Developed by ex-Morgan Stanley analyst Arthur Breitman, Tezos is an innvative platform of smart contracts with a formally verifiable code and a form of integrated self-government.
Tezos allows token holders to make decisions about how to make their protocol evolve. Once the decision is confirmed, the platform automatically brings the update on the network. Since Tezos has a unique modular design, with separate layers, the protocol update is simple and requires no special operations or hard fork.
Tezos is written in OCaml, a typically static functional programming language. Writing in OCaml makes the project much easier and more accessible. Tezos also has a new intelligent programming language called "Michelson", also designed to facilitate formal transactions. For example, when the smart contract has to manage a transaction of high value, Michelson can ensure that the operation's performance is not lost.
Tezos supports smart contracts, using the Delegated Proof of Stake (DPos) as a consensus algorithm.
However, the first block of the Tezos mainnet blockchain was produced on July 2018, after more a year of work.