But if your first reaction was confusion after reading terms like “post-quantum,” “zk-STARKs,” “elliptic curves,” “detector keys,” and a bunch of other technical buzzwords… don’t worry, you’re definitely not the only one. That was pretty much my reaction too.

So I spent some time digging deeper to try to understand what TzEL actually is, what problem it’s trying to solve, how it works, and who it’s really for. And honestly, the more I looked into it, the more I realized this was approaching blockchain privacy from a very different angle.

At first glance, it’s easy to compare it to existing privacy systems like Sapling. After all, both involve shielded transactions and private transfers. But the core idea behind TzEL is actually a little different. TzEL is not just trying to make blockchain transactions private today. It’s experimenting with how blockchain privacy could still survive years from now in a world where quantum computing becomes a real threat.

But let’s take it from the start.

The Problem TzEL Is Trying To Solve

When people hear discussions around quantum computing and blockchains, it’s easy to assume this means all blockchain transactions are suddenly at risk of becoming visible in the future. But that’s not really what TzEL is about.

Normal blockchain transactions are already public. You can already inspect wallets, balances, and transaction history on-chain today. The real issue is with blockchain privacy systems themselves. Privacy-focused systems introduce encryption to hide transaction details, balances, memos, recipients, and other sensitive information from public view. And today, that encryption works well.

The problem is that blockchain data is permanent. Even if encrypted transaction data is secure today, it still lives on-chain forever. This creates a long-term problem often referred to as “harvest now, decrypt later.” The idea is fairly simple, someone may not be able to decrypt private transaction data today, but they could potentially collect and store encrypted blockchain data now and wait until quantum computers become powerful enough to break the cryptography protecting it years later.

And that’s really the core idea behind TzEL. Instead of only asking “how do we keep blockchain transactions private today?”, TzEL is exploring how blockchain privacy systems themselves could continue remaining private years from now, even after quantum computing becomes an everyday reality.

So What Exactly Is TzEL?

TzEL is an experimental private transaction rollup running on Tezos testnet and, as far as we know, one of the first live blockchain experiments specifically exploring private transactions designed for a post-quantum future.

Users can shield tez into the rollup, transfer them privately, and later unshield them back to Layer 1. The project also experiments with encrypted memos, viewing keys, detector keys, and delegated proving. Now, some of those terms can sound intimidating at first, but the general idea is actually pretty practical. TzEL is designed around selective disclosure rather than full transparency, meaning users can keep transactions private by default while still having ways to reveal specific information when needed.

What also makes TzEL interesting is that this is not just a cryptography paper or isolated proof-of-concept. The project already includes a working rollup stack, wallets, bridging flows, proving infrastructure, and tooling that developers can experiment with directly on testnet. The broader stack is also being developed openly, including the wallet, prover, and rollup node infrastructure.

Under the hood, TzEL uses a different cryptographic approach than most blockchain privacy systems today. Instead of relying on elliptic-curve cryptography, which is commonly used across much of the blockchain industry, the project experiments with post-quantum cryptography and zk-STARK proofs designed to resist future quantum attacks.

Now, this is the point where things can start getting very technical very quickly, so I don’t want to go too deep into the cryptography side of things in this article. For people interested in digging deeper into the architecture, proof systems, and technical design behind TzEL, I’ll link to the documentation towards the end. The important takeaway here is simply that TzEL is taking a first step toward building private blockchain transactions designed for a post-quantum future from the ground up.

What Made TzEL Possible on Tezos?

Let’s talk about another interesting thing that quickly became obvious. This is the kind of experiment that probably would not fit very naturally on most blockchains today. A big reason for that comes down to proof sizes. The zk-STARK proofs used by TzEL are huge compared to what most blockchain systems normally handle, reaching around 300KB per transaction. And while that may not sound massive at first glance, on-chain data adds up very quickly. On many networks, trying to push that amount of data directly through Layer 1 repeatedly would become difficult, expensive, or simply impractical. That’s where Tezos starts becoming a very interesting environment for something like this.

Instead of forcing all of that heavy proof data directly onto Layer 1, TzEL can take advantage of Tezos’ rollup architecture and the Data Availability Layer (DAL), which was designed specifically to help handle much larger amounts of data more efficiently. And honestly, I think this is one of the more interesting parts of the project overall because it turns some of Tezos’ infrastructure upgrades from “nice theory” into something much more tangible.

Features like rollups and the DAL can sometimes feel abstract when people talk about them. You hear terms like scalability, modular infrastructure, or data availability, but it’s not always easy to picture what those things actually enable in practice. TzEL is a pretty good example of that in action.

It’s not just experimenting with post-quantum privacy itself, but also showing how the infrastructure Tezos has been building over the past few years can open the door for entirely different kinds of blockchain applications and research experiments that would otherwise be much harder or impossible to run.

Still Early, But Worth Exploring

It’s important to stress that TzEL is still experimental research code and not something intended for production use or real value transactions right now. The project is currently a live prototype focused on experimentation, testing, and research around post-quantum privacy systems.

But honestly, that’s also what makes it interesting. A lot of conversations around post-quantum blockchain security stay theoretical. TzEL turns some of those ideas into something developers can actually interact with today. And this is not just a standalone cryptography demo either. The project already includes a working rollup stack, wallets, bridging flows, proving infrastructure, and tooling for experimentation on testnet.

For developers and builders interested in digging deeper, the documentation, whitepaper, tutorials, and source code are all publicly available through the TzEL GitHub repository. You can also learn more through TzEL’s website.

And if you want a deeper breakdown of the thinking behind the project, we recently released a TezTalks interview with Arthur Breitman focused entirely on TzEL, post-quantum privacy, and some of the design decisions behind the project.

Even in its current early form, TzEL offers a pretty interesting glimpse into where long-term blockchain privacy research may be heading, while also giving builders something real they can already start experimenting with today.

We are already seeing what that looks like across the Tezos ecosystem. Newly imagined platforms like mederu.art are redefining what a collecting experience can feel like. HackTez has emerged as a dedicated hub for builders. An entire operating system is being customized for the next season of WTF Gameshow Is This. These are real signs of life, built by people who care about the future of art and technology together.

I only recently tuned into Reveal Protocol, a project in active development running on the Tezos EVM, Etherlink. It feels especially ambitious, taking on some of the most stubborn obstacles facing musicians who want to release their work as NFTs. This is my first look at what they are building, why it matters, and where things are headed.

Music Has a Problem

Music as an art form has struggled to find its footing in web3, and that deserves more attention than it typically gets. The visual arts conversation in this ecosystem has been rich, evolving, and at times genuinely culture-shifting. Music has largely remained on the sidelines, which is strange when you consider how decentralized infrastructure could empower musicians in exactly the same ways it has empowered visual artists: returning ownership, enabling direct community building, and giving creators real economic stakes in their own work.

