As increasing numbers of cryptocurrencies flood the market, it takes more and more to stand out from the pack.
In the case of Tezos (XTZ), which emerged as part of the 2017 cryptocurrency boom, the ability to unseat Ethereum (ETH) as the top altcoin challenger to Bitcoin hinges on its democratic protocol for blockchain. Specifically, Tezos is a proof-of-stake cryptocurrency (i.e., buying and holding coins rather than mining for them) that operates through a “self-amending blockchain.”
What does that mean? In the simplest terms, Tezos uses a “formal, on-chain mechanism for proposing, selecting, testing, and activating protocol upgrades.” It does so without the need for hard forking, which is what begat Bitcoin Cash from Bitcoin, Ethereum from Ethereum Classic, and so forth.
Forking of any variety requires freelancing on the part of users, as developers come up with the code for the blockchain, but leave it up to others to make updates — a rather informal, manual process. With Tezos, the process is uniquely formalized, so that users have control of what happens to updates, just within the Tezos protocol.
It’s the combined flexibility and security of the self-amending blockchain that has generated buzz and investor interest in XTZ for the long term. The interest includes, but is not limited to: The Bank of France testing out a Tezos node, BTG Pactual (a Portuguese investment bank) issuing billions of dollars of STOs (security token offerings) on the Tezos blockchain, and Silicon Valley Coin (a tech investment firm) choosing Tezos over Ethereum to tokenize its fund.
With a total supply capped at 763 million (and 607 million currently in circulation), Tezos can very well be tracked for growth and see its value rise significantly in the years to come. Considering the fraud issues that have led to major hard forks in the past, the security of the fork-free blockchain could be a key differentiator that broadens XTZ’s mainstream appeal.
For more on this emerging crypto, check out this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=oAF9EJ0ITAA&feature=emb_title
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