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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

What can I do with Tezos?​

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 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 or accepting payments in the Tezos cryptocurrency (known as tez and occasionally by the symbol ꜩ or the ticker symbol XTZ)
  • Authenticating to web applications, like you might log in to a web site with a user name or email address
  • 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

How do I get started?​

The first thing you need to work with Tezos is a wallet application; see Wallets. Then you can use the wallet to generate a Tezos account; see Accounts.

Most things that you do with Tezos require a small amount of tez as a transaction fee. You can get tez by buying it or exchanging another cryptocurrency for it on the cryptocurrency exchanges listed at https://tezos.com/tez/#exchanges.

Then you can use the wallet to connect to and use applications that use Tezos, like the Staking application or Tezos-powered games, listed at https://tezos.com/gaming/players.

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