Tezos: Self-Amendable Ledgers and On-Chain Governance

Thomas Walton-Pocock, co-founder and former CEO of Aztez, sits down with Arthur Breitman, co-founder of Tezos, to discuss Tezos’ on-chain governance approach, smart contract platform, and scalability potential as well as his thoughts on the direction of decentralized finance (DeFi). Breitman breaks down the weaknesses of the forking model as a form of governance and argues that on-chain governance is the way to achieve innovation on protocols without centralization. Tezos implements this through a self-amending crypto ledger, and Breitman shares how the protocol accomplishes this through its scripting language, Michelson, for its smart contract platform, highlighting some of its benefits such as formal verification. He also shares his thoughts on scalability via a “portfolio of scaling” approach, the principles of a well-designed stablecoin, and decentralized exchanges (DEXs). Key Learnings: Breitman points out that when forks occur on a blockchain, it’s not free choice by all stakeholders on the network—on the other hand, Tezos seeks open participation when amending the protocol so that all stakeholders can help secure its network. Tezos also distinguishes itself through its use of formal verification via Michelson. Historically, formal verification has been applied in the aerospace and nuclear energy sectors, where the costs of mistakes are drastic, and Breitman states that its use in Tezos’ protocol allows for developers to rule out and avoid whole classes of bugs.

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