Governance and validation on Tezos

Tezos uses a Liquid Proof of Stake consensus mechanism, where validators are called Bakers. In addition to validating transactions, bakers represent the staked tokens of delegators (stakers) when participating in network governance by voting on protocol upgrades. This approach ensures security, stability, and correctness, while allowing Tezos to upgrade seamlessly.

Tezos evolves using on-chain governance

Tezos has a proven, decentralized governance process that enables seamless upgrades and prevents the need for hard forks. Community members propose upgrades for the network and validators vote on which proposals they would like to see explored. The most popular proposal goes through a multi-step voting and adoption process, shown below.

Proposal

The Tezos upgrade process begins with the proposal period. Upgrade proposals are submitted and voted on by bakers during this time. The proposal with the highest proportion of votes at the end of this period proceeds to the next round.

NOTHING HAS BEEN PROPOSED AT THIS PERIOD

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Exploration

The exploration vote is the official voting mechanism to accept the implementation of the most popular proposal. Bakers vote “Yay,” “Nay,” or “Pass.” The proposal must reach a quorum and pass a supermajority.

Voting results from Exploration period

Supermajority: NaN %

Participation

NaN %

NaN Needed to achieve Quorum

Votes Cast

undefined / undefined

Bakers

undefined / undefined

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Cooldown

If a proposal is approved in the exploration period, the cooldown period begins. The purpose of this period is to let some time elapse before the promotion period so the ecosystem can coordinate and prepare for proper implementation of the upgrade.

Cooldown period has been finished

The Cooldown Period has been in progress from Sunday, May 15 - Monday, May 30

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Promotion

The promotion period provides a final voting opportunity in case of the discovery of any bugs or issues in the upgrade proposal. Bakers may vote “Yay,” “Nay,” or “Pass.” The proposal must again reach a quorum and pass a supermajority. If approved, the upgrade enters the adoption period.

Voting results from Exploration period

Supermajority: NaN %

Participation

NaN %

* NaN Needed to achieve Quorum

Votes Cast

undefined / undefined

Bakers

undefined / undefined

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Adoption

Adoption is the final stage of upgrading Tezos. It is an approximately two-week period that allows bakers and developers sufficient time to update their software. This ensures a seamless transition to the upgraded network.

Time to adopt

Days	Hours	Minutes	Seconds

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Start a Node, become a baker

Check out these resources for starting a node.

Forklog

A tutorial on baking from the team at Tezos Ukraine.

XTZ-Shots

A repository of Tezos snapshots.

Bake Buddy

An easy-to-use baking software guide from Bake Buddy.

Kiln

Baking software maintained by a collection of Tezos ecosystem teams.

Nomadic Labs

Documentation for running a persistent baking node.

Open Tezos

Create and deploy your own node with this Open Tezos guide.

Join the Tezos baking community

Baking Slack chat

For anything baking-related, there is a dedicated Baking Slack channel.

Baking Telegram chat

Community group for Tezos node setup, delegating, proposal voting, and all other baking-related conversations.

BakeBuddy Telegram group

Support chat room for both novice and advanced users of the BakeBuddy software.

DELEGATING ON TEZOS
What is delegating?

In a process called staking, owners of tez (XTZ) can delegate their tokens to a baker and receive rewards for supporting the security of the network and participating in governance. With the unique Liquid Proof of Stake mechanism on Tezos, token owners maintain control and flexibility over staked tokens because they are not locked at any point during the delegation process.