Ethereum might still be the number one blockchain for smart contracts, but dozens of competing networks have been gaining ground. Lots of these alternative chains have been quite vocal about their status as an “Ethereum killer”, while others have stayed quiet, keeping their heads down and focusing on growth rather than media attention. One of the quiet ones to watch may well be Tezos, an open-source and eco-friendly blockchain that first went online four years ago and has, until recently, managed to stay under the radar. But it has been working hard for these last four years, building out and developing its software, quietly attracting partners and expanding its user base with a sharp focus on DeFi, green NFTs, GameFi and the metaverse. That hard work has paid off. In the last year Tezos has emerged as one of the darlings of the DeFi space. Back in the summer of 2020 Tezos was pretty much invisible, with less than $1 million in total value locked across all of its DeFi projects. Since then, its popularity has exploded, reaching an all-time high of just over $217 million in TVL in October 2021, with more than 100 dApps running on its blockchain. Tezos can put much of its success down to the unique consensus mechanism it employs, which is not only vastly different to the Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithm that underpins Bitcoin but also unique compared to most other chains that are based on the alternative Proof-of-Stake mechanism. T...
