Hedera Hashgraph, a Dallas-based next-gen public ledger company, recently filed a Form D with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that granted nearly $700 million in hbars, Hedera’s cryptocurrency, to its employees, founders, contractors, advisers, and certain early service providers.

Hedera said the grants, totaling $696,150,671, allow for the recipient to receive coins in the future, typically over a period of four years.

“Our view is that the coins released under these grants should not be viewed as securities at the time they are delivered,” Hedera said. “However, there is uncertainty about the characterization of hbars before they are delivered, and it remains possible that hbars will be deemed to be securities even at the time of delivery.”

Since the grants are contracts for the future delivery of coins, they may be viewed as investment contracts.

“Because of the uncertainty, to ensure the grants are compliant under either outcome, we have decided to treat the grants as we would need to if the SEC were to view the grants and/or the hbars as securities,” Hedera said. “That includes ensuring that each of the grants falls within a securities law exemption, and filing the associated forms.”

Hedera grants based on ‘fair market value’

Hedera noted that in the SEC filing, the dollar value of the grants is based on the “fair market value” and because there is not currently a market for hbars, the company used the $0.12 price from its last round of financing.

The filing follows the announcement of the newly launched Hedera Governing Council, a group that will provide stability and guaranteed continued decentralization, and govern changes to Hedera’s software, which is run by millions of distributed nodes.

Hedera’s distributed ledger technology (DLT)—considered to be post-blockchain—is in the same space of offering businesses all types of secure, public ledgers.

The council’s founding members were announced during Hedera’s first annual summit in Seoul, South Korea. They are: Deutsche Telekom, DLA Piper, Magazine Luiza, Nomura Holdings Inc., and Swisscom Blockchain AG. Together, they represent telecom, technology, financial services, legal, and retail industries from around the world.

Harmon said the governing members of the council will offer technical expertise in a number of areas, such as managing business operations, economics and currency markets, and navigating the evolving regulatory environment.

“A general-purpose public ledger should be governed by representatives from a broad range of market sectors and geographies, each with world-class expertise in their respective industries,” Hedera CEO Mance Harmon said in a statement. “With this inaugural group, we are demonstrating the caliber of organizations it takes to deliver long-lasting, stable governance for the industry’s first enterprise-ready public ledger suitable for mission-critical applications.