Dear Reader

Welcome to the genesis edition of Hashgraph Horizons. This inaugural newsletter represents an important milestone in our journey and is intended to keep you well informed about the latest developments, partnerships, and achievements of The Hashgraph Association (THA). 
 
For those new to The Hashgraph Association, we are an independent non-profit organisation in Switzerland that is focused on empowering startups, enabling enterprises, and assisting government institutions to develop enterprise-grade solutions and deploy decentralised applications on Hedera, while building out the Hedera ecosystem and growing the developer community worldwide.  

Our mission is to empower individuals and organisations in seamlessly bringing high-potential initiatives to realisation, by harnessing the cutting-edge capabilities of the Hedera platform to build fast, fair, decentralised, and secure solutions. We achieve this through highly effective enablement and empowerment programs ranging from professional training and certification, to innovation and venture building, including follow-on investments in high-growth potential projects across multiple industry verticals. 

As you read through this introductory newsletter, and the subsequent editions, you will discover how THA is enabling projects around the world, ranging from startups and enterprises, to national government initiatives. Our core values of Trust, Integrity, and Respect are the guiding principles and moral compass for everything we do, ensuring that THA remains a trusted and reliable partner within the Hedera ecosystem, and beyond. 
We are very excited to share these regular updates with you and look forward to your continued support as we advance towards building an empowered, and inclusive digital future for all. 

Thank you for being part of our journey.

Sincerely,

Kamal Youssefi

President of the Board

The Story of The Hashgraph Association 

The story of The Hashgraph Association (THA) begins with the vision to build out a global and vibrant ecosystem of Hedera-powered initiatives and programs, combining engineering  proficiency with innovative thinking, pragmatically merging business acumen with technology expertise to accelerate the transition from conceptual ideas to successfully deployed Hedera-enabled solutions – empowering a digital future for all. 
 
In this context, THA has structured its enablement and innovation programs around five core building blocks; Education, Innovation, Acceleration, Productisation, and Transformation to ensure the successful deployment of impactful projects. The Hashgraph Association offers sizeable investments combined with hands-on support functions ranging from business and strategy assistance, to solution engineering and production deployment for qualified and onboarded projects. In doing so, THA leverages the technological power and energy efficiency of the Hedera platform, contributing towards achieving a positive environmental, social, and governance (ESG) impact

We rewind back to 2016, when Dr. Leemon Baird and Mance Harmon sketched out the whitepaper that would lay the foundation for Hedera Hashgraph, a groundbreaking distributed ledger technology (DLT) designed to move beyond the limitations of blockchain. Their vision? A platform that could ensure security, performance, and scalability while maintaining the decentralisation and governance that guarantees Web3 its transformative power.

Understanding the immense potential of Hedera Hashgraph, Kamal Youssefi, a seasoned tech-entrepreneur and visionary in the worlds of fintech, blockchain, and Web3, and a respected and trusted figure within Hedera since the early days, founded Swisscom Blockchain AG in 2017 under the umbrella of the state-owned Swisscom Group, Switzerland's largest IT company. His efforts culminated in 2018 when Swisscom Blockchain became one of the first five representative members of the Hedera Governing Council.  

Following this pioneering endeavour as a founding member of the Hedera Governing Council, which today consists of more than 30 of the world’s leading organisations, Kamal teamed up with Stefan Deiss, a visionary and experienced entrepreneur in digital assets and decentralised finance (DeFi), to custom design the ‘Hashgraph Innovation Program’ for Hedera and lay the groundwork for what would become The Hashgraph Association.             

Kamal Youssefi (left) and Stefan Deiss (right) 

With the approved mandate of the Hedera Governing Council and endorsement by the Swiss government through Canton Schwyz – where Stefan had designed and delivered a similar enablement program coined ‘SchwyzTech Blockchain Innovation’ – THA was officially established in December 2021 and announced the launch of the Hashgraph Innovation Program in April 2022, an ambitious global initiative worth $165 million over five years (2022-2026), aimed at enabling startups, enterprises, and governments to develop enterprise-grade solutions and deploy decentralised applications on Hedera. 

“We founded The Hashgraph Association with the purpose of driving the growth of the Hedera ecosystem, proactively empowering the global community, fostering the development of Hedera-powered transformations, further enhancing business dynamics, and boosting Hedera’s professional environment around the world. In strategic collaboration with Hedera, THA onboards innovative projects with the highest potential and enables the development of Hedera-powered solutions, by offering professional training and certification programs, as well as custom-designed innovation and venture building programs. THA is committed to empowering pioneers, innovators, and entrepreneurs, while also engaging with enterprises and governments to design and build decentralised applications on Hedera, leveraging synergies with other emerging technologies and growing the Hedera developer community worldwide.” 

Kamal Youssefi, President of the Board, The Hashgraph Association

What began as an ambitious initiative out of the crypto-friendly nation of Switzerland, quickly grew into something of much larger magnitude. In a few short years since its inception, The Hashgraph Association has become a recognized player and valuable cornerstone of the Web3 ecosystem, operating globally with over 50 strategic partners, including the world’s leading system integrators, consulting firms, technology companies, and academic institutions. These include IBM, Orange, HCLTech, Cognizant, GFT, BCGX, Roland Berger, IDS, the Fraunhofer Institute, the University of Zurich, and Stanford University, just to name a few, with a number of signed strategic partnerships and co-investment agreements with governments. 

