New Hedera Token Service Offers Native Token Issuance and Configurability Without Smart Contracts
Feb 08, 2021
by Hedera Team
Hedera is the most used, sustainable, enterprise-grade public network for the decentralized economy.

HTS Enables Enterprises to Embrace the Disruption of Tokenization in a Secure, Performant Manner

Dallas, TX – February 9, 2021 – Hedera Hashgraph, the enterprise-grade distributed public ledger, today announced the public availability of the Hedera Token Service (HTS), a new Hedera network service that offers users the ability to issue and configure tokens on the Hedera platform, taking full advantage of Hedera Hashgraph’s native performance, security, stability, and governance. HTS offers a faster and more efficient alternative to smart contract token creation, and is based on the emerging industry standard Token Taxonomy Framework from the InterWork Alliance.

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Hedera Token Service launches with fully supportive ecosystem of over 60 initial partners including leading exchanges, custody and wallet providers, members of the Hedera Governing Council, and applications that will issue tokens using HTS

“Today, digital tokens are being designed for all kinds of economic activities,” said Mance Harmon, co-founder and CEO of Hedera. “Tokenization of a huge range of assets will make traditional financing operations and interacting in marketplaces faster and less costly, fundamentally changing the existing processes for purchase order financing, obtaining loans for working capital, buying insurance, securing inventory financing, and invoice factoring. Tokenization will provide the foundation for enterprises to use distributed ledger technology (DLT) in routine business transactions, thus driving significant acceleration in enterprise adoption.”

The Hedera Token Service makes it easy for developers to manage tokens with scalable performance and predictable cost. Many public and private blockchains that offer tokenization carry the burden of expensive fees or upfront infrastructure costs, slow transaction speeds, complexity in managing governance, and regulatory obstacles. HTS makes it simple to issue native, multi-signature tokens with scalable performance, native compliance features, native token swap capabilities, and predictable costs — all on a reliable network governed by a council made up of large, global, trusted organizations.

Dr. Leemon Baird, Chief Scientist and Co-founder of Hedera Hashgraph, said, “Enterprises are realizing that they can leverage distributed ledger technology for the decentralization of the financial layer of their businesses, making processes more efficient, reducing costs, and unlocking new revenue streams. In order to see significant benefit from this technology, they must abstract assets onto a platform that is faster, more efficient, and more secure than legacy supply chain and financing systems. This can include monetizing an organization's assets, improving settlement efficiency, or accessing a new and growing market of utility tokens. We’re thrilled to see the enthusiasm for this functionality already today.”

Numerous applications and ecosystem partners are already evaluating and using HTS in several ways. These include:

  • Exchanges integrating with HTS include: Bittrex Global, CoinZoom, Hashgraph Exchange (HEX), Huobi, Indodax, Liquid, OKEx, Upbit, XanPool
  • Custody Providers enabling custody for any token created on the Hedera platform include: BitGo, InvestaX, Ledger Vault, OnChain
  • Wallets supporting tokens created on HTS include: BRD, Coinomi, Meeco, Mingo, MyHBARWallet
  • Applications that will issue tokens using HTS include: Best Innovation Group, Calaxy, Charity Shop Exchange, The Chopra Foundation, Diamond Standard, DLA Piper, Dovu, Entrust, Everyware Ltd, GABL, Jigstack, MemberPass, Mingo, Power Transition, RECDEFi, RooShine, SUKU, TaskBar, Tune.fm
  • Independent security auditors and assurance providers include: FP Complete, Netki, OnFido, Quantstamp, TRMLabs
  • Service Integrators and Standards Bodies: BCW Group, Envision Blockchain, InterWork Alliance, LimeChain, TxMQ, Unibright
  • Network Explorers: Dragonglass, Hash-Hash, Metrika