The structural problem is not unique to web3. Streaming has conditioned listeners to treat music as ambient content, something to play in the background rather than something to hold and value. Streaming pays fractions of a cent per play and returns almost nothing of lasting value to the artist. Platforms are overwhelmed with releases every day, and without a significant production and marketing budget behind you, it is especially easy to feel invisible. Privilege has quietly become the gatekeeper in this climate, and many of the tools that exist to distribute music end up reinforcing the same hierarchies they claim to disrupt.

Something new is taking shape, and it starts from a different premise entirely, one where the community formed around a release becomes part of the outcome. One where there is no middle man between the artist and the listener. One where listeners become collectors the same as viewers do of visual art.

Who Is Building

Reveal Protocol was built by people who understand the music problem from personal experience, and who bring the kind of passion that gives a project its backbone. The founders are good friends of mine. We have collaborated many times through TezTones and various Tezos community events over the years, so my investment in watching this develop is personal.

Bosque Gracias is an art residency based in rural Patagonia, Argentina. Earlier this year, forest fires burned down everything they had built there. What remained were the digital artifacts. The works that had been minted as NFTs were the only remnants of art that had otherwise been reduced to ash. That experience sharpened something for the people involved.

Decentralized infrastructure is not just a distribution tool. It is a form of preservation, of permanence, of ownership that survives what physical spaces cannot. Reveal Protocol grows directly from that understanding, and you can feel it in the choices the protocol makes about who holds what, and why. The team did not wait for perfect conditions. They caught a vibe and started building.

Reveal Protocol is being developed through focused collaboration and the kind of AI-assisted workflow that has quietly changed what small teams can accomplish, the same approach behind mederu and other recent projects emerging from this ecosystem. What makes Bosque Gracias distinct in that process is who is in the room. Artists, musicians, and technically minded collaborators, each carrying a different relationship to the problem they are solving. The decisions about how releases are structured, how listeners are rewarded, and how early participation is recognized are being made by artists, for artists. You can tell from first impression too, the UI is beautiful.

What I Can Tell You So Far

The central idea behind Reveal Protocol is to reframe what it means to put music out into the world. Rather than releasing a track in the traditional sense, an artist uploads the complete work and divides it into individually collectible segments called fragments. Each fragment is inscribed on-chain through Tezos EVM, grounding the release in Tezos infrastructure with the permanence and transparency that implies. However, the song is not considered released until every fragment has been minted, putting the audience in the driver’s seat. It makes a game of the revelation.

The protocol connects directly to the Tezos ecosystem through a legacy bridge to Tezos EVM. Artists bring music they have already released on Tezos into Reveal Protocol, selecting from their existing catalog and bridging those works over to a new playing field. That connection matters because it honors what collectors have already built on Tezos while extending the life and reach of those releases into new territory. Music can also be released directly on the platform, which is important to note for any artists completely new to the Tezos ecosystem.

From there the structure builds outward in layers. Early collectors earn grains, points that accumulate through listening and fragment reveals, marking them as top contributors to a song before it reaches the wider world. Listener communities called scouting armadas can then push tracks further, earning grains tied to royalty pools as they go. Once a song is fully revealed, the artist can then decide to distribute it to mainstream platforms, arriving there with a real community already formed rather than hoping one assembles afterward.

Future versions of the protocol may allow those early participants to be credited on-chain, a formal recognition that they were part of making the release happen. Users can also buy day passes to listen to unlimited music on the platform, with all funds automatically getting distributed to artists and contributors based on what you listen to.

I will cover the full mechanics in depth in a Part Two, including a tutorial. What I can say now is that the architecture feels genuinely different from anything I have seen attempted in the MusicNFT space. The reasoning behind each layer is intentional and coherent. The system treats music the way the Tezos visual art community has learned to treat digital art: as something worth owning, worth participating in, and worth building around. The protocol even enables remixing in an official capacity, much like how web3 often encourages derivative work.

Two songs of mine are already waiting to be revealed. I successfully bridged works I had released on Tezos over to Etherlink, defined their fragments, and now they sit waiting for listeners to reveal, earn grains, and even remix. That is not a promotional statement. It is my commitment to living and experiencing the things I write about. As a hands-on learner, I will keep experimenting and building a deeper understanding so that Part Two can include a proper walkthrough.

Part Two Soon

Reveal Protocol is still finding its full shape, and the best coverage of a project like this is not through a race to summarize. It is a willingness to stay close and report on what it actually becomes with time. That is what I intend to do. My music gets to be the guinea pig.

I encourage any music artists that read this to give it a try for themselves. This is new territory waiting for pioneers to uncover new work flows. If you are part of the Tezos community, or if you have been quietly wondering whether something more intentional is being built for musicians in this space, keep Reveal Protocol on your radar. Follow developments here. You can also follow Bosque Gracias here. Stay tuned for Part Two.

This testnet offers the first opportunity to experiment with applications that can interact across both environments as part of the same flow.

With that now available, developers can start deploying, testing, and seeing what this new model actually makes possible.

Let’s take a closer look at what’s being introduced here, why it matters, and how you can start experimenting with it.

One System, Not a Set of Workarounds

If you look at how most ecosystems are evolving, they tend to solve problems by adding more pieces.

Different environments, different layers, different chains, each doing its own thing. It works, but it also creates fragmentation. Assets live in one place, applications in another, and moving between them becomes part of the experience, often adding extra complexity, and in many cases, additional risk. Tezos X takes a different route.

Tezos X is designed to reduce that friction by bringing those environments closer together from the start. Within Tezos X, a single shared ledger can be addressed through both the EVM and Michelson interfaces. That design enables native atomic composability.

Native atomic composability is what allows contracts across different environments to interact natively within a single transaction so that either all actions succeed or none do, without requiring intermediary steps like bridging or wrapping assets.

For example, imagine a ticketing platform built with Michelson, where tickets are priced in tez. A buyer comes in holding USDC in a MetaMask wallet on the EVM side. Normally, that means extra steps, swapping, bridging, wrapping, and moving assets across boundaries before anything can actually happen.

Here, those boundaries don’t exist within the system. The EVM user can interact directly with the Michelson contract, and the payment and the purchase can happen together, in a single transaction, executed atomically. All-or-nothing. No bridging, no wrapping, no loose ends.

One action, one result. That’s where things start to get interesting when you’re building.

What This Actually Changes for Builders

Up until now, building usually meant committing to one environment. You pick your stack, your tools, your ecosystem, and everything follows from that.

