Tezos is a decentralized ledger that uses blockchain technology, similar to Bitcoin and Ethereum. Tezos, like Ethereum, is built on the concept of smart contracts. According to the inventors, the name "Tezos" means "smart contract" in ancient Greek. Tezos, on the other hand, goes beyond further. It extends the smart contract concept by allowing players to directly control the network's rules.There's a fundamental distinction between Tezos and other smart contract blockchain networks: Tezos attempts to provide more advanced infrastructure, which means it can develop and improve over time without the risk of a hard fork. People who own XTZ can vote on protocol changes proposed by Tezos developers.Tezos' underlying technology was initially proposed in a white paper published in September 2014. The Tezos mainnet opened four years later, after a series of setbacks.