Some Major Companies That Are Baking on Tezos

The Tezos ecosystem is filled with all kinds of amazing talent. That being said, it might surprise you that there are several household names actively involved in securing the Tezos network by becoming a corporate baker.

In this article, we’re going to highlight corporate baking at large and introduce a few large entities involved with corporate baking on Tezos.

What is Corporate Baking? #

shoutout to Shubham Dhage

To understand what corporate baking is, we need to first know what baking is on Tezos. Baking on Tezos refers to the act of producing and validating new blocks on the Tezos network. For their participation, bakers receive a reward in the form of tez for their critical services in securing the Tezos network. Bakers are crucial because they operate the chain by creating blocks and checking the integrity of the data they contain.

The cool thing about Tezos is under Tezos’ Liquid Proof of Stake (LPoS) design, stakeholders retain the ability to either bake on their own or delegate to a bakery, who usually charges a nominal fee for their services, which is usually paid in the tez rewards that they successfully bake or endorse. Further, the design is ‘liquid’ in the sense that the delegated stake is never locked, it remains ‘liquid’ and free to move and the icing on the cake is when a user delegates their tez to a baker to bake on their behalf, the user NEVER loses custody of those delegated tez, it remains 100% under the user’s custody.

If this wasn’t attractive enough, there are several benefits to becoming a baker on Tezos. Here are just a few:

• No transaction fees on transactions produced inside ones own blocks
• Participate in Tezos governance
• Earn baking rewards
• Avoid token dilution

As of late, we’ve seen lots of traction from companies coming in and starting bakeries. Let’s highlight a few of these entities and why they’ve made the decision to come over to Tezos and support the network.

Google Cloud #

Google Cloud has recently announced that they are becoming a Tezos baker and now are enabling corporate customers to deploy their own Tezos nodes and have seamless access to the technology. In addition to this, in collaboration with the Tezos Foundation, a Tezos incubator is going to be created for startups and will be eligible to receive Google Cloud credits and mentorship via the Google for Startups Cloud Program.

Talk about a partnership with one of the world’s largest tech giants.

It’s pretty exciting to see an enterprise of this scale come over to Tezos and launch a corporate baker. Not only does it instill a strong level of confidence in the underlying technology, Tezos is one of three blockchains to have been selected by GCP and it shows there is genuine interest in Tezos beyond the web3 scene as well.

Ubisoft #

Ubisoft is another corporate baker on the Tezos network that is pretty well-known within the gaming world. Being the gaming company behind popular games like Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed, it’s not difficult to see why.

Nicolas Pouard, Blockchain Initiative Director at Ubisoft shared a few words in Ubisoft’s initial announcement.

We’re happy to be joining the Tezos ecosystem as a corporate baker. Ubisoft believes that blockchain has the potential to bring new possibilities to players and developers alike, and this new collaboration will allow us to pursue our innovation efforts with an ecosystem that aligns with our environmental-friendly approach thanks to its proof-of-stake consensus algorithm.

https://quartz.ubisoft.com/

While Ubisoft has became a corporate baker, they have gone on to do some interesting experiments using the Tezos network. Ubisoft is making use of NFTs in the form of “Digits” for its Ghost Recon Breakpoint game. The NFTs utilize the Tezos blockchain in which they are stored and based upon.

This exact pattern is the most encouraging to me when looking at the potential implications of corporate baking. Having entities like Ubisoft come in to start a bakery is not the only win; rather its what they do with the experience they gain from utilizing the Tezos network in the most important way possible, securing it. Not only are they helping secure the network, they are also experimenting with things like NFTs which show genuine interest in the technology. In this case, they used their experience with the Tezos network to create immersive fan experiences in the form of NFTs in the Ghost Recon Breakpoint game.

Wakam #

Wakam is a leader in digital insurance in Europe. Describing themselves as an insurance company that creates white-label and tailor-made insurance solutions for its distributor partners and clients, Wakam isn’t a stranger to the blockchain space either.

After joining the Tezos ecosystem as a corporate baker, Olivier Jaillon, Chief Executive & Enablement Officer of Wakam shared a few words.

We are deeply convinced that smart-contracts and blockchain, which are based on decentralized automated management tools and result in reasonable transaction costs while guaranteeing consumers complete transparency and immutability of their contracts, is the future of insurance. The Intrinsic qualities of the Tezos protocol, which is based on Liquid Proof-of-Stake, make it more secure and sustainable than most other blockchains. As Wakam is in the process of becoming a “Mission-driven Company”, Tezos aligns perfectly with our CSR commitments. As a French digital insurer, we are also more than happy to work with a project with strong French roots.

It’s rather interesting to see companies like Wakam come over to the Tezos network. In the case of advancing insurance applications on public blockchain networks like Tezos, I’d be hard pressed to find many other use cases that are just as strong.

We also had Wakam on TezTalks, if you’d like to learn more about them.

EDF Group #

If you’ve ever turned on your oven or TV in Europe, chances are EDF Group has been supplying the electricity for you to be able to do so. At one point in time, EDF Group was actually the largest electricity producer in the world.

That being said, EDF has taken the blockchain pill through their subsidiary Exaion. After joining the Tezos ecosystem as a corporate baker, Fatih Balyeli, Exaion CEO and co-founder shared a few words.

Our choice to use the Tezos blockchain came naturally. Baking on Tezos allows us to significantly reduce our energy consumption and is in line with our sustainable development policy while keeping a high-quality digital offering.

I think it’s important to point out that Exaion is a start-up specializing in blockchain solutions and high-performance cloud computing. The key motivation here is to develop solutions to minimize the carbon footprint of its business and that of its customers.

Give it a little bit of a thought and I’m sure it won’t take much time to see that Tezos is a perfect fit here.

Sword France (Coexya) #

Sword Group is a fairly well-known company specializing in digital transformation. Working alongside companies such as Shell, BP, NASA, Rolls Royce and more; they have a clear history in shaping technology transformation.

That said, it shouldn’t be surprising to see their pivot and interest in blockchain, Tezos in particular. After joining the Tezos ecosystem as a corporate baker, Alain Broustail, Sword Blockchain Director shared a few words.

We are convinced that crypto-assets and particularly security tokens will have a major role to play in tomorrow’s banking ecosystem. Becoming a corporate baker on Tezos is evidence of that conviction and represents a further step towards blockchain adoption. The choice of the Tezos blockchain is not accidental, we have been looking at the Tezos technology and working with the community for over a year. The Tezos network provides security guarantees, transparency and strong adaptability, which makes it very attractive for companies like ours. We believe in particular that it is today’s best distributed ledger for securities token issuing.

Much like Ubisoft, Sword France has also been incredibly active beyond merely running a bakery operation. They have launched Tezos DigiSign, an open source solution to digitally sign, store, and verify documents on the Tezos blockchain.

Looking Forward #

As we can tell there are some pretty heavy hitters on Tezos that are running bakery operations. The act of launching a bakery for corporations shows some level of financial commitment but as we’ve glossed over, it’s all about the firsthand experience these companies are getting by securing the Tezos network. For companies like Ubisoft and Sword France, we’ve seen that experience develop further.

Lately, as corporate baking is picking up steam again, it will be exciting to see what other companies begin to make the transition to Tezos.