Sirlibz
There are many great projects in the cryptocurrency space, but one stands out in particular and that’s Tezos. After being added to Coinbase, many people are discovering this project and wondering what it’s all about.
This article goes over the 3 main aspects of Tezos and what it is.
Tezos is a peer to peer, distributed and permissionless network which aims at making a few notable improvements over other existing blockchains .
It’s a self-amending decentralized platform for building and deploying DAPPs (Decentralized Applications), also it’s similar to Ethereum in a way that both of them are blockchains on which other projects can build on utilizing Smart contracts.
Tezos is a technology for deploying a blockchain capable of modifying its own set of rules with minimal disruption to the network through an On-chain governance protocol.
The project sells itself as Self-amending and on-chain governance.
The source code is implemented on Ocaml- a fast flexible, functional programming language. The smart contracts are built in Michelson, a programming language used in other important fields of service as well.
Tezos Tokenomics (According to CMC)
Name – Tezos
Ticker – XTZ
Cir. Supply – 712m
Total supply – 712m
Consensus – POS Mechanism
Lets evaluate some key features in Tezos
ON-Chain Governance
In Tezos, all stakeholders can participate in governing the Tezos protocol. The On-chain governing network allows holders of Tezos native token XTZ to vote on decisions that affect the future direction of the project protocol.
So how this works is, say a developer has an idea or a suggestion that he thinks will better the network protocol and probably improve blockchain in some way. They put forward this suggestion with an invoice on the change they plan to implement. All Tezos holders cast a vote on this suggestion. If the suggestion passes, it is then deployed to the testnet, this is to test the proposed idea or change and see if it does all the developer claims it should and how it affects the blockchain. When it does as claimed, XTZ holders cast yet another vote – this time around deciding if it will stay or not, if it’s decided as stay, it’s sent to the mainnet to be implemented.
The On-chain governance protocol helps 3 parties stay active – The Tezos Project, the developers and stakeholders.
The developers are rewarded for ideas brought up to enhance the protocol, this makes them always look out for ideas that will help the Tezos protocol. By extension this helps the Tezos project stay active.
The voting power given to the Stakeholders or holders of the coin XTZ makes them important in the ecosystem, since they get to decide what stays and what doesn’t. They own a voice too and this prevents centralization of the project.
Self-Amendment Feature
The self amendment feature allows Tezos blockchain to make much easier upgrades and always open to adding the latest innovations to its network. Self-amendment allows Tezos to upgrade without having to Fork (split) the network into different blockchains. The splitting of the blockchains can divide a community, alter stakeholders incentives and disrupt the network effects that are formed over the time.
BAKING (Validating or Staking)
Tezos has an amusing name for those who help Validate the network, they are known as Bakers. Baking is the act of signing and publishing blocks to the Tezos blockchain. Bakers help the POS consensus by ensuring that all transactions in a block are correct, orders of the transaction are agreed upon, and mostly importantly that there is no double spending occurring.
Bakers help validate transactions and add them to the blockchain, they are rewarded with additional XTZ for securing the network. The Baking position is open for anyone interested, you can request to become a Baker here.
Bakers are required to deposit a particular amount known security deposit before participating in the Consensus process. If a participant behaves dishonestly, they stand a chance of loosing their security deposits. Users who are not interested with participating directly on the consensus can delegate to other users to do that on their behalf.
MICHELSON
One of the differences Tezos shares with Ethereum is the programming language. Michelson is the programming language of Tezos. It facilitates formal verification, this method is commonly used in mission-critical environments such as automotive vehicles, nuclear reactors etc.
The language allows users to prove the properties in their smart contracts through a formal verification process. The programming language is strongly typed, stacked base and does not contain features such as name function, closure and Polymorphism.
This is how the Tezos gitlab explains the Michelson programming language.
A Michelson program is a series of instructions that are run in sequence: each instruction receives as input the stack resulting of the previous instruction, and rewrites it for the next one. The stack contains both immediate values and heap allocated structures. All values are immutable and garbage collected.
The types of the input and output stack are fixed and monomorphic, and the program is type checked before being introduced into the system. No smart contract execution can fail because an instruction has been executed on a stack of unexpected length or contents.
You can check out this medium article too for more info on how it works and is done.
TEAM
Tezos was developed by ex-Morgan Stanley analyst Arthur Breitiman, with the support of his wife Kathlen Breitman. Arthur is a computer scientist and mathematician who has working experience in the financial sector. He believed that BTC does not have the ability to evolve, so he provided what he thought was the solution, which was Tezos. He has worked with different large corporations like Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.
Kathleen also has experience in the financial sector, working previously for renowned companies such as Bridge water associates and R3 where she learned Distributed Database Technology.
The project’s ICO is one of the best since they were able to raise $232m in just two weeks back in 2017. The project’s beta in July 2018. You can see more team members here
Exchanges to get XTZ
Being one of the oldest projects still out there, they are listed in a lot of top exchanges. Here are some
Binance
Binance US
Coinbase Pro
Digifinex
Kucoin
Bitfinex
OKEx
Poloneix
LAToken etc.
CONCLUSION
Although this is not financial advice, XTZ does seem like a good investment choice. It’s one of those projects that has been striving to build up their name in the crypto space. They have achieved that and continue to do that despite the fact that they have faced a good amount of lawsuits. As at the time of writing, it ss sitting in the 11th position on CoinMarketCap with a market cap of over 2 billion $.
