Tezos wallet

Tezos occupies a unique place among cryptocurrency networks primarily drawing from its on-chain governance model and PoS consensus. In particular, Tezos is part of a new generation of PoS blockchain networks seeking to improve upon Bitcoin’s proof-of-work (PoW) with faster finality consensus, a more scalable design from launch, and less energy expenditure.

Tezos is a smarts contracts platform like Ethereum, but is based on the programming language Michelson and deploys some slight optimizations to the smart contract archetype of Ethereum — such as with formal verification for enhanced contract security. Officially live since September 2018, Tezos has been gathering community support and development contributions in large part due to its offerings of bug bounties, staking incentives, and partnerships designed to bring more community members into the fold.

Compared to other blockchain networks, Tezos distinguishes itself from other networks in mainly two ways:

1. Staking Mechanism (Called ‘Baking’)
2. On-Chain Community Governance

Baking is the process of staking funds in the Tezos network to validate blocks and receive the corresponding block reward. Additionally, bakers (i.e., stakers) play a prominent role in the network’s governance with voting power correlating to their overall stake of the native Tezos token, XTZ, locked in the network.

Token holders are not forced to stake their XTZ, however. Token holders can voluntarily participate in staking by delegating them to other bakers to stake on their behalf.

Similarly, XTZ holders can also delegate their tokens for the process of voting in governance proposals. The on-chain governance structure of Tezos is such that voting on proposals is related to the size of a user’s network holdings in XTZ. Proposals can be issued by developers and other network participants with invoices attached to them for funding of development.

The initial voting system is pre-defined, but what is unique about Tezos is that the voting mechanism can actually be changed by governance proposals, just like many other aspects of the network. Stakeholder votes can trigger protocol changes, and even core tenets of the network can be altered, albeit with much more difficulty. The concept is to foster a community environment that is capable of rapidly evolving the network to meet dynamic requirements.

When you first buy crypto, you’re issued with two keys: public and private.

• A public key serves as an address that can be shared with other parties to perform transactions.
• A private key represents a randomly generated number that signs transactions and protects your assets from malicious attacks. If it gets compromised or lost, you won’t be able to access your hardware wallet to spend, withdraw, or transfer your coins.

To safeguard and keep track of your keys, you can use online or offline wallets. Online wallets, also known as hot wallets, store private keys on systems or devices that are connected to the internet. Hot wallets are easy and convenient to use, however, they come with several drawbacks. Besides being susceptible to attacks and a honeypot for hackers, with hot wallets, the custody of private keys is often entrusted to a third party such as a crypto exchange, which means you never have full control over your funds. The safer choice are specialized hardware wallets that store private keys offline. Stealing private keys from a hardware wallet would require physical access to the wallet and corresponding PIN or the recovery phrase. What’s more, with hardware wallet, you don’t need to rely on third party custodians.

Ledger Nano is the industry-leading hardware wallet. With more than five million customers, Ledger Nano wallets have several layers of security that protect private keys, and hence your assets:

• Your private keys are stored on secure element chips.
• A PIN code and a 24-word recovery phrase are required to access the wallet.
• Ledger Nano wallets have been built using highly durable materials for protection against physical damage.

With full isolation between private keys and your computer/mobile, Ledger Nano cold wallets keep your keys secure and give you complete control over your coins.