Earlier this year, THA signed an important co-investment partnership with the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Investment (MISA) to operate a ‘DeepTech Venture Studio’ in Riyadh worth $250 million over the next five years (2024-2028). This strategic partnership was announced during the Swiss economic mission to Saudi Arabia under the patronage of His Excellency Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin, Head of the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research (EAER), and His Excellency Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al-Falih, Minister of Investment of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (MISA).

Further government backed investment partnerships were signed with the Agency for Digital Development (ADD) in Morocco and the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC). Through the exclusively mandated Hedera enablement programs, which today encompass the Innovation Program, Enterprise Program, Certification Program, Partnership Program, and Ventures Program, THA has successfully onboarded and funded over 80 projects worldwide, including some of the largest corporations to have developed their enterprise use cases on the Hedera network. 

A multitude of use cases in the areas of sustainability, traceability, digital identity, payments, on-chain finance, open-banking, Web3 gaming, and the tokenization of assets and financial instruments, represent the wide and ever-expanding range of innovation projects backed by THA, underscoring the pivotal role it plays in accelerating the Hedera ecosystem development globally and driving broad adoption of Hedera’s distributed ledger technology. 

Over a third of Hedera Governing Council members are developing their industry use cases through our Enterprise Accelerator Program, which comes with dedicated resources under our Project Management Office (PMO) and Technical Design Authority (TDA) to guide these use cases through all three stages of development (1. Learn & Discover, 2. Visualise & Design, 3. Develop & Deploy) while ensuring all projects are delivered on time, with quality, and within budget. 

This critical progress is a further testament to the success of the Hedera-enablement programs, which are proficiently delivered and operated through The Hashgraph Group (THG), a Swiss-headquartered professional service delivery organisation focused exclusively on venture building, project implementation, and the operational management of the Hedera programs. The Hashgraph Group (THG) was established by Kamal and Stefan in May 2023, with the strategic ambition of becoming a self-sustaining operation that is no longer reliant on the finite Hedera HBAR Treasury, but rather focused on venture building, onboarding co-investments, and the commercialization of Hedera-powered enterprise products and solutions. Within this context, THG recently received license approval from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) to manage a regulated $100 million venture capital investment fund (‘Hashgraph Ventures Fund-I’) within the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) in the United Arab Emirates.

THG is already receiving aggregate capital commitments through its network of institutional investors, (multi-)family offices, venture capital funds, sovereign wealth funds, and other qualified investors. THG reflects the new way forward and a pivotal transition in the Web3 space from the grant-giving model to venture building and co-creating long-term enterprise value, ultimately resulting in increased network utilisation for Hedera based on co-funded projects generating a return on investment (ROI) for Hedera rather than subsidised transaction revenues. 

While THA charters the course of broad adoption, steering the direction of growth and ecosystem development in alignment with the Hedera Governing Council mandate, THG sets new sails to become a ‘net revenue contributor’ to the Hedera Treasury by navigating a world in which there is no grant funding available, exploring novel ways of generating revenue in the Web3 economy, while continuing to orchestrate the day-to-day operations that propel innovation. 

Whether by aiding innovative startups in building on the Hedera mainnet, collaborating with the world's largest construction materials company to build their sustainability carbon bank on the Hedera Guardian, partnering with Nasdaq listed enterprises such as WISeKey and SEALSQ to build Decentralised Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) and transactional-IoT (t-IoT) solutions that will revolutionise automated communication and transactions between devices, implementing digital wallets for one of the largest Big-4 consultancy firms, or enabling one of the world’s largest gaming companies to transition its 100 million+ users from Web2 to Web3, or assisting government judiciary institutions such as the DIFC Courts or the Ministry of National Education in Morocco to develop solutions on Hedera, THA’s vision of empowering a digital future for all is realised, transforming the potential of Hedera into real world communication inclusion, financial inclusion, and identity inclusion. 

As evidenced by these important strategic partnerships and game changing innovations, THA has expanded its global presence through establishing regional chapters across the continents, including Asia Pacific, Africa, and the Middle East. Through co-investment partnerships with governments around the world, THA aims to foster education, innovation, and the creation of thriving ecosystems within local and regional economies. With 8,500+ registered developers enrolled in the Hashgraph Developer Course, THA has developed fully digitised certification courses for Hedera developers, equipping them with the skills and insights necessary to excel in building innovative solutions on the Hedera network. 

Looking forward, The Hashgraph Association is fully committed to not only keeping pace with technological change, but actively shaping it, and building a digital future from the ground up, rooted in trust, sustainability, and continuous innovation. 

Thank you very much for reading our first newsletter and learning about us. Stay tuned for the next edition, where we will reveal new developments, partnerships, and further achievements as we endeavour to shape the future of our ecosystem together.