HBAR Pitched As ‘Quiet Contender’ In Crypto’s Institutional Era

Mainstream crypto analyst Fire Hustle is making the case that Hedera’s HBAR may be one of the few layer-1 tokens to survive what he calls an inevitable shakeout among TOP 100 digital assets, arguing that corporate governance, government pilots and real-world tokenization give the network a different profile from typical altcoin plays.

While acknowledging HBAR coin’s weak price performance over the past year, she frames the project as being in a “consolidation phase” while others “pump on price and crash on reality,” and says this gap between fundamentals and valuation could become important if institutional adoption continues to build.

Fortune 500 Governance, High TPS & Early HBAR ETF Approval

The analyst’s main argument is that Hedera looks designed for large organizations rather than retail hype.

The network is governed by a rotating council of global companies — including Google, IBM, Boeing, Dell, LG, Mondelez, Repsol and Arrow Electronics — that operate nodes and vote on protocol decisions. Each member has equal voting power and fixed terms, with new corporates joining over time.

Technically, Hedera is described as an open-source layer-1 using Hashgraph rather than a traditional linear blockchain, enabling “over 10,000 transactions per second” with very low fees and energy usage the host claims is lower than a Visa transaction.

The network’s positioning is explicitly “institutional grade,” aimed at payments, supply chains and real-world asset (RWA) tokenization.

On the market side, Fire Hustle notes that HBAR’s market cap is under $5 billion, while the companies on its council collectively sit in the trillions, and points out that Hedera was, after Bitcoin and Ethereum, the “third asset to have an approved spot ETF.”

The video cites the existing U.S. HBAR product from Hashdex (referred to as Canary Capital in the transcript) and mentions “over 10 active ETF filings” under SEC review, including from Grayscale, Rex, Osprey and 21Shares.

Real-World Pilots: From National Stablecoins To Audited AI

Much of Fire Hustle’s focuses on deployments rather than token price.

On stablecoins, the Reserve Bank of Australia’s Project Acacia is said to be using Hedera’s token service to power an Australian Digital Dollar with real-time settlement via Australian Payments Plus. In the Philippines, a multi-bank stablecoin (PHPx) reportedly runs on Hedera, as does FRNT, described as the first U.S. state-issued stablecoin from Wyoming.

In RWAs, digital asset exchange Archax has chosen Hedera to tokenize assets from BlackRock, Fidelity and State Street, while Abrdn used the stack to tokenize part of a money market fund.

Red Swan is cited as having tokenized more than $5 billion in commercial real estate on Hedera, and Verra is said to be using the network for carbon credits. Hyundai and Kia are tracking supply-chain emissions, and Mondelez (owner of Oreo and Cadbury) is using Hedera for supply chain management, payments and digital coupons.

The host also highlights a new multi-year partnership with McLaren Formula 1 and Arrow McLaren IndyCar, which will put Hedera branding on cars and driver suits and distribute free digital collectibles to fans without requiring wallet setup — an on-ramp the analyst sees as important for mainstream exposure.

In AI, the video points to work with Nvidia and Intel via a project from Equity Lab called “verifiable compute,” which produces cryptographic proofs of AI workflows on Intel Xeon processors and Nvidia GPUs and records them on Hedera’s consensus service.

According to the YouTube show host, Accenture is already deploying this to enterprise and government clients that need auditable, non–“black box” AI.

Governments, Regulation & Playing The Long Game

Government work is presented as another differentiator. Saudi Arabia has committed $250 million through the Hashgraph Association for a “deep tech venture studio.”

Georgia’s Ministry of Justice is collaborating with the Hedera Foundation to move land registries and other public-sector systems on-chain, including real estate tokenization. Qatar is backing a $50 million digital asset venture studio using Hedera.

Fire Hustle mentions Hedera-led sessions at Davos 2026 on digital trust and RWA tokenization and ongoing Capitol Hill discussions around CBDCs and AI policy, using these examples to argue that the network is increasingly embedded in regulatory and policy conversations.

Still, the host flags clear risks. Hedera’s focus on enterprises and governments means adoption cycles are slow, and HBAR is unlikely to decouple if Bitcoin and the broader altcoin market sell off. Competing layer-1s are also chasing the same institutional niche.

Her argument, ultimately, is that in a market where “most cryptocurrencies will not survive,” Hedera Hashgraph’s dense web of corporate, governmental and infrastructure ties “checks all the boxes for long term survival” — but without any guarantee of outsized returns.

For investors, the takeaway is straightforward: if institutional-grade infrastructure, RWAs and audited AI become central to the next cycle, Hedera’s current underperformance may mask mounting strategic relevance; if they don’t, HBAR risks remaining another underused layer-1 token in a crowded field.

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People Also Ask:

What makes Hedera different from other layer-1 blockchains? Hedera’s corporate governance council, Hashgraph architecture, high throughput, low energy use and concentration of enterprise and government pilots set it apart from typical EVM chains.

Is Hedera already being used by governments? Fire Hustle cites initiatives in Saudi Arabia, Georgia and Qatar, as well as discussions around CBDCs and AI policy, as evidence of early but growing government engagement.

How is Hedera involved in AI? Through a “verifiable compute” framework built with Intel and Nvidia, Hedera is used to log cryptographic proofs of AI workflows, creating an auditable trail that enterprises and regulators can review.

Does the analyst think HBAR will pump soon? No specific price targets are given; the emphasis is on long-term positioning and consolidation rather than short-term gains, with repeated reminders that this is not financial advice.

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