#32 / L1 networkstezosPartially verified

Tezos

A chain that upgrades itself through on-chain governance, without hard forks.

View market View map

Token

XTZ

Sector

Self-amending governance chain

XTZ market

CoinGecko data; may be delayed.

Compare

Tokenomics

Market cap

$304.66M

Fully diluted valuation (FDV)

—

No declared max supply: no FDV is computable, supply follows demand.

Circulating supply: 1.10B
Total supply: 1.12B
Max supply: No cap

98.2% of the achievable supply is already circulating.

All-time high (ATH)

$9.12 -96.97% · Oct 3, 2021

Source: CoinGecko, snapshot of Oct 27, 2026. Figures may be delayed.

On-chain fundamentals

This asset is not mapped to a DefiLlama-tracked protocol or chain, or the provider reports no data for it. When a verified mapping exists, the table appears here.

Why it matters

Tezos's defining feature is self-amendment: protocol upgrades are proposed, voted on and adopted on-chain, avoiding the contentious hard forks that have split other networks. It has shipped a long series of upgrades this way and found particular traction in digital art and institutional tokenization pilots, while remaining smaller than the leading smart contract ecosystems.

General research guidance, not analysis specific to this asset. Detail is pending.

Track the real organization or foundation behind the token, not just the ticker.

Separate token utility from price action before building a position.

Compare network usage, liquidity, incentives, and governance quality against nearby competitors.

How it works

Tezos is a liquid proof-of-stake chain whose defining feature is on-chain self-amendment: protocol upgrades follow a formal proposal, exploration, testing and promotion voting cycle, and accepted amendments are compiled into the node software automatically — the chain upgrades itself without community splits.

Token utility

Baking (staking) to secure the network

On-chain governance voting on protocol upgrades

Transaction fees and smart contract execution

Value capture

XTZ pays fees and bakers (validators) earn inflationary rewards; delegators share those without locking tokens. The value case is governance quality — upgrades without forks have real option value — though it is not monetized through fee burn or revenue sharing.

Supply and issuance

Around 1 billion XTZ at genesis with roughly 5-6% annual inflation paying consensus rewards; there is no max-supply cap, making XTZ mildly dilutive by design. Fee income is small relative to emissions, as in most PoS chains.

Governance

Governance is the product: every amendment — from fee parameters to full protocol changes — passes through transparent on-chain voting by stakeholders, with delegation, quorum rules and testing periods built in. It is the most formally engineered governance process among major chains.

Key risks

Developer mindshare is far below leading ecosystems
Governance participation can concentrate among large stakeholders
Upgrade capability does not by itself attract applications

Frequently asked questions

What is liquid proof-of-stake?

Delegating voting and baking rights to a baker does not lock or transfer your tokens — they stay in your wallet and remain spendable. Compare with bonded staking on other chains, where funds are locked through an unstaking delay.

Has Tezos actually upgraded itself?

Many times — dozens of amendments since 2018, from Michelson improvements to Smart Rollups for scaling. The track record is the strongest evidence for the self-amendment design: no contentious fork in the chain's history.

References

Last verified: 2026-07-22

Home | Tezos
Tezos · tezos.com · primary source
The project's official site, retrieved on the date shown, supporting how it describes itself. It does not establish supply, governance or issuance mechanics.
Accessed 2026-07-22