Tezos (XTZ) is the native coin of Tezos (independent Layer-1, Proof-of-Stake, self-amending blockchain with the Michelson smart-contract language). The protocol amends itself through on-chain voting rather than hard forks, and its smart contracts are written in Michelson, a language designed for formal verification. Conceived in 2014, Tezos has operated continuously since its 2017 token sale, supporting staking ("baking"), decentralized applications, and rollup-based scaling. As of 2026-08-31, XTZ has a market capitalization of approximately $235.4 million.
Tezos differentiates itself from most layer-1 blockchains through on-chain self-amendment, letting the protocol upgrade without contentious hard forks. It also invests unusually deeply in formal-verification tooling for its Michelson smart-contract language. Development has been active: the Tallinn (January 2026) and Ushuaia (June 2026) upgrades cut block times to 6 seconds and expanded rollup data capacity 15-fold. XTZ captures this activity as the asset staked to secure the chain and used for fees. Tezos-chain decentralized-finance usage remains modest, with total value locked of approximately $53.07 million as of 2026-08-31.
XTZ is a utility token that also carries governance-voting weight, rather than a separate governance token. Holders pay transaction and smart-contract fees in XTZ. They can stake it directly as a baker or delegate it to a baker to help secure the network through Proof-of-Stake and earn issuance rewards.
Bakers cast the on-chain votes that approve or reject proposed protocol amendments, so voting power is tied to staked or delegated XTZ rather than a distinct token.
Circulating supply: approximately 1.095 billion XTZ (1,094,899,934.89) as of 2026-08-31.
Net emission is inflationary. New XTZ is issued to bakers under "Adaptive Issuance," introduced in the Oxford protocol upgrade, which adjusts the issuance rate based on how far the network's staked-to-total-supply ratio sits from a protocol-defined target; issuance has historically run roughly 4-5.5% per year.
The Tezos Foundation, a Swiss non-profit established April 26, 2017, ran a token sale from July 1-14, 2017, raising approximately $232 million in contributed BTC and ETH. About 66,000 BTC and 361,000 ETH were contributed, briefly making Tezos the largest ICO on record until Filecoin's raise later that September. Tezos itself had been conceived three years earlier, in 2014.
An internal dispute between the founders and the Foundation's then-president over control of the funds delayed the network's mainnet launch until 2018, a year after the token sale.
XTZ runs on Tezos, its own independent Layer-1 blockchain rather than an existing chain such as Ethereum or Solana. Tezos uses Proof-of-Stake consensus, in which "bakers" stake or receive delegated XTZ to produce and validate blocks and are selected in proportion to their stake.
The chain is "self-amending": protocol upgrades are proposed, voted on, and activated on-chain, without requiring a hard fork. Smart contracts run in Michelson, a language built for the network's formal-verification tooling.
Tezos was conceived in 2014 by married co-founders Arthur Breitman and Kathleen Breitman. Arthur Breitman, previously at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Google, designed the original protocol; Kathleen Breitman co-founded the project alongside him. In 2015 the pair founded Dynamic Ledger Solutions, Inc., a US entity, to build the protocol ahead of the 2017 token sale.
Ongoing engineering is distributed across independent firms that contribute to the open-source Octez client, including Nomadic Labs, TriliTech, and Marigold.
The Tezos Foundation, a Swiss non-profit foundation ("Stiftung") headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, has maintained and funded Tezos development since its establishment on April 26, 2017. It is supervised by the Swiss Federal Foundation Supervisory Authority rather than licensed as a financial intermediary.
The Foundation's stated purpose is promoting and developing open, decentralized software architectures, particularly the Tezos protocol. It held the proceeds of the 2017 token sale and later paid a $25 million class-action settlement on the project's behalf.
Tezos governs protocol changes entirely on-chain, without requiring hard forks. Proposed amendments move through four sequential periods — Proposal, Exploration, Cooldown, and Promotion — spanning fixed numbers of baking cycles.
A proposal must clear a participation quorum and then win an 80% supermajority of non-abstaining bakers' votes to advance and ultimately activate. This process has been used to ship successive numbered protocol upgrades, including Oxford, Tallinn, and Ushuaia, giving bakers practical control over the network's evolution.
Least Authority conducted five security audits for the Tezos Foundation in 2018, covering the core Tezos protocol, the Foundation's vesting smart contracts, the Galleon Wallet, Atomex smart contracts, and TzBTC. Trail of Bits separately audited the Dexter decentralized exchange. Tezos also maintains formal-verification tooling for Michelson, including Mi-Cho-Coq and K-Michelson, built to mathematically certify contract correctness.
A structural risk factor: as of year-end 2023, the ten largest public bakers held roughly 52.45% of all XTZ delegated to public bakers, concentrating network security among a small group.