With Tezos X, that trade-off starts to disappear.

If you’re already building with Solidity, you can keep doing exactly that. Same tooling, same workflows, same mental model. But now, you also have access to the Michelson side when it actually makes sense to use it. At the same time, if you’re building with Michelson, you’re no longer operating in a more isolated environment. You can tap directly into EVM-based users, assets, and liquidity without relying on external bridges or separate deployments.

That opens up a different kind of design space.

Some parts of your app can stay EVM-shaped, flexible, familiar, and easy to work with. But for parts where guarantees really matter, like how assets are handled or how certain rules are enforced, you can lean on the Michelson side.

Michelson contracts can be formally verified, meaning their behavior can be mathematically proven to match what they’re supposed to do. While this is something that can be done with EVM contracts too, it’s generally much easier to do in Michelson, as it was built from the start with formal verification in mind and you can even prove properties that are significantly harder to establish in EVM-based systems.

You don’t need to go deep into the theory to see the value, it simply gives you stronger guarantees where it counts. And with AI-assisted tooling putting formal methods within reach of almost any builder, it is becoming far easier to make use of those guarantees in practice. In an industry that keeps getting reminded how expensive smart contract failures can be, those guarantees are becoming much harder to overlook.

So instead of forcing everything into one model, you can start designing applications where both environments work together within the same transaction flow.

What Comes Next

Once you start thinking about it this way, the next step is seeing how it holds up.

This phase is about seeing how these interactions behave in real conditions, what feels intuitive, what breaks, and what needs to change before anything moves further. It’s where assumptions meet actual usage, and where things become clearer once people start building with it. How builders use it, and where it breaks, will shape what moves forward to mainnet.

And that next step isn’t far off. Following this phase, an Etherlink governance proposal is expected around June 2026. If approved by bakers, Tezos X moves to mainnet with both the EVM interface and the Michelson interface live and fully composable from day one.

If you want to get a broader picture of how all of this fits together, the Tezos X roadmap update goes into more detail on the direction of the project and what’s coming next.

Getting Started

At this point, the most useful thing isn’t another explanation, it’s actually using it. The testnet is live, the environment is there, and this is where builders come in.

Try things out, deploy something small, and see how it behaves. Push it a bit, break a few assumptions, and get a feel for how these interactions work when you’re actually building with them. And if something doesn’t work the way you expect, you can share feedback or ask questions in the dedicated Tezos X channel in the Tezos Discord.

If you want to get started, you can find everything you need here:

• Tezos X Previewnet dashboard
• Documentation

This latest upgrade proposal brings a handful of notable changes to the protocol, with most of the focus landing on Tezos X infrastructure, Smart Rollup performance, and the early testing of two features that could become much more relevant down the line.

So, let’s take a high-level look at what Ushuaia brings to the table.

A Stronger Backend for Tezos X

A big part of Ushuaia focuses on strengthening the infrastructure Tezos X is being built around, particularly the Data Availability Layer (DAL) and Smart Rollups.

Without getting too deep into the weeds, the DAL is a core part of Tezos’ scaling design. It is what allows Smart Rollups to publish and access large amounts of data without pushing all of that load directly onto Layer 1, making it possible for Tezos to scale without simply bloating the base chain.

The first major change here is a substantial increase in DAL bandwidth, jumping from roughly 0.66 MB/s to 10 MB/s. That is a sizeable expansion in the amount of data Tezos can make available every second, giving Smart Rollups far more breathing room as the network prepares for heavier rollup usage in the future.

Ushuaia also introduces what the core devs call Dynamic DAL Attestation Lag, which changes how quickly that data can move through the system. Instead of DAL data always waiting through the same rigid delay before becoming usable, that waiting period can now be adjusted depending on how quickly the required attestations come in. In short, data does not have to sit around longer than necessary before Smart Rollups can make use of it.

And the backend tuning does not stop there. Ushuaia also includes upgrades to the WASM PVM, which you can think of as the internal workspace where Smart Rollups do their processing behind the scenes.

Ushuaia makes that workspace more efficient when it comes to loading data and preparing storage before tasks are executed, helping rollups run more smoothly as the network continues building toward heavier scaling usage.

Taken together, these changes are all part of Tezos getting its scaling foundation into place. But Ushuaia doesn’t stop at backend improvements. It also introduces two separate feature-flagged additions that give the community an early look at what may be coming further down the line.

Tezos Liquid Staking Takes Its First Step Into Testing

Beyond the infrastructure upgrades, Ushuaia also includes one of the more talked-about additions in recent weeks: Enshrined Liquid Staking.

This is the proposed native Liquid Staking Token model on Tezos (sTEZ**)**, which would eventually allow users to stake their tez while also receiving a liquid tokenized representation of that position that can still be moved or used across DeFi, rollups, etc. In other words, it opens the door for users to keep earning staking rewards without having their capital sit completely idle.

The feature is included behind a feature flag, which allows it to be tested and evaluated on testnets, but it will not automatically activate on mainnet at this stage. This step allows the community to experiment with the system on testnets and prepare for possible future activation once testing is complete.

If you want to learn more about how Tezos’ proposed Liquid Staking Token works, I go into it in more detail here: Understanding Tezos’ Proposed Liquid Staking Token (sTEZ).

Preparing for Quantum-Resistant Accounts

The other feature-flagged addition in Ushuaia is Post-Quantum User Keys, which are new types of accounts designed to resist future quantum computing attacks.

Put simply, these keys use cryptography that could stay secure even if powerful quantum computers exist down the line. You can think of them like stronger locks on a door, they make it much harder for a future technology to break in and compromise your funds.

Like the Liquid Staking feature, Post-Quantum User Keys are included behind a feature flag, which means they are currently for testing and experimentation only, and will not automatically activate on mainnet.

This is an early step in preparing Tezos for the next era of account security, giving developers and the community a chance to explore how these keys behave and integrate before wider adoption.

It’s worth mentioning that there was another feature suggested for Ushuaia that didn’t make it into the proposal. The reason? Community feedback during the heads-up process on Tezos Agora. Almost all features in this proposal went through that same loop, which clearly shows why this feedback loop is so important, the community’s input directly affects what features make it into the proposal.

Ushuaia is an important step forward for Tezos, bringing a range of features and refinements that will make the network’s foundations much stronger and prepare it for the future. As always, I’ve tried to keep this at a high level, so if you’re interested in more details about the individual features, check the announcement on the Nomadic Labs blog.

You can also follow the proposal’s progress through governance on Tezos Agora. The proposal is now live, so bakers can vote, and users should make sure their chosen baker is aware.

After all, governance is one of our strongest tools. Let’s put it to work!

