What do you mean "the first hashgraph project"? Hashgraph is a patentet technology by swirlds, so only franchisees can use it. Everything else wouldn't be considered to be "hashgraph".
I've had a bit of a look in to how it differs from HashGraph, it's very similar, check this:
https://medium.com/holochain/hashgraph-vs-holochain-eb38d7dc1f8aThe key difference is how the handle byzantine faults, HashGraph deals with it through strict consensus rules, to prevent them in general, Holochain deals with it in a contextual way, for most cases where it doesn't matter the clash can occur, in other cases where it does matter the solution is conditional.
They say 99% of the time it doesn't matter, I wouldn't agree with this it really depends on the application, but if it doesn't impact in a given cause, Holochain in theory SHOULD be more efficient than HashGraph, in the cases where it does matter, a strict rule will outperform a conditional one making HashGraph perform better.
I would love to see how it performs in these conditional situations, that'll make or break the concept of Holochain.
I'll do a bit more reading, but you're right in saying it's not HashGraph, it's either close and well worthy or a gimmick.
Small update:
Found this, benchmark tests vs Ethereum, while it's tough to compare performance of a large in use system like Ethereum to a new system such as Holo, it does demonstrate the percentage increase in relation to sent size using the two
https://github.com/holochain/benchmarksThis is their conclusion
We are promising that Holo apps will be able to compute for 1/10,000 the cost of doing so on Ethereum. The benchmarks show this to be an easy target such that expect independent market pricing to end up closer to 1/100k or even 1/1m the cost of Ethereum. Holo hosts will still make a good return on their hardware investment even at those rates.
More research needed of course, but if the above applies in the real world, that gives Holo some good points, keep in mind the tests are on percentage increase for smaller vs larger transactions rather than a general price vs price, they are pretty well claiming a 10 byte transaction vs a 10kb transaction will have minimal gas difference compared to Ethereum.
Haven't bought any yet so no shilling, just sharing my findings.