Will Tezos (XTZ) Revolutionize the History of Decentralized Money?

This question may seem as mere means of advertising some regular crypto-promotion. In Crypto, we are used to hearing words like “disruptive”, “mind-blowing” and, of course, “revolutionary” on a daily basis. However, in the particular case of the actual advancement that Tezos presents to the world this May, as a project and as a community, it is unavoidable to make a stop and to dedicate a few minutes of sincere reflection. Tezos is cleaning decentralization from tyrannical remnants. This May is the Tezos’ month!

Anyone who ventures into the world of Tezos Blockchain, from the first day, can feel intimidated by the thousands of complicated concepts and technical vocabulary that is required to understand the technology in depth. One could end up making the enormous mistake of believing that Tezos is a project only for geeks. Tezos is a project that can be explained in simple terms.

We should not make the terrible error of ignoring the beauty of simplicity in Tezos! Tezos is a solid project that introduces a powerful novelty to Blockchain development: the will to handle to users the greatest share of power to manage the entire creative process inside the platform. Tezos is perhaps the most ambitious project at the level of establishment of participatory democracy and of high level decentralization based on the Blockchain. And in May this is being tested!

Why would Tezos be one of the most used Blockchains in the near future? Why could we have reasonable and robust hopes that the odds are positive for adoption of Tezos? Well, in a way, again, the answer to these questions is “May 2019!”. Since 2017, Tezos has been developing a unique system within the world of the decentralized blockchains: a system of government that allows the community of Tezos to have a direct high level of participation in the legislative agenda of the platform. In other words, Tezos implements a voting system that decentralizes decision making.

Just a moment! Are there no voting systems in other cryptocurrencies? Yes. There are many types of voting. Nevertheless, be careful! The fact that one can vote does not mean that one has the power to participate in making the most important decisions of an organization. Many voting systems give you the right to vote only in relation to menial matters.

Tezos is changing the whole meaning of participating in the governance of a platform. In Tezos, the community will have the power to vote even about the future of the new software that will be created. If, in Bitcoin or Ethereum, for example, one sees so much criticism on the evident fact that there is a “tyranny of the software developer”, in the case of Tezos, a historical decision is being made by initiating the destruction of this tyranny.

If the steps towards the distributed governance of Tezos that we are seeing in May of 2019, are completed successfully, then, Tezos will be able to tell the world that the community has spoken firmly: the community wants to participate in making the big decisions. The community wants to have a voice and vote. The community does not want to be simply a muted passive member —the one that is always only waiting for the great leaders to decide the whole destiny of their Blockchain—. Bitcoin revolutionized the world of finance in 2009. Bitcoin created decentralized money. However, it did not decentralize decision-making at the levels of money-design or of tokenomics. People almost cannot decide on the rules of the system. The difficulty to mine or the price of a transaction have been centralized decisions.

In May 2019, Tezos puts his new philosophy to the test: people decide. Right now the votes for the “Athens A” proposal are being collected. This new proposal is, at present, highly advanced and tested. It has not been implemented in Mainnet yet, though, which means it has not been programmed in the Blockchain. The proposal is considered by most Tezos’ loyal followers and supporters as “disruptive”, “mind-blowing” and, of course, “revolutionary”.

The content of the proposal is related to improvements in two key aspects of the protocol. One aspect is related to the amount of coins one needs to establish a staking node, a “Bakery” —as it is called warmly in Tezos— that provides sustainment to the system. The second aspect has to do with gas price, the price that is paid to execute transactions. Gas price needs to be adjusted.

A superficial analysis of the two aspects of the proposal could suggest that Athens A is not such a “disruptive”, “mind-blowing” or “revolutionary” proposal. First, Athens A wants to lower the number of coins that a person needs to create a node to support the Tezos Blockchain. And, second, Athens A wants to raise the transaction fee. These are two relevant decisions, without a doubt. But they do not seem explosively disruptive. Why is May 2019 considered “disruptive”, “mind-blowing” and “revolutionary”, then? Well, for a special reason: because the decision about Athens A is not in the hands of developers as it usually happens in Bitcoin, Ethereum or in most platforms. What is happening in May 2019 in Tezos is a historical fact of real decentralized governance.

In this case, those who are voting on the changes are a total of 45,398 delegates, an impressive number. For anyone who has a minimum of interest in Democracy and public participation, or in decentralization or governance, it results amazingly evident that a decision made by more than 40,000 delegates is infinitely more democratic, participatory and decentralized than a decision taken by only 5 or 10 developers. This is a big step for decentralization. Tezos raises expectations in new adopters as a potential new level of distributing power over financial systems.

From now on, it will not only be the case that cryptocurrencies represent an example of decentralized transactions and decentralized payments, but a new level is being achieved: decentralized creation, decentralized development, decentralized building. No more only-one-Satoshi kind of developing. From now on, we all can be Satoshis. Through our votes or through our delegates, we will all matter. Our needs and our preferences as users, instead of the dreams of Engineers, will be the powerful hand forging Blockchain assets and services.