When Tezos launched they promised to be something different with the ability to "bake" your own TEZOs - I remember the Coinbase Earn tutorial on it, but never really understood it to be honest. It seemed like a solid token which would easily maintain its predicted $2 value (and this is still well within reach of its ATH, even though it's performance level is much lower).
On the whole it has had a turbulent journey, marked by both technical promise and strategic missteps. It did have a brief resurgence in Summer 2025 (which I was able to leverage) when the price broke above a descending trendline that had held since January 2025. This technical breakout was confirmed by strong volume and a decisive candle close above $0.75 and was the result of a bullish indicator alignment: that made the price move above all major exponential moving averages, which is a classic bullish signal. This alignment lifted confidence among traders and as analysts noted a surge in institutional and “smart money” accumulation, there was a feeling that larger investors were positioning for a longer-term move. Despite this prices crashed again, along with most of the cryptoverse in October 2025
Since its launch it hasn't been plain sailing for TEZOs that has suffered a number of challenges even from its outset. Despite being launched with a novel self-amending blockchain model, its rollout was delayed by internal conflict between founders and the Tezos Foundation which in turn led to lawsuits and reputational damage. Distracted, the developers missed a number of adoption opportunities, even though their token offered an innovative energy-efficient proof-of-stake design and smart contract capability. With all this going on it struggled to attract developers and users especially when compared to Ethereum, Solana, or newer chains like Aptos.
Yet another example of a chain being squeezed out by other chains.
Much of the problem with Tezos is that it lacks a clear identity or convincing use case; even its NFT push didn’t gain the traction that was expected when the whole fad (forgive me I am an NFT sceptic) took off. Furthermore its DeFi ecosystem remains small.
One of the things that has concerned me about the whole TEZOs project is its ability to pull off massive sponsorship deals which causes me to question their stewardship of investors funds. Their logo was emblazened all over the Mercedes F1 Car and Manchester United's football shirt (maybe their recent failures are an indicator of what's going on at TEZOs). For a time they also sponsored Red Bull Racing but were forced to end its deal prematurely in 2022, Its partnership with Manchester United expired in June 2025. Deals like the Manchester United one reportedly cost £24 million per year, a heavy drain on any funding source.
These exits suggest either strategic pivots or financial strain.
It still begs the question of where the money came from in the first place for such high profile sponsorships. Much of the funding came from a massive War Chest which raised over $230 million in its 2017 initial coin offering (ICO). This made it one of the largest at the time. Furthermore much of this was held in crypto assets that appreciated significantly during bull markets. Other funds came from the Tezos Foundation, based in Switzerland; a large treasury that funded ecosystem growth, grants, and marketing (including sponsorships). It seemed that what they were attempting to do, in partnering with Manchester United and Mercedes F1, was to position Tezos as a mainstream blockchain brand and especially for its NFT and Web3 initiatives. I am hodling a large amount of TEZOs and I do worry about their future for the reasons I have mentioned above, which to me looked a bit too much like financial gambling at worst, or financial mismanagement at best. The lack of popular uptake is still a concern and it is a currency I plan to dump as soon as it is financially viable to do so.
Remember we often learn more from our mistakes than our successes.
As always stay safe and well my friends.
