Rio Has Passed Quorum: The 18th Protocol Upgrade Is Official

After a successful vote and strong support from the Tezos baker community, the Rio protocol upgrade has officially passed the final quorum requirement, clearing the path for activation. With the Promotion period now closed and quorum surpassed, Rio is locked in and set to go live by April 30th as it enters the adoption phase.

This marks the 18th protocol upgrade in Tezos' on-chain governance history, and once again, it happened without forks, delays, or disruption.

What Will Rio Bring?

Rio introduces several changes designed to make the network faster, more responsive, and better optimized for scaling:

• Shorter cycles: Tezos network cycles are being reduced from three days to just one, improving the speed of staking updates, reward distribution, and governance responsiveness.

• DAL participation incentives: 10% of participation rewards will now go to bakers contributing to the Data Availability Layer (DAL), supporting rollup scalability and encouraging network-wide support for L2 activity.

• Stronger validator responsiveness: Bakers will now be marked inactive after two days of missed activity instead of eight, leading to a more agile and secure validator set.

• Gas adjustments: Wallet-to-wallet transaction gas costs will increase slightly to reflect storage needs, but smart contract fees remain unchanged.

Together, these changes sharpen the protocol’s staking mechanics, reinforce Tezos' scalability roadmap, and improve the experience for both bakers and developers.

Bakers: Time to Update to Octez v22.0

To prepare for Rio’s activation, all bakers and node operators should upgrade to Octez version 22.0. This new release includes support for Rio as well as important updates to baking operations and tooling:

• DAL flag is now required: The --without-dal option is mandatory for protocol-dependent baker executables.

• Experimental delegation rights calculation tool: A new RPC endpoint allows bakers and delegation platforms to better understand how delegators contribute to consensus rights.

• Protocol-agnostic baker (experimental): Octez v22 introduces a new optional baking executable that dynamically adapts to the active protocol. For now, it’s only recommended for testnets like Ghostnet and Rionet.

• Improved Debian packages: Operators using Debian-based systems should follow updated steps to handle package overwrites cleanly.

A full changelog, install instructions, and release details can be found here:
Octez v22.0 Release Notes

With Rio now locked in, Tezos is once again proving how coordinated, in-protocol upgrades keep the network moving forward without compromise. Get ready for activation on April 30.

Lyzi Raises $1.4M to Scale Tezos-Powered Crypto Payments

Following the momentum of the Rio protocol upgrade, Tezos continues to attract real-world adoption, this time at the checkout counter. Lyzi, a crypto payments platform built on Tezos, has raised $1.42 million in a seed funding round to expand its crypto-for-retail infrastructure.

The raise included participation from notable angel investors Christopher Grilhault des Fontaines, founder of Dfns, and Jean-Luc Bernard, founder of Astek.

For those unfamiliar, Lyzi enables merchants to accept crypto at point-of-sale and receive fiat payouts directly to their bank accounts, making it easy for retailers to onboard digital payments without handling the volatility or complexity themselves. It’s designed for real-world use, from e-commerce stores to in-store checkouts, and its entire architecture is rooted in Tezos L1.

From Layer 1 to Etherlink

With fresh capital in hand, Lyzi is preparing to launch on Etherlink, Tezos’ EVM-compatible Layer 2 rollup. This will allow the platform to operate at higher speeds and lower costs while offering compatibility with Ethereum-based tooling and wallets.

As CEO Damien Patureaux put it:

Building on Etherlink marks a major step in Lyzi’s effort to scale across more markets and unlock new use cases for crypto payments. With retail adoption heating up and Tezos rollup infrastructure maturing quickly, the timing couldn’t be better.

Learn more about Lyzi and their merchant payment network here: lyzi.io/en

This Week in the Tezos Ecosystem

Exaion Joins Etherlink as Validator and Hosts a Tezos Soirée in Paris

Validators joining the network is business as usual but this particular one deserves a closer look.

Exaion, a digital infrastructure provider backed by EDF Group, one of Europe’s largest energy companies, has officially joined Etherlink as a validator. Known for deploying high-performance, energy-efficient data centers across Europe and North America, Exaion isn’t the type to follow hype cycles. Their involvement signals a deeper, more deliberate commitment to the Tezos stack.

Already a corporate baker on Tezos since 2020, Exaion now steps into a new role validating the Tezos Smart Rollup-powered Layer 2. On Etherlink, validators like Exaion confirm transactions and publish commitments back to Tezos L1 ensuring the rollup operates securely and transparently. It's technical work, but it also speaks volumes: they’re backing the network not just in principle, but with real infrastructure.

