limits on the public endpoints.
• Free Tier: Anyone can get started with a free forever plan.
• Speed & Stability: With QuickNode's robust infrastructure, you won't have to worry about higher latencies and node stability. See how QuickNode's performance stacks up for yourself with the comparison tool.
• Scalability & Reliability: With nodes in 14+ regions and load-balancing solutions under the hood, QuickNode RPC scales with your dApp traffic.
• Wide suite of Web3 tools: Along with RPCs, users can also use Streams to set up robust blockchain data delivery systems without having to set up their own ETL pipelines. With Clusters, go beyond normal RPC and get an entire dedicated cluster of Hedera nodes, which is truly unmetered, isolated for your use, and scalable. With Functions, create your blockchain serverless functions in the cloud without hosting it on your infrastructure.
• Developer Resources: Easing the development process with products and education. With robust products, QuickNode offers high-quality developer resources in written and visual formats.

Create A Hedera Endpoint on QuickNode

Step 1: Sign up for a QuickNode account (if you don't already have one)

Step 2: After verifying the email, click on `Create endpoint`

Step 3: Select the Hedera chain and click `Continue`

Step 4: Select the network and click `Continue`

Once your Hedera endpoint is ready, it will look like this. You can interact with the Hedera chain using an HTTPS endpoint.

Resources

• QuickNode Hedera docs
• QuickNode Hedera Chain Page
• Official Hedera Docs

Why QuickNode?

QuickNode makes blockchain infrastructure easy, freeing developers to focus on the dApps (decentralized applications) they’re building instead of everything that goes into running blockchain infrastructure, such as DevOps/NodeOps, uptime, scaling, security, and tooling.

By eliminating the headache of node maintenance and synchronization and providing a comprehensive, end-to-end platform, we save developers valuable time, get a high-quality dApp to market faster, and help businesses scale and execute their Web3 strategies.

QuickNode is an indispensable tool in a Web3 developer’s arsenal that was created by developers for developers and battle-tested by industry-leading projects.

Today, the QuickNode network processes over 200 billion requests per month across 40+ networks in 14+ regions worldwide.‌‌

Visit QuickNode.com or check our Hedera docs section for more information.

About QuickNode

QuickNode provides the tools and resources builders need to create incredible products. With globally-balanced infrastructure, guaranteed reliability, a user-friendly interface, and end-to-end customer support, QuickNode allows enterprises to realize their ideas onchain rapidly. 

Learn more about QuickNode’s rollup offerings: Build your own custom blockchain | QuickNode.