Why Tezos? or My Journey to the Tezos Blockchain
By: Michael Austin
Tags: Blockchain Investments, Smart Contracts, Tezos Blockchian, Tezos, Decentralized

Why Tezos? or My Journey to the Tezos Blockchain

I didn’t plan on doing this and I didn’t really feel like creating another project for myself, it just kind of happened. I’ll start by saying I’m not that young and I was actually just figuring out what the blockchain was, and what decentralization was. After spending some time on youtube and creating an account where I could buy crypto currencies, I took the plunge. I spent the next couple years learning and trading. I thought this could be the Holy grail for my own self directed retirement program. Recently, I found this video that recommended a crypto program that used this token called Hex…. you bought the Hex and then transferred the Hex into this program where there was a pool and you paid 10% to get in and then you paid 10% upon exit. Unbenounced to me, were the gas fees… you know the cost of doing a transaction. I was getting ready to exit the program after about a month and an $18 dollar profit when I saw the transaction cost on my metamask wallet. It was $87. Which was absolutely outrageous since I had only put in $100 to begin with. I messed around with it for a few days and finally figured out, that the less I removed the less the transaction fee was. But even at that rate the fees were very high. So in getting to the bottom of this, I finally figured out that it was because of those high ERC20 token fees. I really like the idea of DeFi and all that, but I was very disappointed that these boy geniuses that created this stuff, fumbled big time when it came to fees. So I continued my quest to find myself a good program where I could derive a good retirement income without having to trade constantly.

After about a month of looking and searching youtube videos, I figured out that I just couldn’t find a great program, or there just wasn’t one out there yet. So now came the decision to either create one myself or just forget it. I’ve used programmers in the past for my projects, so I knew how to find them. I then came back to that decision again. Was I willing to educate myself on something new and do something that I’d be happy with, or wait until somebody else constructs something. Well we all know the answer to that question. I started by choosing a coin or token that paid staking rewards, because I figured that the worst case, I could get staking rewards. I looked for the highest paying staking coins or tokens and made a list. Then let’s not forget those fees… those ugly fees that can kill or at least stop a program right in its tracks. So that eliminated quite a few right from the start, none of the contenders could be Ethereum or ERC 20 based. I got with my programmer and laid out the program. I wanted something that could pay more than the standard staking rewards, something that I could actually maybe supplement my income with. I found Fantom coin, Algorand and a few others that had a smart contract system. Ultimately there was a process of elimination because most smart contracts could not distributed the way I wanted; to individuals that were in a reward pool and have the reward pool be staked. Also, some of these coins and tokens have a unbonding time, for example one makes you wait 3 weeks before you can remove your coin, but in that unbonding time you earn nothing. I was told one time by a programmer, that if you can think of it, it can be programmed. You see I wanted to see everybody get excited when there was activity, because activity generated income. New people entering the program generated income, and in the absolute worst case scenario (no activity) there was still income. What a beautiful thing! Here is the best part, No Human Intervention, No misappropriation of funds and no politics! I go back to 2009 when I had almost $8,000 in GM stock and they decided to go bankrupt and part of my retirement fund went to zero. Everybody lost! Except the brokers. That is why the blockchain and blockchain investments thrilled me. It just couldn’t happen. A coin could go to zero, but that would be on me for choosing the wrong coin or token to go into. But it would be in my control not some faceless corporation. Well, I got off on a tangent, back to the story.

We (my programmer and myself) finally found a token with smart contract on its own blockchain that would fit exactly what I wanted to happen in a program. The winner was Tezos! The more I got into it the more I liked it. The Tezos blockchain had no forks, splits and was self amending. Let me make something clear here… I just know what I’ve researched and read on the Internet. I’m not a programmer and don’t pretend to know a lot about this stuff, I’m still learning. But what I do know, is that this whole blockchain system could solve a lot of problems and be the greatest thing. I also think that the stock market should be converted to the blockchain and get rid of all these floor traders and brokers (I was once one myself). So the program that I created, is as such:

10% Fee to Enter

6% to share holders, split between all currently held tokens ( 1 GUILD Token for 1 XTZ)

2% into Tezos Staking Reward Pool (paid to all holders of staked tokens that were staked 10 days or more) Calculated from (XTZ) Tezos staking.

1% paid to referrers account immediately upon entry — If no referral, then 1% goes to Staking Reward Pool.

1% to developer

-6% Fee to Exit

3% back to share holders, split between all currently held tokens

2% back to Tezos (XTZ) Staking Reward Pool (of which is staked in Tezos)

1% to developer

(6% fee is based on total amount, including profits)

I named it GuildToken.io because it was going to be its own token, but in the end it was really just an addition or tool for “Tez” on the Tezos Blockchain. However, I just kept the name and continued with the program. The smart contract can be seen through the links on the website GuildToken.io and the dapp provides entry, monitors your funds, rewards and you may exit at any time. “A True Decentralized Program” that cannot be manipulated or changed. I have a few other ideas, but at this point I think I’ll just sit back and be a spectator for awhile.