Etherlink continues to attract new builders and projects from DeFi platforms like Spiko to payment and RWA experiments. With Exaion now validating, the network gains not only technical support, but credibility from a heavyweight outside the crypto-native space.

As Arthur Breitman, co-founder of Tezos, noted:

To mark the occasion, Nomadic Labs and Exaion co-hosted a Tezos Soirée during Paris Blockchain Week, gathering builders, ecosystem partners, and community members for an evening of conversations and connection. It was a fitting celebration for a network steadily gaining ground—one validator, and one meetup, at a time.

Apple Farm: Episode 2 Brings New APRs and Stablecoin Incentives

After two busy weeks of onchain yield hunting, Apple Farm has entered its second chapter and the incentives just got a serious update.

Episode 2 of Apple Farm is now live on Etherlink, with new mechanics, clearer returns, and a stronger focus on stablecoin opportunities. The rewards program is shifting with the market, and so is its messaging: 1 Apple now officially equals $0.001, and instead of abstract scores, participants will now see classic APRs displayed for each opportunity.

This new level of transparency gives users the ability to calculate expected returns in real time, all while encouraging deeper participation in the Etherlink ecosystem. And with Etherlink already climbing past $10M TVL, the timing couldn’t be better.

What’s New in Episode 2?

The second episode comes with a number of critical changes aimed at attracting more stable liquidity from users across other chains:

• Stablecoin Pools Take Center Stage: New opportunities include supplying USDC, USDT, and WBTC on Superlend, alongside existing ones like XTZ and tokenized T-bills.

• APR Overhaul: Forget the opaque "score" system—opportunities now display APR, giving DeFi users a familiar, predictable way to measure their rewards.

• Uranium.io Doubles Down: Daily rewards for holding xU3o8 have been more than doubled, from 910K to 1.9M Apples per day, continuing to position tokenized uranium as one of the most attractive yield sources on Etherlink.

• New Liquidity Pools on IguanaDEX: Added incentives for providing liquidity to the mTBILL/USDC and mBASIS/USDC pairs, diversifying exposure to both synthetic and stable assets.

• Hanji Gets a Boost: Trading rewards have increased from 0.3 to 1 Apple per $1 traded, after data showed the original rewards weren’t keeping up with vault demand. Hanji's trading vault rewards were also adjusted to better reflect capacity limits.

Waitlist Boost Update

On April 9th, Etherlink distributed the long-anticipated waitlist boost. Anyone who joined the Apple Farm waitlist and claimed Apples before the deadline received a 10% boost on their Episode 1 farming totals—capped at a whopping 500,000 Apples for the most active users.

With APR-focused farming, expanded stablecoin incentives, and a transparent reward model, Episode 2 is shaping up to be a pivotal step in bringing deeper DeFi activity to Etherlink.

Head to applefarm.xyz to explore the latest opportunities and start farming.

Uranium Miner Game Goes Live: Tap to Stack, Refine, and Own

The team at Uranium.io, the world’s first on-chain uranium marketplace built on Etherlink, Tezos’ high-performance Layer 2, has just launched a mobile game with a real-world twist: Uranium Miner.

Uranium Miner turns daily taps into uranium shards, which can be refined into ownership claims for physical uranium safely stored in a regulated facility. It’s part of Uranium.io’s broader mission to make commodity markets more accessible, starting with one of the most important resources on the planet.

Here’s how it works:

• Tap daily to collect uranium shards

• Stack 100,000 shards to refine into physical uranium

• Keep your streak going, the longer you mine, the faster you earn

Built on Tezos via Etherlink, Uranium.io leverages the security, speed, and composability of the network to unlock a new kind of on-chain real-world asset. With Uranium Miner, that access now fits in your pocket.

Start mining: geturanium.io

🔴 Now Streaming: Beats, Blockchain & Building Tez Tones with Hashbrown

This week on TezTalks Radio, Marissa Trew chats with Hashbrown, founder of Tez Tones, about his journey from running a recording studio to building a thriving music and art community on Tezos.

Our special guest is Hashbrown, fusing sound, self-expression, and the spirit of collaboration on Tezos.

🔍 In this episode, we’ll explore:

The Origin of Tez Tones: – How a passion for music and community sparked a competitive, collaborative platform for artists.

Creating TezCon: – Why Hashbrown set out to unite the West Coast NFT and art scenes through a Tezos-powered gathering.

Art as Expression: – The role creativity plays in Hashbrown’s life and how Tezos enables new forms of artistic freedom.

Community Over Everything: – Why the future of Tez Tones is rooted in keeping the process fun and the community strong.

And Yes… the Name: – The unexpected story behind “Hashbrown” and how it stuck.

Watch the full episode on YouTube.