Daniela Barbosa, Executive Director of Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust, and Shyam Nagarajan, COO of Hedera have shared insights about Hedera’s Hiero project, its governance under the Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust (LFDT), and its implications in the context of the U.S. Clarity Act and decentralized technology.
A few questions and some responses from Daniela Barbosa and Shyam Nagarajan are shared below.
Crowdfund Insider: What governance mechanisms were implemented by the Hiero project under LFDT to ensure vendor-neutrality and transparency?
As an LF Decentralized Trust (LFDT) project, Hiero follows the governance and development models of the Linux Foundation. The Hiero project operates under a governance framework designed to ensure fairness, transparency, and community participation.
At its core is the Hiero Technical Steering Committee (TSC), a nine-member body with clearly defined representation. These seats are filled by individuals from six different companies, creating a foundation of diversity in the first year, which is critical for ensuring vendor neutrality.
In addition to Dr. Leemon Baird’s ongoing position on the TSC, Hedera Hashgraph, LLC retains a transitional seat for three years; three members are elected by project maintainers, one is elected by active contributors from the past year, and one end-user representative is selected through a TSC-defined process.
In order to maintain transparency, TSC meetings are open to the public, recorded, and archived with minutes that are then made available via GitHub and recordings via YouTube. Governance policies also prevent unwanted influence, limiting any single organization to two TSC seats.
When it comes to reviewing the Hiero Improvement Proposal (HIP), the process is open to all; anyone can propose changes through Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO)-managed pull requests, progressing through a structured review cycle from drafting to final TSC decision. For Hedera specifically, proposals that impact its mainnet require an additional “hedera-acceptance-decision” review.
Regarding contributor roles, responsibilities are clearly delineated: contributors propose ideas and submit code, documentation, and tests. Committers and maintainers review these contributions, merge accepted changes, and ensure the technical health of the project. TSC provides guidance on the project’s overall direction and priorities.
There is strong diversity among the TSC, maintainers, and committers. This diversity ensures that no single company can dominate decision-making, which is essential for sustaining trust.
Crowdfund Insider: How does Hiero’s integration with LFDT’s ecosystem, including collaboration with Hyperledger projects like Besu and Web3j, enhance interoperability and functionality for decentralized applications compared to other Layer 1 blockchains?
Hiero’s place within the LFDT ecosystem creates synergies with other open-source projects. This collaboration allows for code reuse, faster development, and easier integration, which are particularly advantageous for decentralized application developers.
The shared infrastructure of LFDT means developers can build with tools they already know and trust, lowering barriers to entry. Compared to isolated Layer 1 blockchains, this environment delivers better scalability, compatibility, and developer accessibility.
That compatibility is strengthened by the way Hiero leverages proven open source components from across the LFDT ecosystem: EVM support through Besu (HIP-26), identity capabilities via Verifiable Credentials and Hyperledger AnonCreds, and consensus integration through the Hyperledger Fabric plug-in for Hedera Consensus Service.
In addition, we have already contributed to Besu and Web3J, and a discussion is currently underway regarding full support for Hiero within the Hyperledger Identus project. Overall, choosing LFDT was intentional, as it accelerated integration and interoperability with other standards and open source projects.
Crowdfund Insider: The U.S. Clarity Act emphasizes decentralization and open-source criteria for classifying blockchains as digital commodities. How does Hiero’s governance and codebase structure align with these criteria, and what challenges remain in meeting regulatory expectations?
While not designed specifically for the Clarity Act, Hiero’s governance naturally aligns with its core principles. The code is fully open-source under Apache 2.0, vendor-neutral, and governed through transparent, community-driven processes.
Public contribution workflows and TSC oversight reflect commitments to decentralization and openness. Remaining challenges include providing clearer metrics for measuring decentralization and documenting stakeholder participation in ways that regulators can recognize.
Overall, Hiero is well-positioned to meet regulatory expectations and will adapt and evolve in governance practices and accountability to align fully with changing standards.
Crowdfund Insider: What measurable outcomes have emerged from Hiero’s community-driven development over the past year, such as contributions to the codebase, adoption by enterprises, or new use cases, and how are these outcomes tracked?
By early 2025, Hiero had reached several important milestones. Since February 2025, Hedera has been powered entirely by Hiero’s open codebase, making it the largest public network based on an LFDT project. Another major highlight was HIP-762, which integrated Hyperledger AnonCreds into Hiero and enabled Hedera to serve as a Verifiable Data Registry for decentralized identity.
Hiero’s credibility is also evident in enterprise adoption. The Central Bank of Indonesia’s Project Garuda proof of concept, for instance, ranked Hiero highly as a potential digital rupiah ledger. These early signals highlight trust in the codebase even as migration work continues.
Another important factor to consider is the growth in community calls scheduled on the calendar so far. These calls play a key role in boosting engagement, fostering open discussion, and promoting transparency.
The broader ecosystem reflects the same momentum. Hiero now spans 28 repositories, nearly 800 contributors, and more than 80 organizations. It has welcomed a wave of community contributions, each expanding the ecosystem, including Hiero SDK in Python, Hashgraph Online Standards SDK, and Hedera Smart Contracts.
