Fortune

Hedera

Major

<h2 id="council-members-hold-all-the-votes">Council members hold all the votes</h2>
On most crypto networks, holding the native token comes with a say in how the protocol evolves. Hedera does not work that way. <cite>The Governing Council is responsible for establishing membership policies, managing the HBAR treasury, approving changes to the platform's code, and for the infrastructure and operation of consensus nodes.</cite><a href="https://x.com/search?q=%24HBAR&amp;src=cashtag_click" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">$HBAR</a> holders have no direct vote in any of those decisions.
<cite>Consensus nodes are operated by a decentralised network of up to 39 governing council members.</cite><cite>The council is made up of major global organisations, including names such as Google, IBM, and Boeing, that run nodes and vote on network decisions.</cite> Each member holds one equal vote, regardless of whether it is a Fortune 500 company or a university, and routine decisions pass on a simple majority.
<cite>The council operates through a limited liability company (LLC) agreement that defines voting thresholds for different decision types. Major decisions require member consent at varying levels based on impact, while routine operational matters proceed with simple majority approval. Significant changes to network parameters or treasury policies typically require supermajority consent.</cite><cite>Modifications to the total HBAR supply, capped at 50 billion tokens, require unanimous agreement from all council members.</cite>
Council members serve up to two consecutive three-year terms under that LLC agreement, with meeting minutes published for transparency.
<h2 id="how-community-input-actually-works">How community input actually works</h2>
That does not mean ordinary participants are completely shut out. <cite>Hedera's change process is centred on Hedera Improvement Proposals (HIPs), publicly tracked on GitHub. Anyone can author or discuss a HIP, while acceptance requires council-level review and voting for material changes.</cite>
<cite>HIPs are intended to be the primary mechanism for proposing new features, for collecting community input, and for documenting the design decisions that go into the codebase.</cite><cite>The goal is to have a transparent, collaborative place to propose new features, collect community input, and document proposals and reasoning in one place, with every revision recorded in version history on GitHub.</cite>
The distinction matters: the HIP process gives the community a voice, but it does not give token holders a binding vote. Final authority over what gets built and deployed sits with <a href="https://x.com/hedera" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">@hedera</a>'s council, not with $HBAR holders.
<cite>Hedera's council model will not satisfy blockchain purists who view any permissioning as fundamentally compromised. Yet for enterprises evaluating distributed ledger adoption, the governance structure provides exactly the accountability and stability their risk frameworks require.</cite>
Sources: <a href="https://www.exp.science/education/hedera-network-governance-model-explained" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Hedera Network Governance Model Explained (Exp.Science)</a> <a href="https://levex.com/en/blog/hedera-governing-council-explained" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Hedera Governing Council Explained (LeveX)</a> <a href="https://hips.hedera.com/about-hips.html" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Hedera Improvement Proposals: About HIPs (Hedera Official)</a>

Holding HBAR gives you no vote in how Hedera is governed

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Other articles published on Aug 26, 2026

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