When first introduced in 2024, the ‘Tezos X’ roadmap described an ambitious vision for Tezos:

A next-generation blockchain architecture with multiple tool stacks running as a single system, starting with EVM and Michelson. High performance, full composability, and broad interoperability.

Fast forward to 2026: the prerequisites are in place, priorities have been sharpened by market signals, and we are happy to announce that the architecture enabling EVM and Michelson to run together as one system is about to ship – starting with a testnet in April.

This blog post covers:

• A recap of Tezos X

• What’s coming (and when)

• Milestones reached

• How priorities changed

Tezos X, a recap

Tezos X is a new execution layer for Tezos. It’s where transactions run and smart contracts live – designed to remove friction for users and expand what builders can ship.

For users, Tezos X offers experiences that simply work. Imagine an artist listing an NFT priced in tez on a marketplace written in Michelson (Tezos’ native smart-contract language). A buyer wants to pay in USDC, held by an EVM smart contract. On Tezos X, both contracts share the same chain and the same ledger, so the swap and the purchase settle atomically in a single transaction. No bridge, no wrapped tokens.

For builders, Tezos X offers new designs and frictionless development. A Michelson contract can call an EVM contract (and vice versa) inside one transaction, letting a single app tap user bases and liquidity that used to be siloed. Contracts deployed on the Michelson runtime can also be formally verified – mathematically proven to behave as specified – for extra assurance in audit and in production. EVM developers bring existing Solidity contracts and tooling directly. Michelson developers keep working as they do today – no rewrite needed.

Under the hood, Tezos X is an enshrined, non-custodial rollup: a fast execution layer that settles back to Tezos Layer 1 for security, built into the Tezos protocol itself, with users always in control of their assets and free to exit.

What’s coming now

The execution layer will initially offer two interfaces:

• EVM (Etherlink)

• Michelson (available on the Tezlink Shadownet testnet)

It will be introduced as an Etherlink upgrade proposal that adds a Michelson interface, effectively evolving Etherlink into the execution layer.

This approach makes the execution layer instantly EVM-compatible, while the Michelson interface brings compatibility with Tezos’ Layer 1. The architecture enables additional interfaces in the future (for example JavaScript), and more will come.

The planned launch of Tezos X was also covered by Tezos co-founder Arthur Breitman in a keynote at the TezDev conference in March 2026. It’s recommended viewing for a high-level update on current protocol and ecosystem developments.

A frictionless path for existing Tezos apps

The Michelson interface offers a way for existing Tezos applications built on Layer 1 to get the benefit of Tezos X.

• The vast majority of Michelson contracts can be redeployed as-is and work out of the box.

• Developers can keep using the wallets, connectivity libraries, explorers, and other tools they already rely on, thanks to each interface’s interoperability with its origin ecosystem.

• Etherlink tools for Layer 1 interoperability (bridges, fast withdrawals) will be extended to include the Michelson interface.

Layer 1 itself continues to evolve toward a lean, fast consensus layer, supporting the existing ecosystem and with XTZ and FA tokens easily transferable to and from the execution layer.

The timeline

The expected near-term timeline is the following:

May 2026: Testing. A new testnet launches with Michelson and EVM interfaces on a single shared ledger. This is the first chance to test native atomic cross-interface calls between Michelson and EVM contracts in practice. Developers will be encouraged to deploy, test, and break things.

June 2026: Etherlink governance vote. After testnet validation, an Etherlink upgrade proposal is submitted to bakers. If approved, Tezos X becomes a reality on mainnet, starting with Michelson and EVM interfaces – live and fully composable.

H2 2026: RISC-V migration. The rollup engine migrates from WASM to RISC-V, enabling more runtimes, JIT compilation, and more predictable gas accounting. Critically, it makes adding new interfaces significantly faster, opening the door to mainstream programming languages later.

Milestones reached

The launch of Tezos X on mainnet builds on numerous improvements and innovations introduced since 2024.

Layer 1 has been continuously optimized for speed, efficiency, security, and decentralization. Block time has been reduced to now 6 seconds, while the staking UX and economics have been improved and fine-tuned. In short, Layer 1 is rapidly becoming a fast, lean consensus layer for Tezos X.

The Data Availability Layer (DAL) has been launched, putting a check mark next to a major milestone on the roadmap. The DAL ensures that Tezos has the bandwidth required for publishing millions of transactions per second, while security and integrity remains guaranteed by Layer 1. The bandwidth is continuously being improved – an upgrade to 10 MB/s is part of the upcoming Ushuaia protocol proposal.

The launch of Etherlink was another key milestone. Besides the added EVM interface for Tezos, Etherlink, Smart Rollup technology offers execution scalability far beyond what can be achieved on Layer 1, while still being non-custodial and governed by Tezos bakers. Etherlink has in many ways been a prototype for Tezos X, with much of the innovation implemented here first.

Priorities: what moved up, what moved down

Though the roadmap and vision have been broadly stable since 2024, priorities have been adjusted in response to market signals.

Some work has moved up on the agenda – and some things have been added – due to necessity or demand, while other items remain on the agenda but are no longer part of the near-term path.

Note that any property mentioned for Etherlink will carry over into the unified execution layer, should the upgrade proposal be adopted.

What moved up

• Throughput: During 2025, Etherlink’s maximal throughput was increased almost 14x to 27 Mgas/s (~1300 TPS), with experiments showing further potential for significant increases.

• Latency: Work on latency has already enabled 10–20x faster confirmations than originally envisioned, from “subsecond” to milliseconds. Etherlink now offers instant confirmations via a sequencer, enabling 50ms latency today and further reductions in the future.

• MEV protection: The instant confirmations provided by the sequencer also offer guarantees about transaction order and the result of the next block, effectively providing MEV protection.

• BLS signatures: This signature scheme was introduced to enable signature aggregation, supporting Layer 1 optimization and DAL integration, and bringing protocol-native multisig functionality.

What moved down (for now)

• JavaScript interface: The absence of strong demand at this stage means that enabling a JavaScript interface (Jstz) in Mainnet is no longer a near-term priority. An important milestone, the RISC-V migration—required to support additional runtimes such as JavaScript—is targeted for H2 2026, as mentioned above.

• Blind sequencer: The current sequencer is decentrally governed by Tezos bakers, holds sequencing power only, and can be replaced by vote. On-chain settlement adds censorship-resistant finality in seconds. Our market analysis indicates that, at this stage, the ultra-low latency achievable with this approach is a stronger value driver for network participants than alternative architectures with higher latency.

• Data Availability Sampling: Sampling enables higher scalability by establishing security about available data without requiring an honest majority of nodes to download everything. However, at 10 MB/s bandwidth, the DAL supports plenty of throughput for the near future, and sampling is therefore not a near-term priority.

