Probably, the opinion of a tech guy would be very different from mine in this aspect. Although, I am using my background in Business to talking about one cryptocurrency that almost anyone is talking nowadays: TEZOS; and why you should pay attention and be aware to it.
Tezos is, for sure, “the ugly duckling” in cryptospace. It surprises me that almost everyone is looking for other cryptos, based on their “marketcap” and prices, talking about their future and bright potential to develop, and is not talking about everything that has been done in Tezos, the work of Tezos Foundation is doing, and what they are building and delivering right now.
When people ask me about one crypto, I always say: Bitcoin. In my experience and knowledge, any other project will surpass Bitcoin. What was made by it, any other cryptocurrency is capable of the same, just for two reasons: decentralization and PoW (Proof-of-Work). The disappearance of Satoshi Nakamoto (whoever he is), makes Bitcoin a different crypto from any other. And the Proof-of-Work of Bitcoin is, despite all negative’s perspectives, what makes Bitcoin be the King of Cryptos. PoW is energy currency, security and I recommend anyone who wants to understand this better to follow @jason lowery and read everything he writes about.
When people ask me about two cryptos, I say: Bitcoin and Ethereum. Ethereum is important to the crystallization of Smart Contracts. The concept existed before with Bitcoin but it was difficult to implement and it was not on layer one. Despite the problems with scalation, Ethereum is brilliant and the king of Smart Contracts. It is easy for good developers and has a ton of applications. This is important not just for tech developers, but also for business developers who want markets. At last, every project needs to generate revenue, and the amount users in Ethereum eases that.
When people ask me about three cryptos, I almost every single time say: Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tezos. And, almost ever, I heard in reply: “Tezos? Why?”.
The crypto that never skyrocket, that never made investors rich, the crypto that had a lot problems in its early days, is probably, one of the best opportunities to develop applications and business in crypto space now. I could stay here with a huge defense text about why I believe that, but I will remain focused on just four important aspects: LPoS (Liquid Proof-of-Stake), decentralization, governance and scalation.
- Liquid Proof-of-Stake: Although I don’t agree with the critics about Bitcoin’s PoW waste of energy, we live in a world that people care about sustainability and energy efficiency. Tezos is one of the first cryptos to successful implement what Ethereum is working for more than 5 years to have: Proof-of-Stake. Although it is an easy consensual concept, it is not so easy to change from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake in one day/night. You not only need to change the protocol in tech terms, but also convince the participants the is better for them in economic terms. I believe Ethereum will get it, but Tezos made it in 2018 since its first day of launch.
With Liquid Proof-of-Stake users don’t need to send their funds to a specific address to participate in the consensus. They only need to specify the address of the staker (baker, in Tezos case) to gain their premiums to contribute for consensus and decentralization.
- Decentralization: in this case, users who have chosen to participate in consensus will be reward with cryptos the same way Bitcoin reward its participants in PoW, with the difference that any person could be a participant. While in Bitcoin only developers can choose with code will be valid for update and only miners can be benefited by the mining process, on Tezos, with LPoS, any user can have a participation in the decision of upgrading the protocol and be reward if your baker mint the block or participate in transaction validation.
- Governance: this brilliant aspect of Tezos’ governance should be embraced by every crypto user. The possibility to participate in every stage of the protocol, even if you are not a tech person, should be sufficient to inspire and encourage crypto communities to go deep on Tezos. After delegating your XTZ to a baker, it is possible to audit every vote he gives and change your delegation if you do not agree with him. It is a perfect example of a liquid democracy, which you directly participate of every single choose or delegate to someone you trust, checking every vote.
Tezos governance should bring light to debate on cryptocurrency space. After almost 5 years of hearing Ethereum changes on its protocol, how the community directly participated of this? That is an important thing to ask and answer. In the last 5 years, Tezos evolved for 9 times and each one of them was voted.
- Scalation: what challenges future will bring to crypto? After solving the problem of TPS, what will be the new challenge? I don’t know, but Tezos will solve it with class. I say that because, although every cypto is trying to solve the scalation problem, a few of them is considering continuing to do that maintaining decentralization and governance together.
Nomadic Labs, one of the most important hubs of Tezos experts in world, made a post on their blogs talking about Tezos scalation. Although they are planning to recommend some protocols to improve TPS, implement EVM and other features, how many of them will only solving problems of the present and not the future (5, 10, 15, 20 years…)? With other projects, you should only trust in the Foundation or the core devs, but if one day Nomadic Labs want to finish their activities, any other lab or devs could contribute to Tezos and the protocol will continue to evolve and scalate.
- (Bonus – Projects and real use cases): if you are in crypto, you probably are asking “ok, why I don’t see anything about Tezos in crypto space?”. Although I don’t have the exact answer, I have some guesses.
Different from any other project, the Tezos Foundation has chosen to do business with real world and not crypto companies. That could be a negative thing, but I am not going to judge now, just to analyze. Along the last years Tezos Foundation has partnered with Ubisoft, Manchester United, Red Bull Racing (F1), McLaren (F1), OneOf (official partner of Grammy for NFTs), French banks, French universities, and a lot of other companies.
What is possible to see here is that, besides not skyrocketing prices, Tezos made a lot of what other projects just say. A lot of projects call themselves the best to scaling, but they are centralized. Others say they are decentralized, but do not scale. Some of them say the have the most security, but you can’t audit all information. Although I believe Tezos failed to its early contributors, it has achieved what any other cryptocurrency had and can surprise in technology and business development terms in a near future.
Written by Vinicius Lima
