<p>We study the recently-proposed hyperbolic approximation of the Korteweg-de Vries equation (KdV). We show that this approximation, which we call KdVH, possesses a rich variety of solutions, including solitary wave solutions that approximate KdV solitons, as well as other solitary and periodic solutions that are related to higher-order water wave models, and may include singularities. We analyze a class of implicit–explicit Runge–Kutta time discretizations for KdVH that are asymptotic preserving, energy conserving, and can be applied to other hyperbolized systems. We also develop structure-preserving spatial discretizations based on summation-by-parts operators in space including finite difference, discontinuous Galerkin, and Fourier methods. We use the entropy relaxation approach to make the fully discrete schemes energy-preserving. Numerical experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of these discretizations.</p>