Finally, an initially envisioned automatic upgrade of Layer 1 apps to the execution layer has been dropped. Instead, app maintainers can move ad hoc, supported by tooling to make the process smooth.

From “canonical rollup” to “execution layer”

Some readers may have noticed that “execution layer” has replaced previous talk of a “canonical rollup”.

While “canonical rollup” partly captures the role Tezos X has in the Tezos architecture in a technical sense, the term “canonical” is not an intuitive descriptor for most people. Also, “rollup” carries Ethereum L2 connotations that don’t match what Tezos X represents:

• Ethereum’s L2 landscape is fragmented into largely independent and custodial chains with varying security assumptions, offering limited integration with Ethereum’s Layer 1 and each other.

• Tezos X is a unified, single-chain experience for both developers and end users, enshrined in the protocol. No new tokens or controlling entities are involved. The system remains entirely non-custodial.

We believe that “execution layer” better reflects the tightly integrated nature of the architecture, and it sums up the role well: the natural home for applications on Tezos.

Beyond blocks and chains

If the Tezos X roadmap laid out an ambitious path for Tezos, this update marks the point where that path becomes reality.

It is an opportunity for developers and entrepreneurs to think bigger, draw on the best of the EVM and Michelson worlds, and deploy the next generation of Tezos-powered applications and products.

We look forward to supporting builders in exploring the new possibilities through documentation, tutorials, tools, sparring, and other help that makes the path to great products as frictionless as possible.

The long-term belief hasn’t changed. Blockchains should fade into the background. People should use applications that happen to be powered by Tezos, not “use a blockchain” as a primary act. A seamless experience resting on uncompromising security.

Tezos X is what makes it practical: a fast, multi-language, highly composable execution layer secured by a battle-tested, self-amending, and censorship-resistant Layer 1.

Between delegation and staking, it feels like the bases are covered. One offers flexibility and liquidity, the other offers higher rewards in exchange for locking funds. Both serve clear purposes, and so far, they’ve been working well.

But now, a new approach is being proposed. A couple of months ago, a concept called the “Enshrined Liquid Staking” was introduced on Tezos Agora as another potential option around staking. So naturally, a few questions come up.

What exactly is it? How would it work? And maybe most importantly, do we even need it? Here’s how I’ve come to understand it.

The Limits of Delegation and Staking

What Tezos offers today works well within its own environment. Delegation and staking both do what they’re supposed to do, and for a long time, that’s been enough. But things start to shift once you move beyond that.

If you decide to take your tez into DeFi, or move it to environments like Etherlink (upcoming Tezos X), that connection breaks. Your tez is no longer part of the staking flow. It’s active elsewhere, but at the same time, it’s not earning staking rewards, and it’s no longer contributing to securing the network.

This isn’t unique to Tezos. Across other ecosystems, similar patterns have led to the rise of third-party liquid staking solutions, tokens that represent staked assets while still being usable elsewhere. Things like stETH on Ethereum follow this idea, allowing users to stay exposed to staking while still participating in DeFi. Tezos has already seen early versions of this approach as well, with solutions like stXTZ aiming to bridge that gap.

But as useful as these solutions are, they also introduce a new set of considerations.

Adding extra layers to staking

Once you introduce a third-party liquid version of staked assets, the way staking works starts to shift.

Instead of interacting directly with the protocol, users rely on an additional layer that handles staking on their behalf. Depending on the design, that layer can involve smart contracts, operators, or specific coordination mechanisms that sit between the user and the network. That changes a few things.

At the network level, stake is what secures Tezos and what gives participants influence in governance. If more and more of that stake is routed through the same liquid staking systems, it can start to concentrate in fewer places. Not because it’s designed that way, but because liquidity naturally pulls users toward the same solution. Over time, that concentration can matter. It can influence how stake is distributed across bakers, and potentially who ends up having more say in the network.

There’s also the question of trust. Even when systems are transparent, users are no longer interacting only with the protocol, they are relying on how that system is built and maintained. Smart contracts reduce the need for intermediaries, but they don’t remove risk entirely. Bugs, upgrades, or admin keys can all affect how that system behaves over time.

None of this makes liquid staking tokens a bad approach. It solves a real need, and it’s already widely used across the industry. But it does introduce an extra layer between users and the protocol, and that layer comes with tradeoffs that need to be understood.

A Different Approach: Protocol-Level Liquid Staking

source: Mathias Bourgoin’s presentation at TezDev

So what if that extra layer didn’t sit outside the protocol, but inside it? That’s the idea behind the proposed canonical LST on Tezos.

Instead of relying on external systems to manage staking, the mechanism is built directly into the protocol itself. There’s no separate operator, no admin keys, and no third-party contract managing the process. From a user perspective, the interaction stays familiar, but the logic behind it is handled directly by the protocol. The rules are defined at that level and follow the same governance process as everything else on Tezos.

From a user perspective, the flow is straightforward. You deposit tez and receive a liquid token in return (sTEZ). That token represents your share of the underlying stake and can be held, transferred, or used elsewhere, just like any other standard token.

At the same time, this doesn’t mean the system is “hands-off.” There are still mechanisms in place to manage how stake is distributed, how risk is handled, and how the system avoids the kind of concentration we discussed earlier. The difference is that all of this is defined at the protocol level, rather than being handled by an external layer.

So how does that actually work in practice?

How It’s Designed to Work

Source: Canonical LST Whitepaper

At a high level, the idea is simple. You deposit tez into the system and receive a liquid token in return, commonly referred to as sTEZ. That token represents your share of the underlying stake and can be held, transferred, or used elsewhere, just like any other token. From there, the system follows an accrual model.

Instead of distributing rewards as separate payouts, rewards are reflected in the value of the token itself over time. In simple terms, one sTEZ gradually becomes worth more tez as rewards accumulate. The same applies in the opposite direction, where if slashing occurs, that value can decrease as well. When you want to exit, you redeem your sTEZ. The system initiates an unbonding process, similar to unstaking today, and once that period is complete, you receive your tez back.

Behind the scenes, the protocol takes care of how stake is distributed across bakers. But unlike traditional delegation or staking, bakers actively choose to participate in this system. They register and define specific parameters, such as how much of their capacity they allocate to this form of staking and the fee applied to it.

The main difference is that users are no longer the ones deciding where their stake goes. Instead, the protocol handles the allocation itself, spreading it across participating bakers while respecting those parameters and keeping things within limits designed to avoid concentration and maintain a more balanced distribution.

