Tezos Athens Has Successfully Been Implemented and Activated on the Tezos Protocol

Image Source: Visit Greece

On May 30, 2019, around 1 am UTC, Tezos successfully upgraded its protocol following the Athens A proposal completing all 4 phases of the amendment process. The upgrade comes with the notion that Tezos can always evolve and incorporate any advantage other chains have, showing Tezos’ first historic self-amendment is just the beginning.

As originally proposed by Nomadic Labs, Athens A, sought to reduce the minimum baking threshold to 8,000 XTZ as opposed to its former 10,000 XTZ per roll; which represents the minimum amount of XTZ required to “bake” on the Tezos protocol. Additionally, Athens A increased the gas limit. Initially, the gas limit was set at a conservative level with the notion that it could be changed later on through the amendment process, however, through the upgrade, the number of IO’s will remain unchanged while an increase in the gas limit will ensue.

Regarding the changes to baking roll sizes, there is now a lower barrier of entry for prospective bakers wishing to facilitate consensus on the Tezos protocol. Both these two incremental changes have been activated and are in full effect. Conversely, Nomadic Labs compensation of 100 XTZ indicated the first working example of invoicing. Following the activation of the new protocol, Nomadic Labs was paid 100 XTZ automatically to their wallet to “buy a round of drinks”. To see further how this process works, please read my past publication “Inflation in Liquid Proof-of-Stake Models”.

Alexandr Keyra, CMO of Everstake, told Coindesk, regarding the changes to baking roll sizes:

“The reduction will result in a bigger amount of XTZ staked. Now if a baker has 16k, only 10k is staking while after the upgrade the baker will have 2 rolls engaged in staking. There will be fewer ‘leftovers’ so to speak which is particularly important for small bakers.”

Additionally, following the success of Tezos’ first self-amending upgrade, Arthur Breitman, Co-Founder of Tezos, highlighted the importance and high level of participation during the Athens amendment process, emphasizing how Tezos’ on-chain governance led to such a successful upgrade.

Arthur Breitman: