Validators process transactions and receive fees from users (supply-side fees).

Hedera is a decentralized enterprise-grade public network that uses proof-of-stake hashgraph consensus to offer low & fixed fees, 10k TPS, and instant transaction finality. Hedera was founded by Leemon Baird, Mance Harmon, etc. and launched in 2019.

HBAR holders own and govern the protocol. They currently take a cut of the total transaction and query fees paid by users (revenue). Hedera’s investors include BlockTower Capital, Continue Capital, Unanimous Capital, etc.

github

twitter

discord

website

Blockchains (L1)

Hedera

# Hedera Block time Methodology

## 1. Overview

Block time measures the average time interval between consecutive blocks on the Hedera network, expressed in milliseconds and aggregated daily. This metric answers the question "How long does it typically take for Hedera to produce a new block?" and provides insight into network performance and consensus efficiency. The calculation uses a time-series approach, measuring intervals between consecutive blocks and averaging them by day.

## 2. Data sources

- **Hedera blockchain data**: Raw block records from the Hedera network containing block timestamps and sequential block numbers
- **Block metadata**: Native Hedera block production information including precise timing data for each block

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Block data extraction
- **Purpose**: Retrieve fundamental block timing data from Hedera blockchain
- **Logic**: Extract block timestamps and block numbers from Hedera blockchain records. Filter out the genesis block (block number 0) since it carries a Unix epoch timestamp that would skew calculations. Only include blocks with sequential block numbers greater than zero to ensure accurate interval measurements.
- **Key fields**: `block_timestamp` (exact time when block was produced), `block_number` (sequential identifier for ordering blocks)

### Component B: Consecutive block pairing
- **Purpose**: Create pairs of consecutive blocks to enable interval calculations
- **Logic**: Use window function with lag operation to pair each block with its immediate predecessor. Order blocks by ascending block number to maintain chronological sequence. This creates a dataset where each row contains both current block timestamp and previous block timestamp, enabling interval calculation.
- **Key fields**: `block_timestamp` (current block time), `previous_timestamp` (preceding block time), `block_number` (for ordering)

### Component C: Block interval calculation
- **Purpose**: Compute actual time intervals between consecutive blocks
- **Logic**: Calculate millisecond differences between each block timestamp and its predecessor timestamp. Exclude any records where previous timestamp is null (first block in sequence) since no interval can be calculated. Truncate timestamps to day level for subsequent aggregation.
- **Key fields**: `timestamp` (day-level date), `block_time` (milliseconds between blocks)

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: Group block intervals by day and calculate average block time across all intervals within each day
- **Currency conversion**: Not applicable for timing metrics
- **Time aggregation**: Daily boundaries are established by truncating timestamps to day level, ensuring all blocks produced within a 24-hour period are averaged together
- **Final calculation**: The final metric value is the arithmetic mean of all block intervals (in milliseconds) for each day, providing average daily block production time for the Hedera network

*This methodology was automatically generated by Token Terminal's methodology analyzer.*

avg(block_timestamp - previous_block_timestamp)

HederaHBAR

Block time

Block time

Competitive landscape