One important detail is that this stake does not carry governance rights. Even though it contributes to securing the network, it doesn’t participate in voting. That separation is intentional, as it avoids concentrating governance power through a liquid token that could otherwise scale quickly across the ecosystem.

So where does this leave us? This isn’t meant to replace delegation or staking. Those are still the core ways people participate in Tezos today. This just adds another option, one that brings liquid staking into the protocol itself, without relying on external solutions and the tradeoffs that come with them.

If it works as intended, it could lead to more tez being staked while still remaining usable elsewhere. That would probably increase the overall staking ratio over time, which in turn can reduce issuance. It might also make it easier for newer bakers to get external stake, which feels really helpful when you are starting out. Keep in mind, this is just how I’ve come to understand things based on what’s been shared so far.

The canonical LST is part of the Ushuaia proposal. If it passes, it won’t be fully active right away. Instead, it would be introduced behind a feature flag, allowing it to be tested in controlled environments like testnets and refined over time. Activation would only come later, in the next (V) proposal, once the system has been evaluated in practice.

There are still parameters and details that need to be finalized, and these are already being discussed on Tezos Agora. If you’re interested in digging deeper, check out the TezDev presentation from Mathias Bourgoin, the whitepaper, and the discussion on Tezos Agora. And if you have an opinion on this, don’t just keep it to yourself, jump into the Agora thread and be part of the conversation.

We’re talking about assets that sit at the core of everything, energy, infrastructure, and manufacturing, yet the way they’re traded still reflects a much older system. In practice, it’s slower, more restricted, and less transparent than you’d assume. It works, but it hasn’t really moved forward with everything else.

There’s now an attempt to rethink that structure. Not by changing the metals themselves, but by rebuilding the infrastructure around them, how they’re accessed, how they’re traded, and how ownership is represented.

From Uranium to Something Broader

Over the past year, uranium.io has come up more than once.

Not as a one-off experiment, but as one of the clearer examples of what this model can actually look like when applied to a real market.

Uranium isn’t exactly easy to deal with. It’s regulated, restricted, and for the most part sits behind institutional walls. Getting exposure has always been limited, not because there’s no demand, but because the infrastructure around it was never built for broad participation.

What uranium.io showed is that this can be approached differently. That you can open up access, keep a real connection to the underlying physical asset, and still make the whole thing usable without going through the usual layers.

So the obvious question becomes: what happens if you try to apply that same approach beyond uranium?

That’s where metals.io comes in.

What

Metals.io takes the same approach we saw with uranium and applies it across a wider set of metals.

Instead of dealing with each market separately, everything sits within a single system. You’ve got access to gold, uranium, and a group of more niche but important materials, all through the same environment.

The experience itself is pretty straightforward. You’re not dealing with large minimums or waiting around for settlement. Access is continuous, ownership can be fractional, and transactions settle onchain rather than over days.

One detail worth noting is that not everything is structured the same way. Gold and uranium are available individually, while the newer additions come as a basket.

What matters more is how the exposure is structured. This isn’t about tracking prices through derivatives or indirect proxies. The model is built around real, physically backed assets, with systems in place to verify that backing, while the infrastructure handles custody, compliance, and pricing in the background.

From the outside, it feels simple. But that simplicity is coming from a system that’s doing a lot of the heavy lifting underneath.

The New Additions

The expansion itself is one part of it. The mix of metals is the other.

I’ll be honest, I hadn’t even heard of most of these before.

Hafnium, rhenium, indium, neodymium, praseodymium. I can barely pronounce half of them, and I’d guess most people are in the same position. These aren’t the kind of metals that come up unless you’re already deep into specific industries.

But once you look into them a bit, you start to see where they fit. They show up in semiconductors, EVs, advanced manufacturing, and defense. Not in a visible way, but somewhere in the background of a lot of the systems we rely on, and that comes with real, ongoing demand.

And that’s probably what makes them interesting here.

Not because they’re new, but because they’ve always felt out of reach. You wouldn’t really know where to start, or how to get direct exposure to them in the first place.

Gold sits on the other end. It’s already accessible and widely understood, so it’s not really solving the same problem here. But it makes sense to have it alongside everything else. If you’re looking at metals, you’re probably looking at gold too, and it shouldn’t mean going somewhere else for it.

So it’s not just about adding more metals. It’s about bringing very different types of markets under the same framework, some that were hard to access, and others that were already accessible but not exactly efficient.

And once that happens, this is where things actually start to change, not in the metals themselves, but in how you get to them.

Access becomes more direct, settlement becomes instant, and pricing starts to become more visible. That might not sound like much, but in markets that have historically been slow, opaque, and restricted, it adds up quickly.

Some of these markets don’t even have clean price discovery today. Prices can depend on who you’re dealing with, or how the trade is structured. Bringing that activity onchain doesn’t solve everything, but it does start to standardize and expose it.

Even from the current interface, it’s clear more metals are on the way, silver, palladium, nickel, and cobalt. If that continues, this starts to look less like a single product and more like a growing layer for accessing the entire metals market, for both institutions and retail users.

Not just in making a few assets easier to reach, but in gradually rebuilding how these markets operate, moving from closed systems to something more open.

It’s still early, but it’s a lot easier to understand once you actually see it.

Not everything that mattered on Etherlink in March happened in the same place. Some of it showed up in the protocol and the markets. Some of it showed up through products, integrations, and the events that gave more of the network a public stage. This edition of the Etherlink Monthly Wrap gathers those parts of the month into one place.

DeFi & Protocol Updates

This is where the month’s most direct changes to Etherlink show up, across the protocol itself, live market conditions, and the tools built on top of them.

Tez402 brings x402 pay-per-request payments to Etherlink (Mar. 2)

TZ APAC launched Tez402 on Etherlink, bringing Coinbase’s open x402 flow to the network. It lets APIs, SaaS products, and Web3 services accept stablecoin payments one request at a time, instead of relying on subscriptions or invoicing. It gives teams building APIs and other services a direct way to charge for usage on Etherlink.

Etherlink 6.2 enters fast governance as a Farfadet bugfix (Mar. 23)

Etherlink 6.2 entered fast governance after issues were identified in the Farfadet kernel. The proposal was framed as a security and liveness fix, with no user funds at risk and no exploit attempts observed. By March 26, node release notes were already treating 6.2 as the latest Etherlink upgrade and noting follow-up fixes tied to deployment. Within days, the fix was already moving into rollout.

Superlend markets enter wind-down on Etherlink (late March)

Superlend began winding down its Etherlink markets in late March as part of what it described as a broader strategic shift. A March 20 update said the next phase would freeze the markets on March 24, with withdrawals and repayments still available. When Superlend posted again on March 30, that freeze is in place: no new deposits or borrowing, but users can still repay or withdraw existing positions.

