Tezos

Tezos (XTZ) is an open-source blockchain that hosts digital assets and applications. Its design favors safe smart contract programming, protocol decisions made by token holders, and broad distribution of control.

The network's built-in currency is Tez, ticker XTZ. It pays transaction fees, lets users interact with dApps, supports staking, and serves as the basic accounting unit. The consensus model is Liquid Proof-of-Stake, so any holder can participate directly or hand participation to a delegate.

The protocol was conceived with formal verification in mind, a method that helps developers avoid bugs in smart contracts. Its governance lets stakeholders submit and vote on upgrade proposals, and approved changes are applied without splitting the chain.

The idea was described in a 2014 white paper by Arthur and Kathleen Breitman, who wrote under the pseudonym L.M. Goodman. The Mainnet started in 2018 and has operated without interruption since then. The planned update called Tezos 2.0 targets scalability through layer 2 networks, composability, and support for widely used programming languages.