Welcome back Tezos Community,
As we approach Fall, and after a busy stretch of protocol developments, post-quantum experiments, and IRL events, we're turning our attention to a few of the people and projects making the Tezos ecosystem such an interesting place to spend time. There's plenty happening beyond the big announcements, and this week gives us a good opportunity to catch up on some of it.
We're starting with a thoughtful article from Joshua Goldstein, also known as Yoeshi, about the culture of supporting artists and giving back to the community. We'll also look at creative initiatives seeking support through The TTC crowd, revisit an important question about the future of Tezos Layer 1 as Tezos X develops, and share a new acquisition opportunity from Art on Tezos and VAULT.
So grab your coffee, get comfortable, and let's get into the grassroots of Tezos and what makes it great!
The Art of Paying It Forward: What Keeps the Tezos Community Going
Last week, we introduced TezCity, a new social platform from Ida Belle and her team designed to give artists and collectors more ways to support one another beyond individual art sales. It raised an interesting question about something that's been part of the Tezos art community for years: what happens when supporting an artist extends beyond collecting their work? This week, Joshua Goldstein explores that very idea in a Tezos Spotlight article, The Art of Paying It Forward, reflecting on the generosity and relationships that have developed across the ecosystem.
Joshua's perspective comes from personal experience. When he first arrived on Tezos, he wasn't yet selling his artwork as NFTs, but his contributions to the community earned him several awards through the Tezos Commons Community Rewards Program (CRP). Those awards helped him explore applications, learn about DeFi, and begin collecting artwork himself. Years later, he continues contributing through his work with Tezos Commons, and those early opportunities remain an important part of his story.
The article also explores how that same generosity appears in everyday interactions. An artist might use proceeds from a sale to collect another artist's work, while someone receiving a community reward might put those funds toward organizing an event or supporting a new project. Joshua also points to initiatives such as Art4LifeTez, which brought artists together around blood donation, as an example of how these relationships can extend beyond digital art.
One point I particularly appreciated was his reminder that generosity shouldn't become an obligation or a competition. Everyone participates under different circumstances, and supporting someone can be as simple as collecting a piece of artwork, sharing their work with others, or helping a newcomer get started. It's a thoughtful perspective, especially as new projects like TezCity explore additional ways for artists to receive ongoing support.
If you've spent time around the Tezos art community, you'll probably recognize some of the experiences Joshua describes. You might even remember someone who helped you find your footing when you first arrived.
This Week in the Tezos Ecosystem
TTCrowd: A Few Creative Projects Worth Exploring
Speaking of community support, there are several creative projects currently featured on the TTCrowd calendar that caught our attention this week. Crowdfunding has become another way for artists and builders to bring their ideas to life with help from the people who want to see them succeed. For collectors and community members, it's also an opportunity to discover projects while they're still taking their first steps.
The latest listings include a range of creative work, from animation and gaming to community initiatives:
8scribo: A project featured among the recent TTCrowd campaign listings.
Tezos animation by jakestudyos: A creative project focused on animation.
Keep the Dream Alive: Tezos × RIO: A community campaign listed on the TTCrowd calendar.
Endless Possibilitez: A TzG game project seeking community attention and support.
It's an interesting mix, and a reminder that the creative side of Tezos extends well beyond individual NFT releases. Projects like these often depend on people discovering them early sharing them with friends, and contributing where they can. The details and progress of each campaign are worth checking individually, particularly if you're considering getting involved.
After reading Joshua's article about paying it forward, it's nice to have a few concrete examples of where community members can look for creative projects to explore. If something catches your interest, take a moment to learn about the people behind it and what they're hoping to accomplish.
What Happens to Tezos Layer 1 After Tezos X?
While community projects give us plenty to explore, there's also a bigger technical question worth revisiting as development around Tezos X continues. We've spent several recent editions discussing Quantumnet, post-quantum security, and the experimental work happening at the protocol level, but with Tezos X designed to support more application activity through its own execution environment, what role will Layer 1 play as that architecture develops?
