Hedera in 2025: Building the trust layer

If recent years were about proving that public DLTs could handle real business workloads, 2025 proved something significant: Hedera is the trust layer that institutions trust. In 2025, Hedera plugged directly into the financial system, public infrastructure, and the AI stack.

Governments tested CBDCs and national registries on Hedera. Global banks settled real collateral onchain. Enterprises adopted hybrid networks through HashSphere. AI agents gained verifiable backends. Builders got tools that cut most of the friction out of going live.

2025 was the moment the training wheels started to come off.

Hedera steps onto the main stages of policy, digital finance, and AI

The year opened on the global stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where Hedera leaders joined discussions on AI, tokenization, financial inclusion, and regulation.

Through sessions like “Building Trust The Foundation for Responsible AI” and “Reimagining Financial Markets with RWA Tokenization”, Hedera drove home a simple point: decentralized tech is no longer a side experiment. It is becoming part of the core stack for finance and AI.

That theme continued through the year:

• In June in Washington, D.C., Hedera leaders joined policymakers, the Atlantic Council, and others on Capitol Hill to discuss CBDCs, responsible AI, and blockchain use cases, capped by the “Sips and Standards” reception at the Smithsonian, co-hosted with GBBC.
• At Paris Blockchain Week, leadership from Hedera Foundation and Hashgraph spoke on tokenization, MiCA, and the hybrid future of enterprise blockchain.
• At events such as Sibos, TOKEN2049, MERGE, andDigital Asset Summit, Hedera shared the stage with central banks, global custodians, and major payment providers.

And these were only a few of many highlights 2025 was not about asking how to get into the room. It was about how to set the agenda.

Tokenization stopped being a pitch

Tokenization is easy to talk about, but delivering it inside institutions is what matters most. This year, Hedera showed what it looks like when the theory actually hits regulated markets.

Across the Hedera ecosystem, there were many highlights that show this shift from theory to practice:

• In a ‘UK first’, tokenized units of a money market fund and UK gilts, issued on Hedera via Archax, were used as collateral in FX trades between Lloyds Banking Group and Aberdeen. Same regulations, same institutions, new rails.
• The Canary HBAR ETF (HBR) began trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange on October 28, 2025. Then, on Thanksgiving, while traditional U.S. markets were closed, Archax facilitated a live, out-of-hours transaction of the tokenized Canary HBR ETF.
• The Australian Digital Dollar launched on Hedera using Stablecoin Studio.
• KAIO expanded onchain access to alternative funds.
• Swarm brought compliant tokenized stocks like AAPL and TSLA, as well as tokenized gold, to Hedera.
• Hedera’s Asset Tokenization Studio added ERC-3643 (Tokeny’s T-REX) support alongside ERC-1400, strengthening its role as an end-to-end platform for regulated digital assets, and was named one of Global Finance Magazine’s Top Financial Innovations in North America for 2025.
• StegX began tokenizing over $100 million in institutional real estate on Hedera using Zoniqx’s jurisdiction-aware DyCIST (ERC-7518) standard, embedding KYC, AML, and lifecycle logic directly into the tokens.
• Hedera Foundation invested in Archax’s tokenized representation of Fidelity International’s USD MMF on Hedera.

The pattern is clear. This is no longer “can we put this onchain” experimentation. It is “can this plug into our legal, risk, and reporting stack?” execution.

Hybrid networks and HashSphere: The future is not public or private, it is both

Enterprises want the transparency and finality of a public network, but regulators and risk teams still require transaction privacy and jurisdictional control, so HashSphere bridges the gap. The future isn’t public vs. private; it’s hybrid, with Hedera and HashSphere as the connective tissue.

Launched in March, HashSphere lets organizations deploy private, permissioned networks that connect seamlessly to Hedera and other EVM ecosystems. Think of it as shared worlds where domain-specific networks stay private by default, interoperate when needed, and run on fully managed, enterprise-grade infrastructure from Hashgraph.

By midyear, HashSphere was already included in serious initiatives around the world:

• Project Acacia, led by the Reserve Bank of Australia and DFCRC, Australian Payments Plus explores wholesale CBDC issuance and interoperability between Hedera and HashSphere.
• A Digital Receipt System proof of concept with the Qatar Financial Centre, AlRayan Bank, Blade Labs, and Google Cloud, using HashSphere for Shariah-compliant asset-backed finance.

AI, verifiability, and the rise of agentic systems

AI needs verifiability to earn trust. With auditable logs and clear standards, it becomes infrastructure. Hedera leaned into that throughout 2025, focusing on verifiable events and accountability that regulators and risk teams can evaluate.

Some highlights include:

• A major moment was the launch of AI Studio, an open source, modular toolkit for building transparent AI applications and agents on Hedera.
• Hedera joined the Decentralized AI Society to help shape standards for decentralized, ethical, and transparent AI, contributing enterprise DLT experience and real-world applications.
• EQTY Lab launched Verifiable Compute platform on NVIDIA Blackwell, in collaboration with NVIDIA, SCAN UK, Accenture Public Sector, and Hedera. Hedera Consensus Service anchors an immutable audit log of AI computations, bringing together hardware-based trust with on-chain transparency.
• The first AI-powered Polymarket Telegram bot built natively for the Hedera ecosystem, VictorAI, launched making prediction markets feel as effortless as sending a message.

Governance, structure, and ecosystem evolution

2025 was also the year Hedera did some important internal work.

The HBAR Foundation transitioned to Hedera Foundation with a sharpened focus on tokenization, DeFi, AI, and community innovation. The Hedera Governing Council became simply Hedera Council, with Tom Sylvester stepping in as President and Mance Harmon serving as Chair.

The two remain independent, but now operate with a tighter, more consistent brand system. Hedera Foundation drives ecosystem growth and use case adoption. Hedera Council preserves decentralization, stability, and responsible governance for the network itself.

