In the post I will share some information about the Tezos project. There was a lot of hype surrounding this ICO but news has been scarce on the project since and I haven’t seen any discussions in the pub on Tezos, so I thought I would start this topic as the token should be hitting the exchanges very soon. This is not investment advice just an informative article to provide pub users with more information on the project.
What is Tezos?
Tezos is a new decentralized blockchain that governs itself by establishing a true digital commonwealth. It facilitates formal verification, a technique which mathematically proves the correctness of the code governing transactions and boosts the security of the most sensitive or financially weighted smart contracts.
Governance
While all blockchains offer financial incentives for maintaining consensus on their ledgers, no blockchain has a robust on-chain mechanism that seamlessly amends the rules governing its protocol and rewards protocol development. As a result, first-generation blockchains empower de facto, centralized core development teams or miners to formulate design choices.
Tezos takes a fundamentally different approach by creating governance rules for stakeholders to approve of protocol upgrades that are then automatically deployed on the network. When a developer proposes a protocol upgrade, they can attach an invoice to be paid out to their address upon approval and inclusion of their upgrade. This approach provides a strong incentive for participation in the Tezos core development and further decentralizes the maintenance of the network. It compensates developers with tokens that have immediate value rather than forcing them to seek corporate sponsorships, foundation salaries, or work for Internet fame alone.
Tezos instantiates new technical innovations but also enforces types of constitutionalism through the use of formal proofs to mathematically verify that key properties are upheld over time. By allowing stakeholders to coordinate on-chain, the network also allows for the creation of bounties to implement specific features or discover bugs. Collectively, the network maintains the decentralized aspect of blockchains while introducing a mechanism to enable collective decision making. Tezos tokens not only power smart contracts in the network, but also allow votes on protocol amendments. The initial Tezos rollout is simple by design, but its self-amending nature means that the rules governing the network can be improved over time.
Technology
Tezos uses powerful technology uniquely suited to the rigorous, specific requirements necessary to enforce smart contracts on a public ledger. It facilitates making those contracts subject to formal verification, a process used in aerospace, medicine, and other industries that need to ensure that code works as intended - thus obviating the need for later correction - before it is uploaded to the blockchain.
Tezos enables innovation via self-amendment. Every blockchain (Bitcoin, Etherereum, ZCash…), can be described by a triplet (S, apply, score)
S: an internal, mutable, state type. In Bitcoin, this would be the set of unspent outputs
apply: a transform which takes a state S, a transaction T, and produces a new state S’
score: scoring function which determines the valid blockchain branch. In Bitcoin, this would be the total amount of hashing power on the chain.
Tezos augments and improved this model by making apply and score part of the mutable state.
In practice, this means that the rules of the Tezos ledger are self-governing. The rules of the ledger not only control the validity of transactions, but also of the rules’ own evolution.
This simple but incredibly powerful idea enables the following things that make Tezos unique:
Decentralized, automated upgrades: Virtually every example of of modern software provides for automated updates, but blockchains remain a notable exception because update procedures are typically centralized. Tezos achieves decentralized upgrades of its blockchain protocol, something no other system offers.
Upgrades without hard forks: Upgrades are decided by stakeholder consensus in accordance to clearly laid out governance rules that are programmatically enforced. This avoids political deadlock and stagnation without entrusting or empowering a single core development team or de factor group with disproportionate sway over the process.
Funding innovation: While blockchain innovation is moving at a breathtaking pace, there is often little incentive to improve existing systems. As a result, application developers have been shoehorning tokens into applications where they do not naturally fit. These “appcoins” dilute the value of the underlying platform more than they contribute to its network effect.
In contrast, Tezos’ self-amendment capabilities allow protocol developers to be rewarded by the community when their upgrades are included to the platform.
For more detailed information on the importance of governance in blockchains, and how Tezos addresses potential pitfalls, read the Tezos position paper. Written in 2014, it is still the best introduction to our approach. Our technical white paper explains our use of proof-of-stake in greater detail. The written specification for our smart contract language can be found below.
