Hedera Gives Back Three Quarters of the IBM Rally: What Is Going On With HBAR?

Hedera handed back most of the price jump on Tuesday that had carried the coin to the top of the market a day earlier. Hedera opened the trading day at $0.12212 and slid as far as $0.10283, with the coin most recently quoted at $0.10334. That is a swing of roughly 16 percent from the day's high to the day's low. There is no fresh announcement from Hedera or from The Hashgraph Group that would account for it.

The rest of the market stood still while this happened. Bitcoin and Ether were each down less than half a percent over the same window. The pullback is therefore not a market event that caught every coin alike, but a move that concerns almost only HBAR. For you as a holder, that changes what the situation calls for: in a broad sell-off you usually sit on your hands, whereas with coin-specific profit taking it is worth looking hard at what carried the rally in the first place.

What Happened to the HBAR Price on Tuesday

Here are the numbers one by one, so you can place the order of magnitude. On September 28, HBAR opened at $0.09581, climbed to $0.13090 over the course of the day and closed at $0.12183. That was a daily gain of a good 27 percent and the coin's strongest day in months. On September 29 the move reversed: the open was $0.12212, the daily high $0.12274, the daily low $0.10283.

Measured from the previous day's low of $0.09419 to the high of $0.13090, the upward move came to $0.0367. By Tuesday's low, the price had surrendered $0.0281 of that, a good three quarters. At the current level of $0.10334, HBAR is still roughly eight percent above Sunday's closing price. Anyone who was invested before the IBM news is therefore still in the black. Anyone who bought more on Monday evening is sitting on a double-digit loss.

Over a week, the balance remains positive: Coinpaprika puts HBAR up 4.26 percent over seven days, with a market capitalisation of around $4.54 billion and turnover of some $406 million in 24 hours. The coin is just under 82 percent below its all-time high. The price data in this section is based on the daily candles from the Kraken exchange for the HBAR/USD and HBAR/EUR pairs, six trading days from September 24 to September 29, 2026. cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on September 29, 2026.

The IBM Announcement of September 23: What IDTrust Is and What It Is Not

The trigger for the rally was a statement from The Hashgraph Group, a Swiss company from the Hedera ecosystem. On September 23, the firm announced that its identity platform IDTrust had been admitted to the IBM Cloud Catalog. Alongside that come Silver Partner status with IBM and what is known as an Embedded Solution Agreement.

IDTrust is software that allows digital identities to be proven without a central body holding the credentials. The use case the company puts front and centre is called Know Your Agent: when autonomous software agents negotiate contracts or trigger payments, a company has to be able to document which agent acted on its behalf. The credentials are anchored in the Hedera network in the process. The announcement cites a forecast from the research firm Gartner, according to which around 40 percent of enterprise applications should contain task-specific AI agents by the end of 2026, against less than five percent in 2025.

One point matters for context: an entry in a cloud provider's catalogue is a distribution agreement. It means IBM customers can source the product through existing contracts. It says nothing about how many of them do, what revenue arises, and how many transactions actually end up in the Hedera network as a result. Nobody has published a figure on that so far.

Why a Catalogue Listing Is Not Yet Revenue

The mechanics behind price jumps like this are always similar with infrastructure coins. A partnership with a well-known name lowers one hurdle in distribution, and the market prices that hurdle in immediately, as though it had already been cleared. The revenue behind it takes quarters, often years. Between the announcement and the first measurable effect on network activity there is a gap, and it is in that gap that the pullback happens.

This is not a statement about the quality of IDTrust or about Hedera's technology. It is a statement about sequence: first comes the news, then the price, then at some point the figures. Anyone who does not allow for the distance between those three steps is buying the expectation at the price of its fulfilment.

Trading Volume Tells the Second Half of the Story

On Monday, 311.1 million HBAR changed hands on Kraken; on Tuesday it was 156.2 million. The pullback therefore ran on roughly half the volume that produced the advance. That constellation argues against a forced liquidation and in favour of orderly profit taking: fewer market participants are selling, but they are selling with conviction into a market from which the previous day's buyers have vanished.

For context: 156 million HBAR in a single day is still well above what the coin turned over on the quiet days of the previous week. On September 26 it was 14.3 million, on September 27 it was 20.1 million. Interest in HBAR has therefore genuinely risen thanks to the IBM news, even if the price did not hold the jump.

HBAR in Euros: From €0.1074 to €0.0911 in a Single Day

If you settle in euros, the day looks slightly different from how it looks in dollars. On Kraken, HBAR/EUR opened at €0.10736, the daily high was €0.10951, the low €0.09066, and €0.09113 was the last figure on the board. The decline works out at a good 15 percent, somewhat smaller than in dollars, because the euro itself eased a little on the same day.

