Hedera created the network’s total supply of 50 billion hbars at Network Launch. A few months later, Hedera began releasing a small amount of coins (6.7 million hbar) to early users to test the network as part of its community testing program. Hedera began distributing hbars to SAFT holders on September 16, 2019, a few hours following Open Access, with some additional coins distributed to employees, advisors, vendors and others in the subsequent days. At the end of the first week after Open Access, approximately 14 million hbars had been distributed in connection with community testing programs and hackathons, 560 million coins had been distributed to SAFT holders, and 36 million coins had been distributed to advisors, vendors, and others. An additional 195 million coins were allocated to be used for developers and community testing, and a further 1 billion were allocated to be used for “earn” programs to incentivize hbar use, but those coins have not yet been distributed.[1]
Since the week after Open Access, Hedera has made distributions of hbars on a monthly basis to holders of SAFT Series 2 and SAFT Series 3A and to certain advisors, contractors and vendors, as well as quarterly distributions to holders of SAFT Series 1. Distributions to Hedera personnel under coin grants were paused for October and November 2019, but recommenced in December 2019 and are now being made monthly. Hedera retains discretion to adjust the cadence of the distributions under the coin grants. Hedera provides monthly reports on hbar distributions, which are available at: https://help.hedera.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002789198-When-are-the-next-distributions-of-hbars-scheduled-.
As part of the terms of the original license agreement Hedera distributed 2.5 billion coins (5%) to Swirlds. Independent of the license agreement, an additional 1 billion coins are allocated to Swirlds investors (excluding the Hedera founders), who agreed to have Swirlds commit its resources and personnel almost entirely to the development of the public ledger during the period between Hedera’s founding and Open Access. None of the coins held by Swirlds for its own account or allocated for Swirlds investors have been sold or distributed, and (as referenced in response to "What are the material financial terms of the license agreement between Hedera and Swirlds?") Swirlds is required to provide Hedera with a non-binding schedule that sets forth its expected plan for the sale of coins over the subsequent twelve months and at least 24-hour notice prior to any such sale or distribution, and Hedera has a right of first refusal at fair market price on any such sale. The current coin distribution schedule provided by Swirlds to Hedera, which is for calendar year 2020, states that Swirlds has no coin sales planned for the entirety of that period.
[1] See here, for information about current plans to use those hbars to incentivize adoption and use of the Hedera network.