Supporting quotes

Council members

“Of the wide range of DLT-related legal advisory we undertake at Dentons, asset tokenization has been on increase. Regulatory challenges aside, ease of tokenization coupled with robust infrastructure for time and cost efficient transmission of tokenized assets are key requisites to achieving efficacy in broad based asset tokenization and exchange. Hedera Token Service (HTS) paired with Hashgraph’s high-speed low-latency consensus and low-cost transaction infrastructure fulfill these requirements and has HTS well placed to support the global movement towards asset tokenization and exchange.”
— Kenneth Oh, Senior Partner, Dentons

"As a governing council member, DLA Piper has been in support of the development of the Hedera Token Service (HTS) from initial concept through to mainnet availability. We can't wait to see new applications being built using HTS, both internally and by the developers within the Hedera ecosystem. DLA Piper is beginning to integrate the Hedera Token Service (HTS) into its TOKO tokenization platform to enhance the performance, security, and stability of enterprise-grade digital assets. The native account-based compliance configurations found within HTS enables us to meet regulatory requirements and enhance TOKO's ability to empower value creation."
— Scott Thiel, Partner at DLA Piper

"The Hedera Token Service (HTS) will provide developers and businesses unrivaled new ways to tokenize and issue assets of all types and getting the superior benefits of the underlying hashgraph consensus. We are actively looking at ways of leveraging the HTS in addition to the Hedera Consensus Service (HCS) to implement our digital strategy."
— Rob Allen, Entrepreneur in Residence at eftpos

“Tokenization presents a significant opportunity to transform the way value is exchanged in markets today. Google Cloud looks forward to supporting the growth of the Hedera ecosystem as a Council member and trusted partner.”
— Derek White, VP, Global Financial Services Industry Solutions at Google

"IBM has been a strong believer in Hedera Hashgraph since its inception. It is wonderful to see Hedera continue to disrupt what's possible with enterprise blockchain. The Hedera Token Service represents a massive step forward for the entire industry."
— Porter Stowell, Program Director of Strategy and Offering at IBM Blockchain Platform

"Hedera Token Service holds the potential to improve customer value and allow enterprises across many sectors to offer new services that take advantage of the trust, security, and speed that it provides. We look forward to being a part of the Hedera Governing Council and opportunities where we can collaborate with other leading organizations across a wide range of industries to further develop the application of distributed ledger technology to benefit businesses and consumers alike."
— Samuel Byungsun Park, iLab Blockchain Lead at LG Electronics

"Bitcoin makes sense as an inflation hedge, but it isn't practical for everyday enterprise use cases, which demand a solution that is fast, scalable and inexpensive. The Hedera Token Service represents a step forwards in the inevitable march towards the ubiquitous adoption of distributed ledger technologies and could, if wildly successful, even join cryptocurrencies as a second killer-app."
— Simon Olson, Director of New Business Development at Magalu

"Hedera's uniqueness lies in the way the governing council is structured and governed, composed of the world's leading enterprises across sectors. Being at the forefront of technological change and digital transformation, Hedera and Tata Communications have a shared vision of building a better digital future. The Hedera Token Service (HTS) has the potential to scale across multiple use case opportunities for both our customers, ranging from payments to supply chain and tokenization of assets — each offering an opportunity that differentiates ourselves in the market."
— Ankur Jindal, VP and Global Head of Corporate Venturing and Innovations, Tata Communications

"We are delighted to be a council member of Hedera Hashgraph and to support their endeavor in tokenization, which represents an important pillar of this fast-moving financial technology industry."
— Paolo Tasca, Executive Director at UCL Centre for Blockchain Technologies

Exchanges

“The Hedera Token Service (HTS) strives to bring better performance, configurable compliance, and low fees to a new generation of cryptocurrencies and stablecoins. Bittrex Global believes that supporting assets tokenized on Hedera has numerous upsides, and we can’t wait to see what the future holds for this growing ecosystem.”
— Tom Albright, Bittrex Global, CEO

