Tezos: Never Stop Evolving.

In a significant milestone for the Tezos blockchain, the much-anticipated Nairobi upgrade has been successfully activated, marking the 14th major upgrade for the network. This achievement underscores Tezos’ commitment to continuous improvement and showcases the power of its on-chain governance feature.

The Nairobi upgrade brings forth a host of enhancements and features that further strengthen Tezos’ position as a reliable, efficient, and secure blockchain for both developers and users.

Tezos’ On-Chain Governance #

One of Tezos’ defining features is its unique on-chain governance mechanism, which enables token holders to actively participate in the decision-making process. This inclusive and democratic approach empowers the Tezos community to propose, vote, and implement protocol upgrades without requiring hard forks. It has revolutionized how blockchain networks evolve, ensuring transparency, accountability, and broad community consensus.

A Track Record of Success #

Tezos has a proven track record of delivering impactful upgrades that continually enhance the platform’s capabilities. From its inception, Tezos has undergone several notable upgrades, each addressing specific challenges and introducing innovative solutions. These upgrades have contributed to Tezos’ growth and positioned it as a blockchain of choice for developers and users alike.

Let’s take a look at some of the important changes these upgrades have brought to Tezos:

Fun Fact: Tezos upgrades are named alphabetically using the names of historical cities.

Roll size #

1. Athens: reduced the roll size from 10,000 to 8,000 tez
2. Ithaca: reduced the roll size from 8,000 to 6,000 tez. Also the baking rewards are now calculated based on the stake of the baker and not on the number of rolls. Currently, the minimum stake to get baking rights remains at 6,000 tez.
3. Jakarta: the concept of rolls was deprecated in relation to the governance process (voting power) and is now defined by the delegate’s stake expressed in mutez.

Consensus Algorithm Changes and Improvements #

1. Babylon: Improvements to the Emmy+ algorithm
2. Granada: Changed from Emmy+ to Emmy* algorithm reducing the block times from 60 seconds to 30 seconds.
3. Ithaca: Changed from Emmy* to Tenderbake which brought deterministic finality.
4. Mumbai: Block times reduced from 30 seconds to 15 seconds!

Other features #

1. Edo: Edo introduced two new features. The Sapling feature which enabled privacy-preserving transactions and the Tickets feature which allows for native on-chain permissions and assets issuance.
2. Granada: The Liquidity Baking feature was introduced which is a new decentralized liquidity pool for the XTZ/tzBTC pair that uses an Automated Market Making (AMM) smart contract. This liquidity pool is subsidized by the Tezos protocol itself with a specific number of tez in every block.
3. Mumbai: Enshrined Smart Rollups, which is one of the most innovative features in the blockchain space, was brought to mainnet to scale Tezos in a fully decentralized way. To learn more about what rollups are and why we need them, you can read my 2-part “Rollups on Tezos” article.

Governance Process Improvements #

Tezos’ self amending nature, allows it to change and upgrade everything about it including the self-amending process itself. This is exactly what happened with the “Edo” upgrade which reduced the governance period duration from 8 cycles to 5 cycles while also adding a 5th period to the process named “Adoption”. This improvement allows for smoother upgrade activations and preparation.

Gas and Storage Fees Optimizations #

Each one of the previous 13 upgrades has had some sort of improvement in the way operations are performed making them more efficient, here’s a list of some upgrades that included gas fee reductions.

1. Delphi: Gas fees reduced up to 10 times and storage fees reduced by a factor of 4.
2. Florence: Gas consumption for smart contract execution reduced by improving the gas computation within the Michelson interpreter. That means interacting with complex smart contracts became much cheaper.
3. Granada: Gas consumption related to the execution of deployed smart contracts was reduced by a factor of three to six, allowing developers to deploy and interact with them at even cheaper rates.

The Nairobi Upgrade: Fueling Tezos’ Momentum #

With the activation of the Nairobi upgrade, Tezos takes another leap forward in terms of functionality and user experience. Some of the most important improvements this upgrade brought are:

1. Another big gas consumption reduction for various operations including simple tez transfers and smart contract calls which also means there will be an up to 8x increase in TPS (transactions per second) capabilities of Tezos.
2. Improvements in the mempool module for faster consensus.
3. New functions and more improvements for smart rollups.

The successful activation of the Nairobi upgrade marks another significant milestone in Tezos’ journey of constant innovation and improvement. Tezos, with its on-chain governance mechanism, has demonstrated a unique ability to evolve and adapt to the ever-changing needs of the blockchain ecosystem.

As Tezos fuels its momentum with each upgrade, it remains at the forefront of blockchain technology, providing a secure, efficient, and developer-friendly environment for individuals and organizations to build their projects and engage with decentralized applications. Nairobi, alongside with the 13 previous upgrades, exemplifies Tezos’ commitment to excellence and its unwavering dedication to delivering a blockchain that is scalable, reliable, and poised to shape the future of digital innovation.

As the Tezos community embraces these enhancements and explores the new frontiers that they open, the potential for transformative applications and groundbreaking solutions on the Tezos blockchain continues to expand. The Nairobi upgrade is just another step forward in Tezos’ never-ending journey of innovation, solidifying its position as a leading platform in the blockchain landscape.

The journey of Tezos is one of constant evolution, and it’s clear that this is just the beginning. Stay tuned for more remarkable advancements and upgrades that will shape the future of Tezos and the broader blockchain ecosystem. Together, we’re witnessing the power of innovation unfold and I cannot wait to see what comes next in this constant evolution.