Metals.io went live on March 30 as a web app for buying, holding, and trading tokenized metals. At launch, it brought together three assets: xU3O8 for uranium, VNX Gold (VNXAU) for allocated gold, and Noemon Tech’s RARE token for a basket of strategic metals. Where uranium.io put uranium on Etherlink, Metals.io expands that idea into an even broader metals product.

Ecosystem Integrations & Data

This section covers the March updates that changed how people could see Etherlink, connect to it, and track what was happening around it.

The Tie adds Etherlink to the Tezos dashboard (Mar. 19)

The Tie expanded its Tezos dashboard on The Tie Terminal to include Etherlink data alongside existing Tezos coverage. That brought on-chain activity, token markets, real-world assets, NFTs, and liquidity into a single view. The result is a clearer view of Tezos and Etherlink together, rather than treating them as separate surfaces.

Community & Events

This section covers the moments in March when Etherlink moved into public view, through builder programs, live events, and the spaces around them.

The Tezos EVM Hackathon opens for submissions (Mar. 27)

The Tezos EVM Hackathon opened for submissions on March 27 with a $5,000 prize pool and an April 9 deadline. The official page set the active build period from March 23 through April 9 and required projects to deploy on Tezos EVM, also referred to on the page as Etherlink, while meaningfully integrating AI. Tracks included AI Agents, DeFi Innovation, Gaming and NFTs, Developer Tooling, Social and Identity, and Wild Card. By the end of March, the event was already in its build phase rather than sitting at the announcement stage.

TezDev 2026 puts Etherlink on stage in Cannes (Mar. 30)

TezDev landed in Cannes on March 30, and Etherlink was part of the main agenda from the start. The official program featured one session on instant confirmations and another on intents, RFQ, and bridging, putting Etherlink’s speed and market structure work in front of the TezDev crowd. The same event also rolled out the XP Zone and TezQuest, so the day paired technical talks with live project interaction on the floor.

Projects in Focus

This section steps back from the month’s timeline to look at a few live products that help show where Etherlink is taking shape.

Uranium.io is the Etherlink app for buying, holding, and trading tokenized physical uranium through xU3O8. Each xU3O8 represents ownership of U3O8 held by Archax as custodian, with the uranium stored at a Cameco facility and backed by monthly proof-of-reserves reporting. Users can buy through the app, hold for later sale, trade on listed venues, and borrow USDC against xU3O8 through Oku.

Metals.io builds on Uranium.io by expanding a single-asset uranium product into a broader metals app on Etherlink. It keeps xU3O8 in the lineup, adds VNX Gold and RARE, and gives users one place to access uranium, gold, and strategic metals through the same interface.

Tez402 (x402 Agentic Payments)

Tez402 is TZ APAC’s Etherlink implementation of Coinbase’s x402 payments standard. It turns an API, SaaS endpoint, or Web3 service into a pay-per-request endpoint settled in on-chain stablecoins, without subscriptions, invoicing, or third-party billing layers. In product terms, it gives teams a way to charge for usage directly at the request level instead of wrapping that logic in a separate payment system.

March started with Tez402 and ended with Metals.io, TezDev, and an active hackathon window. We’ll pick up the next set of updates in your next monthly wrap.

Not because there wasn’t anything happening, quite the opposite. There’s been a lot of building over the past couple of years. But with the current state of the market, the question was more about how it would all come together. Would it feel like momentum, or just another round of updates?

From the moment the doors opened, you could tell something was different. The room filled up quickly, people were already there early, conversations already in full flow, and the presentations and panels hadn’t even started yet. Compared to last year, when things took a bit to ramp up, this felt more immediate. More present.

And that carried through the entire day.

The overall vibe wasn’t loud or overly hyped. It was focused. Grounded. The kind of atmosphere you get when people aren’t trying to sell a vision anymore, they’re working toward delivering it.

Talks, Panels, and Key Takeaways

Let’s start with the talks and panels, which this year touched on a wide range of topics, to the point where I could probably write a separate article for each of them.

A few things that stood out to me were the progress around atomic composability, and how this connects to the broader Tezos X vision, the introduction of a protocol-level LST that changes how staking and liquidity can work, and the DeFi panels focusing on instant confirmations, intents, and the direction bridging is heading. On top of that, Yann’s talk around agentic development added another angle to all this, especially given how dominant the whole agent narrative is right now. The link to formal verification, something Tezos was built around, made it feel very relevant.

I’m not going to try to break everything down here, but I did feel like I got a better understanding of where things are heading, with a lot of interesting ideas and directions being explored. Definitely worth going through the talks if you want to dig deeper.

Arthur’s Keynote: Where Things Stand Now

Following all the talks and panels, Arthur’s keynote came in to tie everything together.

He started by saying that if you’ve been following the ecosystem closely, nothing you’ll hear today should really surprise you. And in a way, that was true. But still, hearing that Tezos X could be live on mainnet as early as this summer actually caught me kinda off guard. I was expecting a longer timeline, so that alone made everything feel a lot closer than anticipated.

The rest of the talk wasn’t about big announcements. It was more about showing where we stand right now and how the pieces are coming together. Etherlink evolving into Tezos X, multiple runtimes sharing the same execution layer, and everything tying back to what we saw earlier around composability. Latency came up again as a clear focus, with instant confirmations around ~50ms, reinforcing what we heard in the DeFi panels as well.

But the bigger shift was in direction. A lot of the heavy infrastructure work is now in place, and the focus is starting to move more toward products that people actually use. Revenue being mentioned as the key signal made that pretty clear. Not in a “numbers go up” way, but more as proof that something actually works. It separates ideas that sound good from things people come back to and are willing to pay for, so that’s likely where more focus will go moving forward.

This doesn’t mean that support is gone, more like it shifts. Less about funding ideas in the hope they work, and more about helping things that already show signs of life to actually scale.

Overall, it felt like a transition point. As the infrastructure is at a point where it’s no longer the bottleneck, the focus now is on building things people actually use. As always with Arthur’s keynotes, there’s a lot more covered than what I caught and mentioned here, including a video presentation of the Tezos brand evolution, so it’s definitely worth giving it a full watch.

Not long after that, we shifted into something a bit different.

Ben Elvidge took the stage and started walking us through uranium.io and what they’ve built over the past year. And this is important, because this isn’t just another idea. They took uranium, something that’s basically inaccessible unless you’re an institution, and made it available in a way that didn’t really exist before.

Not through proxies or derivatives, but actual exposure to the physical asset. And if you think about it, you can’t really do that today. Not on Robinhood, not on Revolut, nowhere. And then he moved to the main point. They’re expanding this.