"Hedera users will be able to spend their hbars on the CoinZoom Visa card at over 53M merchants globally, and any ATM that accepts Visa. We believe partnering with Hedera will bring us one step closer to cultivating the mass adoption of cryptocurrency. In addition, we're excited about the Hedera Token Service technology, and eager to list the new HTS-based tokens, that meet our compliance requirements, on our exchange. In addition to listing on CoinZoom, HTS-based tokens will be tied to the CoinZoom Visa card, creating a premier fiat off ramp for the entire Hedera ecosystem."
— Adrianne Blackett, Director of Marketing at CoinZoom

"At HEX, we intend to use the Hedera Token Service (HTS) to issue and transact tokens, which securitize the values underlying real world assets. It's asset tokenization at the speed and cost of Hedera Hashgraph."
— Suman Das, CTO at Hashgraph Exchange (HEX)

"Indodax looks forward to listing Hedera Token Service based tokens and making them available alongside hbar for markets across Asia, especially Indonesia."
— Oscar Darmawan, CEO Indodax

"We are pleased to continue supporting Hedera's development and believe their new tokenization service is a great addition to expanding the adoption of digital assets."
— Kai Kono, Chief Business Officer at Liquid

"OKEx believes that tokenization will provide many opportunities for financial inclusion and look forward to playing our part in the Hedera ecosystem."
— Benson Yan, Listing Manager at OKEx

"By providing support to the HTS ecosystem, XanPool makes it possible and easier to reach users from Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, India, and Indonesia."
— Yongchuan Soh, Business Development at XanPool

Custodians

“BitGo is delighted to support the launch of the Hedera Token Service (HTS) and foster its growing token ecosystem. We’re ready to support developers, cryptocurrency enthusiasts, and institutions holding and transacting tokens issued on Hedera with our custodial and wallet offerings.”
— Chen Fang, Chief Product Officer, BitGo

"The growth of the Digital Securities Offerings (DSOs) industry requires the right licenses and technology — this partnership with Hedera and integration with the Hedera Token Service (HTS) will provide more necessary infrastructure to continue to propel the industry forward."
— Julian Kwan, CEO at InvestaX

"Tokenization of real assets is one of the most relevant, disruptive and game changing use case of the digital asset industry. The Hedera Token Service (HTS) is helping this ecosystem to thrive, and we believe they're headed in the right direction. We are excited to support their future developments."
— Glenn Woo, Head of APAC at Ledger

"Onchain Custodian believes existing clients such as exchanges and investors can benefit from HTS, and new prospects will find our custodial wallet solution to hold hbar with HTS enabled to be an attractive proposition."
— El Lee, COO & Board Member of OnChain

Wallets

“BRD is excited to see the Hedera token ecosystem come to fruition. With a focus on institutions and high scalability, Hedera will make a significant impact in the industry.”
— Adam Traidman, CEO and Co-founder of BRD

"Coinomi is excited to integrate the new Hedera Token Service (HTS) into our wallet. Hedera users will have a way to securely store, manage, and exchange HBAR and other Hedera-based tokens. Hedera has proven to be a great team and we’re thrilled to work with them. Enjoy Coinomi’s solid 7 year track record now with Hedera support and our industry leading 24/7/365 Live Chat support for all our users."
— George Kimionis, Founder and CEO at Coinomi

“We're on track towards a world where everything can be tokenized. Tokenization plays a critical part in enabling more equitable value creation for people, organisations and things. Providing the means to issue and store value, trace provenance, and most importantly achieve consensus to instantly trust. Since 2012, Meeco has been pioneering the collection, protection and value exchange of personal data and identity. We’re inspired by the range of use-cases the new Hedera Token Service supports, enabling Meeco to extend our solutions.”
— Katryna Dow, CEO & Founder, Meeco

"The Hedera Token Service (HTS) allows Mingo to activate its Token Exchange Service, setting up a global platform for the migration of 7,000 individual token holders currently on the platform today for swapping, sharing, and storage in the Mingo wallet."
— Joe Arthur, Founder and CEO at Mingo

