Lean, green and secure: that’s the promise of the Hedera Hashgraph (CCC:HBAR-USD) network and the HBAR cryptocurrency. If you’re not familiar with Hedera Hashgraph, today you have a chance to dive into a crypto coin unlike any other.

Perhaps you’re into ESG (environmental, social and governance) investing as well as cryptocurrency trading. In actuality, it’s possible to combine these two categories in one investment.

HBAR is a green crypto that’s catching the attention of some environmentally conscious investors. At the same time, though, it’s still mostly an under-the-radar asset.

Thus, you might have an opportunity to make a purchase while the coin is still fairly cheap. And if the green crypto movement grows, your account can grow with it.

Analyzing the HBAR Price

At the beginning of 2021, Hedera Hashgraph tokens were available for less than 4 cents apiece. As it turned out, that was quite a bargain.

Like a jet taxiing down the runway, HBAR started to gain momentum in January and February. Yet, the price boom exploded in March, reaching a 52-week high of around 45 cents.

The buyers tried to push the Hedera Hashgraph price above the 45-cent mark a couple more times, but to no avail. Then, unfortunately, a sharp price decline commenced in mid-April.

On May 29, HBAR was trading at around 21 cents. In just 24 hours, the price had fallen 12%.

However, that’s not the only time Hedera Hashgraph has posted a double-digit daily loss. The point is that it’s a volatile asset, so please use moderate position sizing at all times.

Going Green with Hedera Hashgraph

You might have heard that cryptocurrencies consume a lot of energy. This might be true of some cryptos, but it doesn’t apply to all of them.

As InvestorPlace contributor William White explains, Hedera Hashgraph seeks to evolve cryptocurrency to be green. This involves using a proof of stake concept instead of proof of work.

A major problem with proof of work, “winner-take-all” networks is that the “mining nodes expend energy to try to solve the cryptographic puzzle, but only the winner receives a payment.”

As a result, all the of the energy consumed by the other (“losing”) nodes is wasted.

In contrast, the Hedera Hashgraph network has a less competitive system where “no energy is wasted, as nodes do not expend energy on useless math problems, but directly on communicating, validating, and supporting transactions.”

To put it another way, the miners aren’t rewarded for expending large amounts of energy to compete with each other.

This represents a huge improvement in terms of energy conservation. Hopefully other cryptocurrency networks will follow in Hedera Hashgraph’s footsteps by adopting a similar network model.

Hedera Hashgraph:Fast and Secure

Reduced bandwidth and energy use is a great reason to believe in Hedera Hashgraph — but there are even more advantages to this crypto network and coin.

For one thing, the network offers astounding speed as well as cost-efficiency.

Here are a few stats pertaining to Hedera Hashgraph:

• 10,000 transactions per second
• Average transaction fees well under one penny
• Transaction speeds of three seconds to five seconds

Moreover, the network is designed to be ultra-secure.

In order to ensure the network’s security the HBAR tokens will be widely distributed, so that no attacker or group of attackers can gain control over one-third of the coins.

To achieve this, the “network will remain permissioned until the total value of all the circulating coins is high enough to be too expensive for a malicious user (or group of users) to buy a third of them to conduct an attack.”

Therefore, you won’t have some big-money “whale” controlling too many of the HBAR coins. It’s an ingenious approach, really, to firming up the security of the crypto ecosystem.

Hedera Hashgraph: The Bottom Line

As you can see, Hedera Hashgraph is a cryptocurrency network with a unique approach to providing speed, security and energy efficiency.

And more broadly, it’s part of a growing green crypto movement, which could gain serious traction as the word gets out.

On the date of publication, David Moadel did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.

David Moadel has provided compelling content – and crossed the occasional line – on behalf of Crush the Street, Market Realist, TalkMarkets, Finom Group, Benzinga, and (of course) InvestorPlace.com. He also serves as the chief analyst and market researcher for Portfolio Wealth Global and hosts the popular financial YouTube channel Looking at the Markets.