$HBAR jumped over 28% today to $0.2469, propelled by a confluence of bullish catalysts: the launch of Hedera’s Octopus EVM now enables full Ethereum-compatible smart contracts on its high-throughput, low-latency network; several large institutions—including Google Cloud and IBM—have demoed production use-cases, bolstering enterprise confidence; and a fresh influx of token unlocks from ecosystem grants added liquidity just as trading volume surged past $1.5 billion (a 109% increase), tightening supply and driving whales to accumulate ahead of further network rollouts and anticipated DeFi deployments.