"MyHbarWallet is proud to have been one of the first wallet providers to integrate the Hedera Token Service into its offering — by doing so, we're enabling user access to HTS tokens and fostering the growing Hedera tokenization ecosystem."
— Michael Anderson, Community Manager at MyHbarWallet

Auditors and Assurance Providers

“We have worked with the Hedera team to conduct a third party audit of their codebase to assess security, stability, and correctness. Our team of software, blockchain, and network architecture experts has provided feedback throughout the development process.”
— Wesley Crook, CEO of FP Complete

“Netki is proud to offer KYC/AML customer onboarding solutions for HTS token issuers. We can also help to provide information and knowledge in this area based on our direct experiences, as well as our work in the Digital Chamber’s Token Alliance and the Leadership Committee of the AML working group.”
— Justin Newton, CEO at Netki, Inc.

"As a leading RegTech solution provider with award-winning KYC/AML compliance tools, Onfido is keen to support the emerging ecosystem of HTS token issuers through systems that consider interoperability of trusted identity credentials. We are encouraged to see that the Hedera Council members prioritized regulatory compliance in the design of HTS to allow token issuers to natively enforce KYC, which should serve as an important catalyst to accelerate growth in this market by introducing trusted verifiable users into the crypto user base."
— Kevin Trilli, Chief Product Officer at OnFido

"Quantstamp is excited for the launch of the Hedera Token Service and to extend support and provide security for token issuers in the Hedera ecosystem. The ability to issue multi-signature tokens provides a great opportunity for issuers to get the speed, security, and fairness of the Hedera network for their own applications and provide a scaling path for interoperable projects from other ecosystems."
— Don Ho, Managing Director at Quantstamp

"TRM Labs is excited to support Hedera Token Service with industry-leading blockchain intelligence for AML compliance. Asset issuers can leverage TRM solutions for wallet screening and transaction monitoring, meeting regulatory requirements with easy-to-use workflows and best-in-class data & analytics."
— Esteban Castano, Co-Founder and CEO at TRM Labs

Applications

“Lately it has become obvious that tokenization is the tool we need to deal with emerging markets. The challenge has been finding one that is fast, secure, safe and predictable and most importantly won’t cost more than the transactions themselves. Hedera Token Service ticks all of these boxes. I have been waiting for this rollout since the inception of the network, it’s a game changer for sure.”
— John Best, CEO, Best Innovation Group

“Calaxy is excited to build the first true creator economy using the Hedera Token Service (HTS) on the public Hedera network. HTS offers the performance, security, low fees, and configurable compliance needed to bring digital assets into the mainstream and adopted by millions of users.”
— Spencer Dinwiddie, Founder and CEO of Calaxy

“Charity Shop Exchange is using the Hedera Token Service (HTS) to enable our pivot towards an open marketplace for used books — by using our own token, we'll sever ties with traditional financial infrastructure to drastically reduce transaction fees for buyers and sellers."
— Kelvin Lockwood, Founder at Charity Shop Exchange

“We are excited to collaborate with Hedera's Token Service as our preferred platform partner for the launch of our Love in Action wellbeing token. Our goal is to leverage the token service to transform personal and societal wellbeing.”
— Deepak Chopra, MD, The Chopra Foundation

"Hedera Token Service (HTS) is the missing link that has till now limited adoption of distributed ledger technology. It offers the performance, security, and governance required for real-world applications. Coupled with stable, regulated assets like the Diamond Standard, HTS can drive exponential growth in decentralized commerce."
— Rajiv Sohal, CTO at Diamond Standard

"Our vision is to create a tokenized verified carbon asset ecosystem to provide income to land managers and farmers, as well as other carbon asset use cases. The ability to rapidly build carbon asset marketplaces, using atomic swap mechanisms available in the Hedera Token Service (HTS), gives DOVU with a competitive advantage in our blockchain IP."
— Irfon Watkins, CEO & Founder at DOVU

