Tezos was conceptualized by Arthur and Kathleen Breitman in a 2014 white paper under the pseudonym L.M. Goodman, as an homage to Satoshi Nakamoto and in reference to a journalist who had erroneously identified the creator of Bitcoin. In an earlier paper, the Breitmans contended that Bitcoin's most significant shortcomings included the absence of a governance process that welcomed contributions from its user community, the cost and centralization issues associated with its proof-of-work system, the limited expressiveness of its programming language that did not support smart contracts, and security concerns. Tezos was developed to address these perceived issues. Arthur Breitman has worked as a quantitative analyst for Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, and as a research engineer for Google X and Waymo. He is a graduate of the École Polytechnique and the Courant Institute of NYU, where he studied applied mathematics. Kathleen Breitman served as a senior strategy associate for R3, a consortium comprising over 70 financial firms. Her career also includes roles at Accenture, Bridgewater Associates, and the Wall Street Journal. She is a graduate of Cornell University.

Tezos stands out due to its distinctive on-chain governance system and its strong emphasis on code security and formal verification. It was among the first to implement the liquid proof-of-stake (LPoS) consensus mechanism. Remarkably, Tezos’ on-chain governance system enables any network user to propose and vote on protocol upgrades, with their voting power proportional to their stake. This voting process occurs entirely on-chain across five phases, including three voting rounds. Each phase spans approximately two weeks, which means a complete upgrade cycle can take close to three months. If consensus and a specific quorum are achieved, the protocol's self-amendment feature ensures that the upgrade is executed, adhering to the majority stake's preferences. This method emphasizes decentralization and contrasts significantly with governance in other protocols like Ethereum or Bitcoin, where future blockchain decisions are typically made by a small group of core developers. Tezos has also benefited from staking support by major cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase, allowing users to earn rewards based on the XTZ they hold. Few projects can boast such support. For further information, you can visit the Tezos page on Eulerpool.

As of now, there are 977,621,108 XTZ in circulation. The total supply is not capped, with validator rewards increasing the supply by approximately 4.5% annually. Tezos held a token fundraising event in July 2017, raising 65,681 BTC and 361,122 ETH, which was valued at $232 million at the time. This made it one of the largest token fundraising events to date. Around 80% of the initial supply was allocated to the fundraiser's donors, with the remaining 20% divided equally between the Tezos Foundation and Dynamic Ledger Solutions, the company established by the Breitmans for blockchain development.

Tezos employs a liquid proof-of-stake (LPoS) consensus mechanism, which is an advancement of the delegated proof-of-stake (DPoS) concept. In LPoS, any participant who meets the minimum requirement—currently set at 6,000 XTZ—can serve as a validator (referred to as "bakers" in the Tezos ecosystem) or delegate their stake to any public baker within the network, even if the original staker does not fulfill the threshold. This approach is designed to make staking on Tezos as inclusive and accessible as possible, promoting democratic participation and ensuring a diverse range of validators to maintain the network's security.

XTZ, also referred to as "tez," is available for purchase on most major exchanges, such as Binance, Coinbase, HTX, OKX, Kraken, Kucoin, Bybit, Gate.io, among others. Trading pairs combine XTZ with fiat currencies and other cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin. Common trading pairs for XTZ include USDT, BTC, USD, and EUR. If you want to convert fiat into Bitcoin, a comprehensive guide can be found on Eulerpool.

Tezos Nodes offers a service that evaluates the reliability of public Tezos bakers, alongside a system for monitoring the performance of nodes for private Tezos bakers. In collaboration with the baking community, the team developed a baker reliability index encompassing 10 key indicators. This index gives potential stakers all the essential information required to select a dependable public baker.