Conclusion
Tezos seems like a good project and it will be interesting to see how it competes with the other smart contract platforms, although a lack of news recently and the poor website may be a concern.
What is Tezos?
Tezos is a new decentralized blockchain that governs itself by establishing a true digital commonwealth. It facilitates formal verification, a technique which mathematically proves the correctness of the code governing transactions and boosts the security of the most sensitive or financially weighted smart contracts.
Governance
While all blockchains offer financial incentives for maintaining consensus on their ledgers, no blockchain has a robust on-chain mechanism that seamlessly amends the rules governing its protocol and rewards protocol development. As a result, first-generation blockchains empower de facto, centralized core development teams or miners to formulate design choices.
Tezos takes a fundamentally different approach by creating governance rules for stakeholders to approve of protocol upgrades that are then automatically deployed on the network. When a developer proposes a protocol upgrade, they can attach an invoice to be paid out to their address upon approval and inclusion of their upgrade. This approach provides a strong incentive for participation in the Tezos core development and further decentralizes the maintenance of the network. It compensates developers with tokens that have immediate value rather than forcing them to seek corporate sponsorships, foundation salaries, or work for Internet fame alone.
Tezos instantiates new technical innovations but also enforces types of constitutionalism through the use of formal proofs to mathematically verify that key properties are upheld over time. By allowing stakeholders to coordinate on-chain, the network also allows for the creation of bounties to implement specific features or discover bugs. Collectively, the network maintains the decentralized aspect of blockchains while introducing a mechanism to enable collective decision making. Tezos tokens not only power smart contracts in the network, but also allow votes on protocol amendments. The initial Tezos rollout is simple by design, but its self-amending nature means that the rules governing the network can be improved over time.
Technology
Tezos uses powerful technology uniquely suited to the rigorous, specific requirements necessary to enforce smart contracts on a public ledger. It facilitates making those contracts subject to formal verification, a process used in aerospace, medicine, and other industries that need to ensure that code works as intended - thus obviating the need for later correction - before it is uploaded to the blockchain.
Tezos enables innovation via self-amendment. Every blockchain (Bitcoin, Etherereum, ZCash…), can be described by a triplet (S, apply, score)
S: an internal, mutable, state type. In Bitcoin, this would be the set of unspent outputs
apply: a transform which takes a state S, a transaction T, and produces a new state S’
score: scoring function which determines the valid blockchain branch. In Bitcoin, this would be the total amount of hashing power on the chain.
Tezos augments and improved this model by making apply and score part of the mutable state.
In practice, this means that the rules of the Tezos ledger are self-governing. The rules of the ledger not only control the validity of transactions, but also of the rules’ own evolution.
This simple but incredibly powerful idea enables the following things that make Tezos unique:
Decentralized, automated upgrades: Virtually every example of of modern software provides for automated updates, but blockchains remain a notable exception because update procedures are typically centralized. Tezos achieves decentralized upgrades of its blockchain protocol, something no other system offers.
Upgrades without hard forks: Upgrades are decided by stakeholder consensus in accordance to clearly laid out governance rules that are programmatically enforced. This avoids political deadlock and stagnation without entrusting or empowering a single core development team or de factor group with disproportionate sway over the process.
Funding innovation: While blockchain innovation is moving at a breathtaking pace, there is often little incentive to improve existing systems. As a result, application developers have been shoehorning tokens into applications where they do not naturally fit. These “appcoins” dilute the value of the underlying platform more than they contribute to its network effect.
In contrast, Tezos’ self-amendment capabilities allow protocol developers to be rewarded by the community when their upgrades are included to the platform.
For more detailed information on the importance of governance in blockchains, and how Tezos addresses potential pitfalls, read the Tezos position paper. Written in 2014, it is still the best introduction to our approach. Our technical white paper explains our use of proof-of-stake in greater detail. The written specification for our smart contract language can be found below.
Conclusion
Tezos seems like a good project and it will be interesting to see how it competes with the other smart contract platforms, although a lack of news recently and the poor website may be a concern.