"The Hedera Token Service (HTS) offers new and unrivalled ability to tokenize products - in our case, bottles of wine - that uniquely will allow us to easily create digital twins for our customers' wine coupled with our patented, ground breaking, digital screwcap technology."
— Jeffrey Grossett, Founder at Grosset Wines, an Entrust partner

"Tokenization of everything — from buildings to appliances — will change the landscape of asset management, affecting everyone in the world. Everyware views this as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to be involved with a groundbreaking new technology from an early stage."
— Tom Screen, Technical Director at Everyware Ltd

"The integration of GABL’s token on Hedera Token Service, enables us to transparently track and incentivize behaviors such as give, ask, borrow and love to build sharing and caring communities."
— Poonacha Machaiah, Founder of GABL

"Using HTS, we can develop Lemonade on Hedera and be one of the first Defi Dapp's on the Hedera Mainnet. Lemonade along with Hbarlink are just two of Jigstack.org's newest offerings for Hedera. The Hedera Token Service (HTS) will enable Lemonade, The DAO of Defi to not only launch token ecosystems on Hedera alongside the Ethereum network but it will also enable its built-in affiliate marketing strategy for its customers."
— Charles Robinson Jigstack Chief Business Development Officer

"The Hedera Token Service (HTS) has transformed the way our customers can trade electricity and other forms of value across the energy sector. HTS has simplified our operations and reduced risk exposures while boosting our ability to quickly localise our Dapps to international markets."
— Jiro Olcott, CTO at Power Transition LTD

"The Hedera Token Service (HTS) will enable MemberPass to offer innovative solutions to our credit union customers — it enables quick, secure, and inexpensive transactions of value, while meeting regulatory needs.”
— John Ainsworth, President & CEO of MemberPass

"The Hedera Token Service (HTS) represents a revolutionary effort to streamline the minting and infrastructure required to properly issue digital tokens. It will prove to be a foundational component of the broader Hedera ecosystem that leverages world-class technology and enterprise-focused governance. The Hedera Token Service's (HTS) offers the ability to handle large numbers of transactions in an economic, secure, and transparent manner. Through using HTS, RECDeFi will transform how clean energy and carbon attributes are transacted — this will spur new decentralized financial products that accelerate investment in the zero-carbon resources needed to fight climate change."
— Atticus Francken, Co-Founder at RECDeFi

"Rooshine, Inc. is excited to leverage Hedera Token Service to enable a Blockchain-driven auction marketplace for rare and bespoke spirits. Hedera Token Services was chosen not only to provide our end-users with the assurance of product provenance that comes from an immutable distributed ledger, but also for its innovative consensus-based approach that brings speed, transaction finality, and most importantly, trust to our auction platform."
— Max Gomez, CEO at Rooshine

"SUKU has chosen the Hedera Token Service (HTS) to power our INFINITE application — The increasing demand for NFTs combined with digital authenticity of collectibles, digital art, and DeFi confronts the industry with unprecedented technological challenges. NFTs deployed on HTS allow us to be ahead of the upcoming rise of NFTs and to succeed where other platforms fail, ensuring the highest level of authenticity, scalability, and low transaction fees on a stable public network. "
— Yonathan Lapchik, CEO at SUKU

“We at tune.fm are extremely excited to launch the JAM token on Hedera Token Service! HTS is the ultimate native token service that will enable us to truly realize our original vision for realtime micropayments at lightning-fast speeds with super low fees.”
— Andrew Antar, Founder, tune.fm

"The Hedera Token Service will enable Taskbar to predictably and reliably scale the use cases and versatility of our native utility & governance token."
— Ahmed Shlibak, Founder at Taskbar

Service Integrators and Standards Bodies

"The elegance of HTS's design is remarkable as it grants an easily accessible way to create, transfer & functionally operate tokenised structures that will democratise & re-imagine the transfer of value."
— Kyle J. Baron, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at BCW Group

