Using Tezos
As described in Blockchain Basics on opentezos.com, Tezos is a blockchain, which is a network of computers that allows a group of users to run computer tasks in an open, transparent, and secure way. Blockchains like Tezos have these general properties:
- Any user in the group has access to all of the stored data
- Any user can make changes to the data, as long they follow a set of rules
- No small subset of users can control the system
You can do many different things with a blockchain, but the common tasks fall into these categories:
- Decentralized storage: Users can store data in such a way that the data is available to all users forever, or at least as long as the blockchain system is running
- Decentralized currency: Users agree on a currency and its behavior and use decentralized storage to record which accounts have what amount of currency
- Decentralized computing: Users can put programs known as smart contracts in the decentralized storage and allow other users to run those programs
As a Tezos user, you may have come to the platform for many reasons, including:
- Paying with the Tezos cryptocurrency (known as tez and occasionally by the symbol ęś© or the ticker symbol XTZ)
- Accepting payments in tez
- Creating your own cryptocurrencies or other exchangeable digital assets, known as tokens
- Running smart contracts to perform computation tasks in a transparent, censorship-proof way