The Hedera network now has a fixed date for its next major software update. On Wednesday, November 18, 2026, Hedera (HBAR) will move its mainnet to version 0.79 at 18:00 UTC, which is 19:00 C
The Hedera network now has a fixed date for its next major software update. On Wednesday, November 18, 2026, Hedera (HBAR) will move its mainnet to version 0.79 at 18:00 UTC, which is 19:00 Central European Time. According to the network's official status page, the switch will take about 40 minutes, and users should expect disruption during that window. The notice went up on the evening of November 11.
For HBAR holders the date matters more than the version number. Anyone planning to send coins to an exchange, withdraw them or trade on a Hedera application during that window should do so before or after. The date on its own does nothing to the price, but it falls into a weak stretch: HBAR traded at $0.0663 (about €0.060) on Wednesday evening, according to CoinGecko, 8.4 percent below its level a week earlier.
The status page lists two dates for the next two weeks. The first is the upgrade itself: Wednesday, November 18, from 18:00 to roughly 18:40 UTC. In that window the operators of the consensus nodes install the new software. Consensus nodes are the machines that order and confirm transactions on the Hedera network; at Hedera they are run by members of the Governing Council, a group of companies and institutions.
The second date concerns a single node. Aberdeen Investments will service its node 26 on November 25 from 08:00 to 14:00 UTC. Maintenance on individual nodes is routine at Hedera; most recently, node 22 run by IIT Madras was down for four hours on November 10. The network stays available during such work because the remaining nodes keep running.
Three of the mainnet nodes are located in Germany, according to the status page: Deutsche Telekom runs one in Berlin, Tata Communications one in Frankfurt and the London Stock Exchange one in Falkenstein. On Wednesday evening the page showed the network as a whole as operational, while three individual nodes (IBM in Texas, plus Aberdeen Investments and McLaren Racing in London) were running with a partial outage.
Behind the version number sits a rebuild of the network's data output. Hedera nodes currently publish their results in several separate data streams, among them the so-called Record Stream. The Record Stream is the running list of all confirmed transactions and their outcomes, and services such as block explorers and exchanges draw their data from it. It is being replaced by the Block Stream, a single verifiable data stream that bundles the previous individual streams.
According to a post on the Hedera blog, mainnet version 0.79 in November is the stage at which the TSS switch takes place. TSS stands for Threshold Signature Scheme: a block only counts as signed once a sufficient majority of nodes has jointly produced a single signature. The Block Stream therefore carries signatures created by the network as a whole, which third parties can verify without having to trust each individual node.
The same post draws a line that matters to investors. The HAPI programming interface, the Hedera SDKs, the mirror node explorer, the mirror node REST API and the JSON-RPC relay for Ethereum-compatible applications are not affected, Hedera says. For wallets and exchanges connected through these routes, nothing changes in day-to-day use. The rebuild happens under the hood.
Hedera expects about 40 minutes of disruption on the evening of November 18; transfers belong before or after that window.
In early November it still looked like a delay. As cryptoticker.io reported on November 3, Hedera had cancelled the testnet upgrade to version 0.79 planned for November 4, without giving a reason or a new date. The cancellation is listed on the status page with a date of November 2.
Two days later the gap was closed. The testnet switch began on November 6 at 18:00 UTC, and at 18:07 UTC Hedera reported it complete: the testnet has been running version 0.79.0 since then. Five days later came the announcement for the mainnet. That is the usual sequence at Hedera. A version first runs on the testnet, where developers work with worthless test HBAR, and only then on the main network with real money.
Little has improved on the price since that report. On the evening of the cancellation, November 4, HBAR stood at $0.0719. A week later it is $0.0663. The news of the completed testnet upgrade has not stopped the downtrend.
The main group that has to act before November 18 is operators of their own mirror nodes. A mirror node is a server that holds a full copy of Hedera's data and answers queries without taking part in consensus itself. Exchanges, custodians and analytics services run such servers to check balances and deposits.
Hedera's blog asks operators to run at least mirror node version 0.163.0 and to install every new release up to the switch. Older versions cannot read the new data stream and will stop receiving data after the switch. The mainnet mirror node that Hedera runs itself was already on version 0.165.1 on Wednesday evening, according to the status page, and so sits above the minimum.
For retail investors, the effect is indirect. If you hold HBAR on an exchange, the switch only touches you through the provider. Should an exchange credit deposits late after November 18, an outdated mirror node on its side may be the cause. Exchanges can pause Hedera deposits and withdrawals temporarily during a network upgrade; whether and for how long is posted on each provider's own status page.
The week's price record, according to CoinGecko (as of Wednesday evening):
With a market capitalisation of $2.94 billion, Hedera ranks 32nd among the largest cryptocurrencies. Around 44.3 billion HBAR are in circulation. Over the year the coin has lost 63.7 percent, and it sits about 88 percent below its all-time high of $0.569 from September 15, 2021.
The gap between the weekly low and the weekly high is a little over 13 percent. In three days HBAR fell from the high on November 5 to the low on November 8 and has recovered only slightly since. No specific trigger for the move is documented; it ran in parallel with a weak overall market.
From Record Stream to Block Stream: with version 0.79 Hedera changes the data stream that exchanges and explorers read from.
The last mainnet upgrade shows how such switches usually run at Hedera. On October 28 the network installed version 0.78.2. According to the status page, the mainnet was usable again at 17:10 UTC while Hedera was still checking the switch, and at 17:19 UTC the team reported it complete. The main network has run on that version since.
Version 0.79, by contrast, brings the change to the data output that Hedera has been working towards over several releases. By Wednesday evening Hedera had not yet published detailed release notes for 0.79 in its documentation; the status page already links to the future section.
The week's move produces two levels the price has recently respected. On the upside, the weekly high sits at $0.0733, with the round $0.07 mark just below it. A close above it would erase the decline since November 5. On the downside, the weekly low of November 8 at $0.0647 marks the first zone, followed by the round $0.06 mark.
These levels are observations from the chart, not price targets. How analysts see the outlook is summarised in our Hedera price prediction.
The transition period of the EU's MiCA regulation ended on July 1, 2026. Since then, crypto exchanges serving customers in the EU need authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider. Whether a provider holds one can be checked in the register of the European Securities and Markets Authority, ESMA. Our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges lists licensed providers and their fees. Not every exchange lists HBAR; the range of coins is shown in our exchange comparison.
If you hold HBAR yourself, do not schedule any transaction inside the upgrade window on November 18. Hedera uses its own account model: every account has an ID in the format 0.0.number, and some exchanges also require a memo for deposits. Without the memo, a credit can get stuck, upgrade or not. Our hardware wallet comparison shows which devices support HBAR.
Holding periods and tax rules for HBAR gains depend on where you are tax resident; a tool that pulls purchase dates together across exchanges helps with the paperwork, see our crypto tax software comparison.
Trading HBAR with leverage carries extra risk around the upgrade. A liquidation is the forced closure of a leveraged position once the posted collateral no longer covers the losses. At ten times leverage, a move of just under 10 percent against you is enough, on paper, to wipe out the collateral. The weekly range of a little over 13 percent shows that HBAR can cover that distance within a few days.
For Hedera, the move to version 0.79 is a technical milestone; for investors it is mainly a date in the diary. Three things can be done in advance:
(As of November 11, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)