In November, the new Hedera Council partnership program introduced Strategic Partners and Community Partners, offering structured ways for organizations to collaborate with the Hedera ecosystem.

The Council also grew in meaningful directions:

• Arrow Electronics, a global technology solutions provider, joined to co-develop DLT-powered supply chain standards and operate a Hedera node.
• Blockchain for Energy (B4E), a consortium of energy majors, joined with a focus on high-integrity emissions reporting through platforms like B4ECarbon on Hedera.
• Repsol, a Fortune500 energy company, joined to explore Hedera-based decentralized digital identity (DID) to boost trust and security in business interactions.

To help Council members deliver on their ambitions, Hashgraph also introduced the Hedera Enterprise Adoption Team (HEAT), led by long-time community member and AP+ Council rep Rob Allen. HEAT’s role is simple: coordinate strategy and delivery so large initiatives move from proof of concept to production on Hedera.

If governance is about who is in the room, 2025 brought more “operators of critical global infrastructure” into the conversation.

Developer experience, security, and the community flywheel

Networks do not scale on vision alone. They scale when builders can get something live quickly, users can join with minimal friction, and the environment feels safe to use.

Builder tooling:

• Hedera Developer Playground simplified on-ramping by letting builders write, execute, and share code against the testnet in the browser, no local setup required.
• Hedera Contract Builder did the same for Solidity smart contracts, with templates, HTS-aware features, and one-click browser deployment.
• Hedera won “Best Web3 Developer Tooling in North America 2025” from Global Financial Market Review.

This year’s hackathons created an always-on flow of innovation:

• Hello Future Hackathon 2.0 showcased climate intelligence, NFT frameworks, and healthcare data tokenization.
• Hashathon Nairobi expanded Hedera adoption across East Africa with on-the-ground developer training.
• Hedera Agents Hackathon pushed forward agentic AI standards and real-world use cases.
• Hello Future Trilogy (Origins and Ascension) produced projects across AI, DeFi, sustainability, and developer experience, reinforcing Hedera’s global builder community.

Security and institutional-grade infrastructure also moved forward:

• In August, Hashgraph partnered with Blockaid to provide real-time threat detection, beginning with HashPack.
• Dfns added Hedera support in its institutional wallet infrastructure.
• Canonical WETH arrived through Stargate and SaucerSwap, connecting Hedera to deeper Ethereum liquidity.
• Hedera Foundation announced its integration with the Axelar Network in November, linking Hedera to over 60 blockchains such as Arbitrum, Solana, and XRPL, enabling seamless asset bridges and programmable apps.

Onboarding and community:

• The Hedera Community Builders Program launched with tokenized Builder NFTs, Hedera Plaza as a collaboration hub, and tools to support developers, marketers, and community contributors.
• The Moderators and Ambassadors programs opened to support online moderation and regional education, initially across several countries in Latin America and Europe.
• Hashport’s HBAR Faucet provided first-time users with a small amount of HBAR to cover early fees, removing a common onboarding roadblock.
• Hedera To Earn launched as a cross-app rewards platform with partners like Cashtree, Mars Labs, and Berryfox, bringing more than 24 million users into the ecosystem through a unified rewards token and Blade Wallet integrations.

Combined with the success of the inaugural HederaCon in Denver, 2025 was the most active year for developer engagement in Hedera’s history.

Governments and regulators started treating Hedera as critical infrastructure

Perhaps the most meaningful signal of 2025 was the extent to which public-sector actors leaned into Hedera.

• Wyoming Frontier Stable Token (FRNT) selected Hedera as a blockchain candidate for the United States’ first state-issued stable token.
• Bank of England and BIS Innovation Hub DLT Challenge chose Hedera as one of only two L1 networks for exploring the future of money and RTGS synchronization.
• The Georgia Ministry of Justice MOU began exploring migrating the national real estate registry to Hedera.
• Hedera joined the Digital Chamber State Network to support policy development across the United States.

Alongside Project Acacia in Australia and the QFC pilot in Qatar, Hedera increasingly looked like public infrastructure being evaluated, not just a theoretical option.

Culture, conversation, and transparency

2025 was also about how Hedera shows up as a community, not just a technology stack.

• HederaCon 2025 in Denver reunited the ecosystem for the first user conference since 2018, with 400+ developers, enterprises, policymakers, and creators, plus headline sessions featuring Charles Hoskinson, Swift, Worldpay, Dropp, and AP+.
• Table Talk with Hedera Council, hosted by Mance Harmon, opened up candid conversations with leaders such as Charles Adkins, Eric Piscini, and Rob Allen on topics including Google’s role, the Universal Ledger, and the vision for HashSphere.
• Side events like “Trust and Tonics” in London and “Sips and Standards” in D.C. underlined a consistent pattern: Hedera is pairing technical depth with open dialogue.

Looking ahead to 2026

If you are an enterprise, a developer, or a policymaker, the story of 2025 can be summarized in one question: What does it look like when decentralization becomes infrastructure?

This year, Hedera gave a very concrete set of answers:

• Tokenization that works inside real legal and financial systems
• Hybrid public-private architectures that respect privacy and regulation
• AI that is verifiable, auditable, and accountable
• Governance that blends decentralization with institutional responsibility
• Tools that let a developer go from idea to mainnet in minutes, not months

With major pilots, integrations, and production projects already in motion, 2026 will not be about starting new stories; it will be about scaling the ones that began in 2025. HederaCon 2026 and Hedera DevDay 2026 will also be important touchpoints along the way.

At this point, the question isn’t whether tokenized, verifiable infrastructure will play a major role. It’s who you trust to build with.

Hedera in 2025: Building the trust layer was originally published in Hedera Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.