The difference sounds like small change, but it is not when it comes to your tax return. What counts for the tax office is the value in euros at the moment of acquisition and of disposal. Anyone who calculates in dollars and estimates the exchange rate afterwards produces discrepancies that show up once the amounts get larger.

Buying in Germany: MiCA Licence, Spread and the Depth of the Order Book

On a day with 16 percent of swing, the trading venue has a hand in what ends up in your portfolio. Three points can be verified before you place an order.

First, authorisation. Since the transition period ended on July 1, 2026, providers may only offer crypto services in the EU with a MiCA licence. Trade Republic, BISON and Coinbase Germany are supervised directly by BaFin, while Bitpanda and Kraken hold licences from other EU states that are also valid in Germany. You will find an overview of which platform holds which permission and what it costs in our crypto exchange comparison.

Second, the spread. With coins outside the front rank, the gap between the bid and the ask opens up considerably wider on volatile days than on quiet ones. Anyone who bought HBAR on Tuesday afternoon through a broker with a fixed mark-up pays part of the move as a fee, without it ever appearing as a fee on the statement.

Third, the order type. A market order into a thin order book is filled at whatever price happens to be there, not at the one you saw on your screen. A limit order may cost you the fill, but it protects you from precisely the gap that opens on days like this.

Holding Period and Allowance: The One-Year Clock Runs Regardless of Price

A pullback changes nothing about the tax position; it merely makes it visible. In Germany, gains from selling crypto assets are private disposals under Section 23 of the Income Tax Act. If more than twelve months lie between acquisition and sale, the gain stays tax free. Within that period an allowance of 1,000 euros per calendar year applies to the sum of all private disposals. One euro above it and the entire amount is taxable, not just the excess.

From that follows an uncomfortable truth for anyone who bought on Monday: a sale at a loss within the period can be offset against other gains from private disposals in the same year, whereas a sale after twelve months cannot. Losses outside the period are worthless for tax purposes. Anyone who fails to document their acquisition dates cleanly will no longer be able to make that calculation in the spring. Which tools record the dates automatically is set out in our comparison of crypto tax tools.

Leverage and Liquidation: 16 Percent Is Enough to Clear a Position

A move of this size is uncomfortable for the spot market and existential for leveraged positions. At five times leverage, a fall of 20 percent is enough to use up the margin; depending on the platform, liquidation kicks in before that. At ten times leverage it takes ten percent. On Tuesday, HBAR covered 16 percent between high and low, and it did so within a few hours.

Anyone working with leverage should therefore know two figures before opening the position: their own liquidation price, and whether the platform closes the entire position or only part of it when that price is reached. Both differ considerably from provider to provider and are set out in the trading terms, which belong to be read before the first order.

Staking and Custody: Where HBAR Sits Between Exchange and Wallet

Hedera works with a proof-of-stake procedure in which holders can delegate their coins to node operators without surrendering them from their own custody. That is a difference from models in which the coins are locked for the duration: with Hedera the balance stays available, and there is no waiting period when unwinding.

In practice, that means a pullback like Tuesday's does not restrict your ability to act, as long as you hold the coins yourself. It looks different if your HBAR sits in an exchange product with fixed terms. In that case it is not the price that decides whether you can react, but the deadline in the small print. When in doubt, check whether your holding is tied up in such a product and, if so, when it comes free again.

For larger holdings, the custody question remains untouched by any of this. A balance on an exchange is a claim against the company; a balance in your own wallet is a key in your hand. Which of the two suits you depends on the sum and on how often you trade.

The Level That Decides the Next Few Days

Two price levels can be read off the movement of the past two days and can be watched without turning them into a forecast. On the downside sits Sunday's closing price at $0.09579. If HBAR falls below it, Monday's move has been erased in full and the coin stands where it stood before the IBM news. On the upside sits Tuesday's high at $0.12274. Only above that would the profit taking have been worked through.

In between, the price is currently moving in a broad range in which analysts' targets help little. Anyone reading such targets should watch for two things: whether the author is named, and whether they say under what conditions their target no longer holds. If either is missing, it is an opinion without liability.

Hedera Pullback: How to Proceed Now

1. Gather your acquisition dates. Look up when you bought your HBAR and whether the twelve-month period is running or has already expired. A tool that carries the dates along automatically can be found in our comparison of tax tools.
2. Check your venue and order type. Establish whether your provider holds a MiCA permission, what mark-up it takes on volatile days and whether you can place limit orders. The overview is in the exchange comparison.
3. Do the maths on leveraged positions. Note your liquidation price and compare it with the range HBAR covered in a single day. What sets the providers apart is shown by the broker comparison.

(As of September 29, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)