The important distinction is between executing application activity and providing the underlying security and settlement infrastructure. Tezos X is intended to support a more versatile environment for applications, including different execution runtimes, while Layer 1 continues to provide the foundation on which those systems depend. That includes consensus, economic security, and the protocol mechanisms that support the wider network.
For bakers, this means the work happening at Layer 1 remains essential even as more activity moves into additional execution environments. The research we've been following around post-quantum signatures, consensus, and data availability is relevant for precisely that reason. Improving the security and reliability of the underlying network has implications for applications built above it, even when users aren't interacting with Layer 1 directly.
It's also worth remembering that the Tezos X roadmap involves several moving parts, and the eventual experience will depend on how those components come together. Wallets, explorers, developer tools, and the way applications interact with the network all matter. As Yann Regis-Gianas and Zaynah Dargaye discussed during last week's Tuesday | TezDay episode, strong protocol foundations need to be accompanied by tools that people can actually use.
For anyone who's been following the Tezos X discussions and wondering where Layer 1 fits into the picture, it's a useful subject to revisit. The applications may be what people interact with most often, but the underlying network still has a substantial job to do.
Arts & Culture
VAULTED Season One: An Open Call for Artists on Tezos
There's another opportunity worth sharing with artists this week. Art on Tezos has partnered with ART & VAULT for the first season of VAULTED, an acquisition initiative focused on contemporary digital art. The open call, which began in late September, invites artists to submit available works for consideration for the ART & VAULT collection, with five artworks ultimately selected for acquisition.
One of the appealing aspects of the initiative is its openness to different artistic approaches. There's no prescribed theme, and artists working across different styles and mediums are welcome to submit still or moving-image works. Eligible artworks must either be minted on Tezos or remain unminted, while pieces previously minted on other blockchains aren't eligible. That gives artists plenty of creative freedom while keeping the acquisition focused on work associated with Tezos.
VAULTED Season One is created and curated by ART & VAULT, with Art on Tezos serving as the acquisition partner and additional support from HUG and Art Domains. Artists must submit their work through HUG to be considered, so it's important to follow the official application process. With submissions open until December 1, there's still time for interested artists to review the requirements and decide which work they'd like to put forward.
We've followed several acquisition initiatives involving Tezos artists over the past year, and it's always nice to see another opportunity for their work to enter a curated collection. With five acquisitions planned and no fixed artistic theme, VAULTED gives artists from different creative backgrounds an opportunity to participate. If you've got an eligible piece you've been considering submitting, this could be worth exploring.
Submission deadline: December 1, 2026, at 12:00 PM GMT-5.
Now Streaming
TezTalks Live: Ida Belle on Collecting Art, Building TezCity, and Supporting Artists
As we wrap up this week's edition, there's one more conversation worth sharing, particularly after spending so much time exploring the relationships between artists and collectors. This week on TezTalks Live, host Brandon Langston welcomes Ida Belle, a Montreal-based collector, generative art enthusiast, and the creator of TezCity, the new social platform we introduced in last week's Baking Sheet.
Ida's story begins long before TezCity, with a family tradition of collecting and a growing fascination with generative art. Over the years, she's spent considerable time discovering artists, collecting their work, and getting to know the people behind it. Those experiences eventually inspired her to build something she'd wanted to see in the community: a place where artists and collectors could connect, share work, and support one another through memberships, exclusive content, and tips in tez.
Throughout the conversation, Brandon and Ida explore what it took to bring TezCity to life, how artists are responding, and what she hopes the platform might become. It's an interesting look at how someone who started out collecting artwork eventually found herself building a platform for the artists she believes in.
It's also a perfect conversation to end this week's newsletter. From Joshua Goldstein's reflections on paying it forward to the creative projects and acquisition opportunities we've explored. This week's issue has been largely about the people who make the Tezos community what it is. Ida's story is another example of how those relationships can lead to something new, and it's well worth a listen.
Watch the full episode on YouTube.
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