For work and play, I participate in the Tezos ecosystem. Tezos is a proof-of-stake blockchain with on-chain governance. In a nutshell, this means that it requires significantly less compute than proof-of-work blockchains (such as the one Bitcoin is based on) and it is less likely to breakup into other projects (fork) because the community gets to vote on the direction.

So you want to get involved with Tezos? Do you want to:

  • just invest and use a cryptocurrency
  • run a "validator" to add blocks to the blockchain (for Tezos these are called bakers)?

Or both? Below we have some suggestions.

General user/investor

If you are interested in investing in the Tezos coin or buying NFTs, you can start by:
  • Buying coins at an exchange such as Coinbase or Binance. If you hold your coins there, you will have a custodian account where you are at the mercy of the exchange.
  • Using a software wallet such as Umami, a browser-based wallet such as Temple or a mobile wallet such as Airgap. Be careful storing your keys on an online computer.
  • Investing in an Hardware Security Module, such as a Ledger and using it as an offline non-custodian wallet. This is probably the most secure way of holding funds as a "home user" of cryptocurrency.
  • You can buy NFTs at objkt.com and you can buy them with a credit card. This is a great way to get into Tezos.

Interested in running a node or a baker

You will need to download Octez (the reference Tezos blockchain software) and run it. The good news is it runs on small systems such as Raspberry Pi 4 (8GB, 64-bit OS, fast SSD disc needed), Linux machines or Macs.

I maintain unofficial packages of Octez for Linux platforms (available for download from my employer):

And I have some (hopefully useful) articles to get started:

Other links