Tezos for newbies. What should I know?

Written by Martin J. Maddox
Updated 6 months ago

Tezos Blockchain

Tezos is a liquid PoS (Proof of Stake) blockchain network. This means that Tezos tokens retain liquidity even when staked and can be sold or exchanged at any moment.

Tez is a digital token linked to Tezos. Its ticker is XTZ.

Token standards: Any Tezos user can create a custom token of his own. To facilitate tokenization Tezos employs several token standards:

  • FA 1.2 is the more generic one, supporting only fungible tokens (akin to Ethereum's ERC-20).
  • FA 2 is an advanced standard that also supports NFTs (similar to ERC-721 standard) and allows for multiple tokens to be managed on the same contract (like ERC-1155)
  • NFT is a non-fungible token (FA2 standard). Each NFT is absolutely unique. This standard is most suited for miniting digital collectible items, art objects, tickets, etc.

Temple Wallet usage

To work with the Tezos blockchain, you need a wallet. We recommend you to use the Temple wallet.

First of all, you want to make sure you learn what a cryptocurrency wallet is and how it works.

Be sure to write down your seed phrase (a string of random words generated as you create a new wallet). Keep it somewhere safe (preferably not only on a digital device). If you ever lose this phrase or let someone else get access to it, you risk losing your assets for good.

Learn how cryptocurrency transactions are conducted. Temple wallet does not yet have an in-build feature to buy tokens. You will have to buy them on the exchange and then transfer them to your wallet.

Attention: XTZ is a cryptocurrency on  the Tezos blockchain, and may be also called tez. Different blockchains may have tokens “pegged” to XTZ. Like Binance-peg Tezos tokens on Binance blockchain. You won’t be able to send them to your Temple wallet.

Your Tezos address will start with tz1 as well as the exchange's sending address. Make sure to copy your address in the wallet as shown in the guide above. You can read how to send tokens to your wallet from the exchange here.

Once you have received tokens to your wallet, they should appear on your account in the Temple wallet. If you can not see them, follow this guide to manually add info about the new token to your wallet.

Baking with the Temple

You may stake your XTZ in the Temple wallet and earn rewards from baking.

Tezos Exchanges  (DEXes)

The Temple wallet does not currently have an in-built mechanism to buy or swap Tezos based tokens. To do that you can use Decentralized Exchanges (DEXes)

  • QuipuSwap is a DEX developed by the same team as Temple (MadFish Solutions).
  • 3Route — DEX Aggregator on Tezos
  • Plenty DeFi — a dedicated token swap service for Plenty holders.

Useful Tezos resources

A wallet is only interface allowing you to interact with the blockchain. There are other useful tools that allow simplified access to blockchain data.

Tezos Block Explorers:

With the aid of explorers you may see your transaction history and the status of each transaction. The most popular are:

Tezos NFT marketplaces: 

Tezos DeFi solutions: 

Tezos Bridges: 

Educate Yourself:

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