The Tezos blockchain is now faster and better positioned for long-term sustainability, following the successful activation of its 17th protocol upgrade, Quebec. The upgrade was jointly developed by teams at Nomadic Labs, Trilitech, and Functori, and adopted by bakers (validators) following an on-chain voting and governance process. Quebec activates a number of features designed to improve the overall experience of using, running and building on Tezos. It also includes key performance improvements that contribute to fulfilling the vision laid out in the Tezos X roadmap, which outlines a unified vision for the future of the Tezos network and ecosystem.
Tezos is a pioneering blockchain known for its self-amending capabilities and community-driven, on-chain governance system. Quebec introduces a series of enhancements designed to make Tezos even more appealing to builders, institutions, and businesses of all sizes. A reduction of layer 1 block time from 10 seconds to just 8 seconds means that transactions on the network are faster than ever, achieving finality in 16 seconds — further establishing Tezos as an ideal solution for use cases such as payments, gaming and more.
Despite these performance improvements there has been no change to the hardware requirements for taking part in Tezos consensus. This ensures that bakers (validators) operating affordable, lower-end infrastructure can continue to participate in Tezos consensus, thereby preserving community-inclusive decentralization as Tezos evolves.
Commenting on the upgrade, Yann Régis-Gianas, Head of Engineering at Nomadic Labs, said, “With the Quebec upgrade, Tezos has become faster, economically stronger, and more attractive for staking – all without compromising on decentralization. It’s a remarkable achievement by the protocol developers and a significant step toward realizing the vision of Tezos X.”
He added, “The Quebec upgrade shows Tezos’ ability to evolve through decentralized governance, and with broad stakeholder involvement. I particularly valued the in-depth community conversations on tokenomics and how to keep inflation strictly tied to the chain’s long-term security.”
Quebec also introduces adjustments to Tezos’ staking mechanics, aimed at minimizing inflation of the native currency, tez, while maintaining network security. The Adaptive Issuance mechanism, previously introduced in the Paris protocol upgrade, is designed to keep staking rewards just high enough to incentivize a secure network while avoiding excessive tez issuance. The Quebec protocol upgrade refines this mechanism, addressing some scenarios where issuance could become higher than what is justified by security needs.
Following consultations with bakers and the community at large, the Quebec upgrade also raises the limit on how much external stake a baker can accept, from 5x to 9x the baker’s own stake. This can benefit network security, as it makes baking more attractive and staking more accessible, while continuing to limit centralization risks. To further incentivize staking, Quebec also reduces the weight of delegated funds, which contribute less to network security. As a result, staking now yields 3x the rewards versus delegation, instead of the previous 2x.
The successful implementation of Quebec is a further step towards Tezos X and a clear illustration of both Tezos’ long-term upgradability and of the commitment to persistent innovation demonstrated by community and developer teams across the Tezos ecosystem. The announcement comes during a busy period for the Tezos ecosystem, following the recent launch of the uranium.io marketplace on Etherlink, the EVM-compatible Layer 2 blockchain powered by Tezos Smart Rollups.
Purpose-built to eliminate barriers to an asset class that is powering the AI revolution and which has, until now, only been accessible to institutional investors, the launch of uranium.io comes at a time of renewed interest in real world asset (RWA) tokenization, which is emerging as a growth-driver for the blockchain sector.
This post was last modified on Jan 21, 2025, 14:10 GMT 14:10