The newly public-ledger open-source initiative Hiero—governed under Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust (LFDT) and developed in collaboration with Hedera Hashgraph, LLC—is positioning itself as a model for how decentralized systems can align with enterprise requirements, regulatory expectations and community-driven innovation.
Governance rooted in transparency and vendor-neutrality
Hiero is managed by a nine-member Technical Steering Committee (TSC) under LFDT, deliberately structured to prevent dominance by any single vendor. The seats span multiple companies, with controls in place to limit any one organisation to at most two seats. The TSC meets publicly, archives minutes and livestreams recordings. Contributors, maintainers and codeproposals are handled through a formal pull-request model under an open Contributor Certificate of Origin-style workflow.
This governance design is explicitly intended to reflect the vendor-neutral, transparent, community-first model that enterprises and regulators increasingly expect from blockchain-style infrastructure.
Interoperability & ecosystem integration
Hiero isn’t building in isolation: it leverages existing open-source frameworks and tools via LFDT, including EVM-compatibility via Hyperledger Besu, identity capabilities via Verifiable Credentials and Hyperledger AnonCreds, and consensus services via plug-ins for the Hedera Consensus Service.
By situating itself within the broader LFDT ecosystem, Hiero lowers the barrier to entry for developers familiar with these tools, improves code reuse, and avoids the duplication that has plagued many Layer 1 blockchain efforts.
Milestones & enterprise uptake
Since February 2025, the Hedera public network has been running on Hiero’s open-source codebase, making it one of the largest live instances of an LFDT-governed project. In the past year, the project has grown to 28 repositories, nearly 800 contributors and support from more than 80 organisations. One of the practical use-cases cited: the Central Bank of Indonesia’s “Project Garuda” digital-rupiah proof-of-concept listing Hiero as a leading option.
Such enterprise endorsements reinforce Hiero’s credibility, especially in heavily regulated environments where transparency, vendor-neutrality and governance matter.
Regulatory alignment and ongoing challenges
Hiero’s governance and technical structure are well-aligned with emerging standards for decentralisation and open-source software — for example frameworks like the U.S. Clarity Act that emphasise open source, transparency and vendor-neutrality. The code is fully open-sourced under Apache 2.0, and public contribution workflows and community governance are foundational.
That said, the project acknowledges open issues remain: defining quantifiable metrics for “decentralisation”, documenting stakeholder participation in regulatory-friendly ways, and ensuring that enterprises and regulators interpret the open-governance model as meaningfully decentralised.
Why this matters
In an age where distributed ledger technology (DLT) must simultaneously satisfy developer, enterprise and regulatory demands, Hiero’s approach offers an interesting blueprint: open-source code, vendor-neutral governance, transparent processes and deep ecosystem integrations.
If it succeeds, it may help reduce fragmentation among public-ledger platforms, give enterprises more confidence in the foundation beneath their solutions, and provide regulators with a clearer path to oversight without stifling innovation.
Bottom line:
Hiero is more than another blockchain project. It aims to be a platform anchored in open governance and interoperability at scale — with real live enterprise use-cases and regulatory alignment already in play. While challenges remain (especially around measuring decentralisation and navigating regulation), the transparency and ecosystem-centric model make it one to watch in the evolution of trust infrastructure.
