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First draft of using overview topic
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timothymcmackin committed Jan 3, 2025
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38 changes: 38 additions & 0 deletions docs/using.md
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---
title: Using Tezos
authors: Tim McMackin
last_update:
date: 3 January 2025
---

As described in [Blockchain Basics](https://opentezos.com/blockchain-basics/) on opentezos.com, Tezos is a blockchain, which is a network of computers that allows a group of users to run computer tasks in an open, transparent, and secure way.
Blockchains like Tezos have these general properties:

- Any user in the group has access to all of the stored data
- Any user can make changes to the data, as long they follow a set of rules
- No small subset of users can control the system

## What can I do with Tezos?

You can do many different things with a blockchain, but the common tasks fall into these categories:

- Decentralized storage: Users can store data in such a way that the data is available to all users forever, or at least as long as the blockchain system is running
- Decentralized currency: Users agree on a currency and its behavior and use decentralized storage to record which accounts have what amount of currency
- Decentralized computing: Users put programs known as _smart contracts_ in the decentralized storage and allow other users to run those programs

As a Tezos user, you may have come to the platform for many reasons, including:

- Paying or accepting payments in the Tezos cryptocurrency (known as tez and occasionally by the symbol ꜩ or the ticker symbol XTZ)
- Authenticating to web applications, like you might log in to a web site with a user name or email address
- Creating your own cryptocurrencies or other exchangeable digital assets, known as [tokens](/architecture/tokens)
- Running smart contracts to perform computation tasks in a transparent, censorship-proof way

## How do I get started?

The first thing you need to work with Tezos is a wallet application; see [Wallets](/using/wallets).
Then you can use the wallet to generate a Tezos account; see [Accounts](/using/user-accounts).

Most things that you do with Tezos require a small amount of tez as a transaction fee.
You can get tez by buying it or exchanging another cryptocurrency for it on the cryptocurrency exchanges listed at https://tezos.com/tez/#exchanges.

Then you can use the wallet to connect to and use applications that use Tezos, like the [Staking](/using/staking) application or Tezos-powered games, listed at https://tezos.com/gaming/players.
8 changes: 4 additions & 4 deletions sidebars.js
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// id: 'using',
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items: [
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'using/wallets',
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