Axelar plugs Hedera into its ecosystem to expand liquidity across 60+ chains

Hedera Overview - November 21, 2025

Welcome to the Hedera Overview, providing a suite of updates for Hedera enthusiasts, users, developers and curious-minded web3 users about all that’s happening in the ecosystem.

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The ecosystem insights

• HBAR token price: $0.13 (-25.43%)

  • Market cap: $5.49B (-26.77%)

• Total value locked (TVL): $69.77M (-16.73%)

• Transactions per second: 10.13 tx/s (-23.38%)

The percentages and metrics are calculated from its change over a 14-day time frame, unless noted otherwise.

Hedera Highlights

Diving deeper into some of the biggest updates from Hedera.

#️⃣ What’s happening: Axelar Network integrated with Hedera to enable cross-chain interoperability across major blockchains like Solana and XRP Ledger.

#️⃣ Why it matters: This brings Hedera into Axelar’s General Message Passing (GMP) framework, which allows users and developers to move native assets and call smart contracts across chains with a single transaction. The ecosystem includes blockchains like Ethereum, Arbitrum, Solana, Base and XRP Ledger.

The move is aimed at making it easier for developers and users to access liquidity and decentralized apps outside Hedera, while using the network’s low-cost infrastructure on the backend. Think of it like plugging Hedera directly into a multi-chain highway, where assets can flow in and out without fragmented bridges or the need for wrapped tokens.

Axelar and Hedera can leverage programmable cross-chain calls to enable experiences that span networks natively. This, in turn, alleviates the limitations of isolated chains that force users into slow, expensive or insecure bridging routes.

#️⃣ The bigger picture: More protocols integrating Axelar provides deeper cross-chain liquidity for Hedera. As a result, the network stands to see enhanced trading volumes, and gives developers instant access to user bases and capital from other ecosystems.

This can be seen already with Hedera protocols like SaucerSwap, which has embedded Axelar into its decentralized exchange, letting users bridge assets straight from the interface.

GMP looks to give Hedera developers the ability to create omnichain DeFi protocols, cross-chain NFT marketplaces, and institutional-grade RWAs that can route value from various sources.

Unpacking the hash

• Hedera integrated ERC-3643 into its Asset Tokenization Studio, enabling onchain identity at the contract level to improve flexibility and interoperability

• Hedera Council announced the Strategic Partners and Community Partners programs, aimed at expanding ecosystem participation without requiring formal Council membership

• The Nairobi Securities Exchange launched the NSE Innovation Lab, an initiative designed to deepen and expand Africa’s capital markets

• Hedera Hashgraph was added to Google BigQuery public datasets, letting developers, analysts and enterprises access Hedera’s blockchain and transaction history

• WBTC collaborated with BitGo and LayerZero to bring a tokenized form of bitcoin to Hedera for DeFi use cases

Ecosystem players

Highlighting the companies, communities and users tied to Hedera ecosystem

• VictorAI launched an AI-powered bot for predictions markets via Polymarket using Hedera technology

• Genzio Media spoke with Hedera ecosystem projects: Bonzo Finance, Kabila, Hashpack, DOVU, Hgraph and SentX

• The Digital Chamber added Hedera as an inaugural member of its State Network

• Dead Pixels hosted a Forever Mint campaign on Nov. 19 that saw 1M in daily HBAR volume

Get involved with the community

• Find the latest job postings at Hedera ecosystem projects

• Register for HederaCon, scheduled for May 4, 2026 in Miami, Florida

• Join the Hedera Ascension hackathon, featuring up to $550K in prizes

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This information is for entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial advice, nor should it be used to make investment decisions. Cryptocurrencies are high risk and you should consult a financial professional before making any financial decisions. Make sure you do your own research.