Tezos, the self-upgradable proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain, has introduced a new upgrade known as “Tezos X” as part of its plan to enhance usability and functionality.
In a recent blog post, developers described Tezos X as a significant evolution of the original Tezos blockchain. Once fully implemented, Tezos X will create an integrated blockchain ecosystem that offers improved performance, composability, and interoperability.
Tezos X aims to transform the current Tezos platform, which was launched in 2017 following a $232 million initial coin offering (ICO). Despite not meeting initial expectations, the project continues to be actively developed.
The new vision for Tezos involves transitioning from a monolithic blockchain where every node replicates everything to a modular design that provides an integrated user experience. This “modu-lithic” ecosystem maintains high decentralization while allowing specialized modules to facilitate interactions within an efficient environment.
Tezos X will feature a design that moves accounts, applications, and transaction history to a canonical rollup, enabling the layer-1 chain to focus solely on consensus and settlement. This optimization will improve on-chain performance without the need for powerful hardware, enhancing Tezos’ composability and interoperability.
The development of Tezos X began in 2022 with a focus on scaling through Smart Rollups, a technology that enables a dedicated second layer for transaction execution while the L1 handles consensus and settlement. This approach will make the L1 significantly faster and more efficient, allowing bakers to secure the network using low-spec hardware.
Another key component of the Tezos X upgrade is the Data-Availability layer, which ensures the mainnet can manage large amounts of data from rollup users in a decentralized manner. With these enhancements, a single canonical rollup will be able to manage all network activity.
The rollout of Tezos X is expected to continue until 2026, with a proposed roadmap available on the Tezos blog.