Introducing metals.io.

Same model, now applied to more metals. Gold, and a basket of critical materials like hafnium, rhenium, and indium, with more to come. The kind of stuff that sits behind entire industries, with real demand and real usage, but until now mostly out of reach.

That’s what made this stand out. It’s not just about putting assets onchain, it’s about opening up markets that weren’t available in the first place, and now it’s not just uranium anymore.

Art on Tezos — More Than Just a Side Note

I mentioned last year that TezDev has been evolving into something beyond just a developer-focused event, and that was still as clear this time around. It’s not just about the tech anymore, it’s about the whole ecosystem, and that naturally includes art.

The final panel of the day focused exactly on that. Rather than trying to define where things are going, it felt more like a reflection of what’s already happening. A big part of the conversation was around accessibility, how Tezos has opened the door for artists from all over the world to participate, not just those based in the usual art hubs. At the same time, there was a lot of emphasis on the direct connection between artists and collectors, something that feels very native in this space.

There was also this broader idea that digital art is becoming more fluid. Not tied to a single format, not confined to galleries, and increasingly blending with physical experiences as well. It’s less about replacing traditional art and more about expanding what art can be.

And then the talks wrapped, and things moved into something more immersive.

Like last year, a full 360° art experience took over the next room, with works surrounding you from every direction. IRREVERSIBLE, curated by Strano for Art on Tezos, brought everything together into this shared space.

It wasn’t just something you look at, it was something you stepped into. The lights, the sound, and the visuals all working together and create a completely different kind of atmosphere. People were walking around, reacting to it, pointing things out to each other, trying to take it all in.

It’s worth mentioning that outside of the talks themselves, there was a lot happening in parallel throughout the whole day.

The next room was constantly full, people moving between booths, conversations happening non-stop, teams showing what they’re building. It never really felt empty at any point, which honestly surprised me a bit given the current state of the market.

TezQuest added another layer to all this. You could see people going around from booth to booth, trying things out, solving small challenges, and collecting points. It wasn’t just passive, people were actually engaging with the projects. And with a prize pool that included things like an iPad, a DJI Osmo, a Nintendo Switch, and more, there was definitely some extra motivation to “hunt” those points.

But beyond the activities, what felt really great was the overall feel of the event. This happened during a pretty rough period for the market overall. We’ve seen events across the space feel quieter this year, even big ones. So going into this, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But TezDev didn’t feel quiet.

It felt focused. Solid. Like things are moving. There were strong moments, meaningful discussions, and a sense that what’s being built is starting to connect.

And that, more than anything, is what I’m taking away from this year. Looking forward to the next one!

If anything, the real challenge is keeping up with them. New ideas keep popping up, builders keep shipping, and somewhere in between all that, a lot of genuinely useful tools fly under the radar.

That’s exactly what this series is about.

“Hidden Gems of the Tezos Ecosystem” is all about surfacing those tools, the ones you might not hear about every day, but once you find them, they just make sense to have in your rotation.

Part V is no different. A mix of discovery, data, notifications, and even a bit of infrastructure, built by people who are clearly paying attention to the gaps and quietly filling them.

Let’s get into it.

1.

There’s no shortage of art on Tezos. If anything, that’s the problem.

With new pieces constantly being minted, it’s easy for great work to get buried under the noise, especially if you’re just scrolling through marketplaces hoping something catches your eye.

REJKT is a tool built around that exact problem, built by FAFOlab.

Instead of trying to be another place to buy or mint, it focuses purely on discovery. It pulls in live listings from across the ecosystem and presents them in a clean, visual feed, letting you explore art first without all the usual distractions.

It’s a simple idea, but a useful one. If you enjoy collecting and want a better way to stumble across pieces that might otherwise go unnoticed, REJKT is worth having in your rotation.

2.

At some point, you start wondering… how much have I actually done on Objkt?

Not just recent activity, but everything. Who collects your work the most, who you keep buying from, how it all adds up over time.

objktify is a tool that gives you exactly that.

Built by Mark Kelly, it taps into the Objkt API and lets you pull detailed stats just by dropping in a Tezos address. Whether you’re an artist or a collector, you get a clearer picture of your activity without having to piece it together manually.

It’s one of those tools you don’t think about until you use it, and then suddenly you’re going down the rabbit hole of your own on-chain history.

Fair warning though… some of those numbers might surprise you.

3.

Yeah… the name kind of says it all.

FART NOISES is a tool built by JackTezos that sends you Telegram notifications for pretty much everything happening around your Tezos NFTs. Purchases, sales, offers, mints, listings, all of it.

If you’ve been around the ecosystem for a while, you’ve probably come across some of Jack’s other tools already. He tends to mix useful ideas with a bit of humor — and this one is no different.

You can track multiple wallets, choose exactly what kind of alerts you want for each one, and get real-time updates without having to constantly check marketplaces.

It’s one of those tools that sounds like a joke at first, but ends up being genuinely useful, especially if you’re active and don’t want to miss anything important.

Also, fair warning… it might make noise when you click.

4.

Porcupin is a tool by FAFOlab focused on backing up and preserving Tezos NFTs.

It allows you to run your own node that monitors specific wallets and automatically pins the underlying media, helping ensure everything stays available over time. You can choose what to track and essentially take control over how your NFTs are stored and maintained.

The project was funded through the Tezos Ecosystem DAO after receiving community support, and it’s another example of FAFOlab building useful tools for the ecosystem, something we’ve already seen with REJKT as well.

It’s open-source, self-hosted, with plans for a hosted option as well, and designed for those who want a more hands-on approach when it comes to their collections.

Not a tool for everyone, but definitely one that adds an important layer to the ecosystem.

5.

Another one from JackTezos, but this time leaning a bit more into the technical side.

IPFS Trace is a tool that lets you scan a Tezos address and trace all the artifacts it has generated on IPFS. In practice, that means you can see the underlying files, metadata, and related links tied to NFTs from a specific wallet.

It was originally built to help debug tools like the Tezos Archiver (which I covered in Part IV), but was later shared with the community in a cleaner, more accessible way.

Like some of Jack’s other tools, it keeps things simple and focused. You drop in an address, and it gives you a clearer view of what’s happening behind the scenes.

A useful little window into the infrastructure side of things, especially if you like understanding what’s actually going on under the hood.

And that’s another five tools added to the list.

Different use cases, different builders, different levels of complexity — but all of them solving something in their own way. That’s kind of the pattern you start noticing with Tezos. People see a gap, build something around it, and just put it out there for others to use.

There’s a lot more out there, too. Always has been.

So yeah… I’ll see you in Part VI.

Maybe.

Who am I kidding, of course there’s going to be a Part VI.