Weekly public meetings further anchor its open governance. With more than 50 organizations publicly listed as adopters in the project’s ADOPTERS registry, both enterprise and community adoption continue to grow.
Crowdfund Insider: How does the Hashgraph consensus algorithm, as part of Hiero’s open-source codebase, differ from traditional blockchain consensus mechanisms in terms of performance and security, and what trade-offs, if any, does it introduce? ]
The Hashgraph consensus algorithm uses asynchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerance (aBFT), which provides strong security and resilience. It delivers high throughput, low latency, and near-instant transaction finality. Unlike proof-of-work or proof-of-stake, Hashgraph does not rely on energy-intensive mining or staking concentration, which reduces systemic risks.
The main trade-off is complexity: Hashgraph’s mechanism is more advanced and requires careful explanation to new developers. Open-sourcing it through Hiero under LFDT helps address this by making the code transparent and community-reviewed.
Crowdfund Insider: What role does the Hedera Council play in maintaining operational governance of the Hedera network while the Hiero codebase is managed by LFDT, and how is the balance between centralized oversight and decentralized development maintained?
Governance of the Hedera ecosystem balances decentralized innovation with reliable network performance. Hedera Council continues to oversee the Hedera network and manages its own instance of the codebase.
Meanwhile, Hedera Council and its Technical Committee, whose membership is revolving on a voting basis, maintain operational governance over the live Hedera network. This includes reviewing HIPs before adoption and managing their deployment across testnet, previewnet, and mainnet environments.
The Hiero codebase, by contrast, is governed by LFDT through the Hiero TSC. This vendor-neutral model ensures that no single entity, including members of Hedera Council, has exclusive control over future development. The TSC guides Hiero’s technical direction, approves HIPs, and provides oversight.
This governance model ensures that while development remains open and community-driven under LFDT, the live network benefits from the reliability and oversight of experienced stewards. And while Hiero powers the Hedera network, it is also designed as a platform for broader adoption beyond Hedera.
Crowdfund Insider: How has Hiero’s open-source model under LFDT influenced developer participation from diverse backgrounds, and what specific tools or resources have been most effective in lowering barriers to entry for new contributors?
Hiero draws upon Hedera’s ecosystem. After it was established as an LFDT project, Hiero developer and contributor activity started to rise as it provided a venue to formally give back to the community.
Hiero fosters inclusivity by keeping participation open to all. Developers can participate by starting and joining discussions, creating pull requests, opening or commenting on issues, submitting HIPs, joining TSC meetings, and collaborating through the Linux Foundation’s established infrastructure.
Resources such as standardized documentation, testing environments, and GitHub workflows reduce barriers to contribution. Initiatives like ‘good first issue’ labeling create clear entry points for new contributors.
The LFDT open discord server with several Hiero-specific channels and regular community calls, scheduled on both a bi-weekly and monthly basis, further support engagement and open discussion.
The hiero.org blog enables community members to easily publish or share information, allowing even non-technical to start contributing. Additionally, key projects like Hashgraph Online, a purely Hedera ecosystem-led effort, is starting to come into Hiero, demonstrating organic growth for the developer community. Hiero also participates in public events wherever possible, such as Hacktoberfest last year, with workshops included in many speaking opportunities to help broaden understanding and involvement.
Challenges remain given the complexity of distributed ledger technology, but educational resources and community-led mentorship are steadily broadening participation.
Crowdfund Insider: In what ways has Hiero’s graduation within LFDT impacted its credibility and adoption among enterprises, particularly in industries like finance, energy, or supply chain, and what examples demonstrate this impact?
Graduation is a milestone that indicates Hiero is no longer just a promising open-source project but aims to serve as a foundation for decentralized trust. It shows that the systems of open governance and shared responsibility are working, making the project resilient enough to endure beyond any single company.
Every Hiero project provides a public Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) scorecard that provides information about the project quality, including supply chain security, contributions, and code quality.
For enterprises, this is critical. Graduation indicates that the rules of the network are transparent and stable, which is exactly what regulated industries need before they commit to adoption. That assurance is said to be reflected in projects like Indonesia’s digital rupiah proof of concept and Blockchain for Energy’s B4ECarbon platform.
The significance of graduation is clear: it indicates the model works and signals to enterprises that Hiero is a neutral foundation.
Crowdfund Insider: As blockchain technology matures, what are the implications of Hiero’s approach for the future of decentralized systems?
Hiero’s graduation within LFDT highlights a model that could shape the future of decentralized systems. By demonstrating that vendor-neutral governance and open-source development can succeed at scale, it sets a standard for how public ledgers build trust.
The implications are broad. Regulators can look to Hiero as an example of transparency and accountability in practice. Developers benefit from an interoperable, modular codebase that avoids fragmentation. Enterprises gain confidence that the network’s rules are not controlled by a single company but by an open community, ensuring resilience and longevity.
Since Hiero is a vendor-neutral, open-source project with an enterprise-friendly license, more private networks built on Hiero are expected to emerge in the near future.
The goal of Hiero is not to create silos. Even at the private network level, decentralization is seen as a benefit: by providing the technology and tooling to bridge public and private networks, Hiero enables the creation of an ecosystem that combines the advantages of blockchain with the added benefit of privacy.