"As an enterprise focused blockchain systems integrator, Envision Blockchain is excited to embrace the HTS for our current and future clients. Tokens have improved implementation efficiencies as it relates to ROI and technological scalability. The use of tokens play a critical role in our professional practice and we look forward to furthering with HTS and Hedera Hashgraph."
— Jason Pancis, Co-Founder at Envision Blockchain

"The IWA is proud of the important efforts members, like Hedera, are making to advance tokenization by leveraging the IWA’s Token Taxonomy Framework (TTF). The TTF is an excellent first step in establishing a standard methodology that individuals and businesses can use to ensure tokens cooperate and interoperate, regardless of the state machine being used. Our IWA members play a critical role in helping business leaders across industries collaborate on the implementation-neutral standards needed to drive the global adoption of tokenized assets,”
— Marley Gray, Chairman at InterWork Alliance

The Hedera Token Service (HTS) sets Hedera apart from the competition, with a focus on keeping it simple for developers to manage tokens, at low cost, on a stable & scalable network. LimeChain is very excited about the possibilities that the HTS will open up for the blockchain & DLT space and we look forward to continuing building on our trusted partnership into the future.”
— George Spasov, Blockchain Architect and Co-founder of LimeChain

"TxMQ is working with a number of different customers on a number of different use cases for the Hedera Token Service (HTS) — as a very early partner of Hedera, we are excited for this next step for us all."
— Chuck Fried, President & CEO at TxMQ

“At Unibright we constantly strive to integrate those technologies, platforms and distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) that match our business needs and objectives. The Hedera Token Service (HTS) adds perfectly to Unibright Freequity and delivers most advanced tokenization at scale, low cost, with instant finality. The ability for HTS to leverage existing network primitives was a major appeal in deciding to integrate Unibright Freequity with Hedera.”
— Stefan Schmidt, Chief Technology Officer at Unibright

Explorers

"We believe HTS will revolutionize how tokenized assets will be used by combining Hedera Hashgraph's trust, transparency, and ability to support higher volumes with tokens. We're proud to support the HTS release by providing a ""Data-as-a-Service"" platform that matches Hedera's volumes with higher reliability using a cluster of servers and services, coupled with the ability to integrate external data.”
— Ashu Mahajan, Project Manager at DragonGlass

"Hash-Hash.info was the first explorer to support Hedera Hashgraph prior to Open Access in 2019, providing a leaderboard of hbar accounts. We are excited by the introduction of the Hedera Token Service and look forward to providing extensive analytics into tokens issued on HTS."
— Dr. Nikolaos Siafakas, Founder at Hash-Hash.info

"Kabuto has integrated Hedera Token Service into its explorer and mirror node API for the Hedera community to take advantage of — we're excited to watch and support the flourishing token ecosystem on Hedera Hashgraph."
— Ryan Leckey, CTO at Kabuto

“Metrika has been a close partner of Hedera Hashgraph since before the launch of its mainnet, providing deep visibility and operational intelligence on the performance and resilience of the network. We are excited about the launch of the Hedera Token Service (HTS) which further enriches the set of features that applications in the Hedera ecosystem can benefit from.”
— Nikos Andrikogiannopoulos, CEO of Metrika

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About Hedera

Hedera is a decentralized enterprise-grade public network on which anyone can build secure, fair applications with near real-time finality. The platform is owned and governed by a council of the world's leading organizations including Avery Dennison, Boeing, Dentons, Deutsche Telekom, DLA Piper, eftpos, FIS (WorldPay), Google, IBM, LG Electronics, Magalu, Nomura, Swirlds, Tata Communications, University College London (UCL), Wipro, and Zain Group.

For more information, visit www.hedera.com, or follow us on Twitter at @hedera, Telegram at t.me/hederahashgraph, or Discord at www.hedera.com/discord. The Hedera whitepaper can be found at www.hedera.com/papers.

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