What is Tezos (XTZ)?

Deep Dive

1. Self-Amending Governance

Tezos pioneered on-chain governance, enabling stakeholders to propose, test, and implement protocol upgrades via a structured voting process. This eliminates contentious hard forks (e.g., Bitcoin’s SegWit debate) and ensures continuous innovation. For example, the Farfadet upgrade in December 2025 doubled Etherlink’s capacity (Etherlink announcement).

2. Liquid Proof-of-Stake (LPoS)

Tezos uses LPoS, where users delegate tokens to validators (“bakers”) to secure the network. Unlike traditional PoS, delegators retain liquidity and can switch bakers freely, promoting decentralization. The network has run uninterrupted since 2018, with validators operating even on low-cost hardware like Raspberry Pi.

3. Real-World Applications

Tezos supports tokenized assets (e.g., uranium via uranium.io) and hosts a thriving NFT art ecosystem, collaborating with institutions like the Museum of the Moving Image. Its EVM-compatible Layer 2, Etherlink, scales DeFi with sub-second transactions and $0.001 fees, attracting protocols like Uniswap v3 and Curve.

Conclusion

Tezos combines adaptive governance, enterprise-grade security, and niche use cases like RWAs and digital art. As blockchain interoperability and regulation evolve, can Tezos’ governance model maintain its edge against faster-moving competitors?