Legacy Edition: A brief history of Zenon

9 min readJun 5, 2022

One way to tell the direction a heavenly body is moving in is to ascertain where it was then, and where it is now. Since most humans lack divine omniscience (except for Peter Shiff), they must formulate their predictions based on intuition, reasoning and past history. For that reason I believe there is great value in examining the past. Know your enemy, and you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. Know your crypto, and you need not fear the result of a hundred dips.

Disclaimer: This article is not financial advice and may contain speculation.

A long time ago, in a metaverse far, far away …

A group of fine young men were at the gym, ripped bodies glistening with sweat from the exertion of knocking out multiple pull-ups in a row. They tried to stay focused on their routine, but were so excited about the dinner party afterwards with their beautiful wives that they couldn’t stop checking their watches.

Just kidding.

An odd bunch of apes, chads and OGs were alone in their apartments, unshaven and disgruntled. Some of them had red eyes from a ten-hour gaming session fuelled by angst and energy drinks. Others had red eyes simply from crying about how they’d been called disappointments by their mothers for their obsession with “magical internet money”.

As the legend goes, a particularly bored ape was scrolling, scrolling — scrolling further than anyone had ever scrolled before. His social calendar empty, he figured he might as well stay online until his unpaid internet bill caught up to him (paying bills on-time carried the opportunity cost of missing the next Bitcoin). He vaguely wondered if $1000 was the top for Bitcoin and if he should have sold when it was — and then something stopped him dead in his tracks …

X-stakes

in 2018, apes discover bitcoin forum post announcing a new project
project X-stakes; apes send 1 Bitcoin in exchange for 5000 Zenon
as long as they run their node, their 1 BTC is returned in full over 2 years
website is very slick, BTC is returned; apes suspect Zenon has deep pockets
team is anon; there can be no true decentralisation with public figures
marketing only via word of mouth, avoids whales centralising it
no pre-sale/VCs; this was a fair launch for the sake of decentralisation

Human Ingenuity is a Marvel of the Universe

First man make fire. Next man make wheel. Third man make leaderless BFT dual-ledger with a generic DAG called a meta DAG for the consensus and block-lattice for storing transactional data. Say what??

Noam Chomsky once wrote that human language is a unique phenomenon without significant analogue in the animal world. I respectfully disagree; there is communication between ants, monkeys and dolphins that is on its own slow path of evolution, and given enough time and funny plants, who knows what will happen? To call it insignificant is a judgement call he had no right to make. I would, however, say that Zenon’s technology is a unique phenomenon without significant analogue in the crypto world …

Technological Innovation

Zenon publishes a draft whitepaper outlining the concepts for their tech
it examines the pitfalls of traditional blockchains, DAGs and block-lattices
suggests a new type of architecture to overcome these limitations
proposes a 2-ledger system called the Network of Momentum
generic DAG for consensus + block-lattice for storing transactional data
uses PoW + PoS
unique solution to the blockchain quadrilemma (fees are a problem too!)
feeless transactions via PoW or “fuse” QSR for “plasma”
code will soon be entirely open-source to empower global contributors

Birds of a Feather Flock Together

Over time, what was once just a handful of core members and hardcore fans became a thriving community of people from all over the world. Angel investors, consultants, bankers, teachers, software engineers, general crypto OGs … the allure of Zenon cast a wide net indeed.

From this, Zenon began to develop a rich subculture. On twitter a mysterious anon account tweets constant Zenon-centric poetry. In the telegram top-notch banter goes back and forth all day. New developments are discussed and theorised and obsessed over — invariably becoming memes and incorporated into the Zenon lore.

New language is invented. Expressing deep frustration and angst over a long period of waiting while your faith is tested to the max? You say “zoon”. Someone presents a compelling argument grounded in wild speculation as to the origins of Zenon? You call them “schizzo”. You’re leaving the telegram to look at pics of anime girls alone in your apartment? You claim to be with a girl, a real one. (Not that you would understand). Someone raises a concern which may or may not be valid, but can be construed as negativity towards our beloved Zenon? You reply “ngmi”.

Currently, there is a migration towards using discord rather than telegram (because telegram can’t scale well to a large number of people and many important messages are lost from the daily volume of messages). A good point was raised by one member, stating that no normal person has time to read through every single message sent. One place, probably discord, will be the main reliable source of news, events, updates and social chatter. But given the diversity of our bunch, I can see Zaliens colonising every planet in the social media universe.

Testing, Testing; 1, 2, 3

Zenon private testnet launches Feb 2021
Zenon public testnet launches Mar 2021
Zenon public incentivised testnet from Jun 2021
participants earn PP later redeemable for QSR (touch my PP)
Zenon listens and responds to feedback; team strives for perfection

A Huge Promise Made

Zenon will be interoperable with native bitcoin
the Network of Momentum is fee-less and fast/scalable
the Syrius wallet will be non-custodial and open-source
the legendary Bitcoin whitepaper dreams a dream still to be fully realised

A Message to Humans

Mid-November of 2021, a message was beamed down for humans.

A based community member made an article exploring the limitations of the lightning network, mainly with regards to how the watchtowers can be limiting for decentralisation. His proposed solution is very interesting to say the least. I’ll include links for further reading at the end.

Because of how comprehensive the article was, it touched on many topics. One of those things caught my attention and got me thinking. The article was discussing the block size wars for Bitcoin back in the day, where many felt that the limited block size was best. Despite a smaller volume of transactions, the small block size meant you could run nodes and validate blocks using an old phone that’s been dropped a dozen times. This makes global adoption more realistic, otherwise you’d have to ask and trust other nodes to account for your money, which clearly is antithetical to a trust-less and decentralised ideal.

To quote a line from that paragraph: “In creating the most trustless, decentralised, and secure network of value, we want everyone to be able to run a node and verify their own transactions.”

In the Syrius wallet, public nodes are available to join. But users have been repeatedly, vigorously, encouraged to run their own node to verify their own transactions. At the moment it is a bit technical to do, but the devs have stated that soon it will be in-built into the Syrius wallet — soon it will be as simple as clicking a button (as it should be for the sake of mass adoption). Zoon.

The anonymous team, the fair launch, the encouragement to run your own node, the love for bitcoin, the repeated efforts to involve and grow the community … smells like OG Bitcoiners. Deeply principled and weird as hell.

Bitcoin’s Taproot Upgrade

taproot goes live 14/11/2021
gives Bitcoin better privacy, scalability and smart contract functionality
Zenon prioritises defi with BTC; smart contracts are on their way
based fans eagerly anticipate block 709 632
uber-based ASCII coding art present on said block (resembles Zenon logo)

The FUD Bomb

Late into the public testnet, just prior to the taproot upgrade, the Zenon community was hit by a devastating FUD attack. A purple-haired hooligan stormed into multiple chats, spouting insanity yes, but also waving around his clout. The Zenon ideals were assaulted, our virtual homes set on fire. Even once they were put out, the damage done was extensive. Many Zaliens were lost that day, their faith stretched to the breaking point. It’s said that even after extensive therapy, some members still wake up in the middle of the night, babbling in insecure jibberish until they can come to their senses.

This particular FUD was probably not financially motivated (story for another time), but usually it is. FUD stands for fear, uncertainty and doubt. It’s a form of psychological assault which magnifies doubt and undermines confidence simultaneously in the target’s mind if successful. It’s a useful way to manipulate the price of an asset by leveraging the psychology aspect of the market. Whales orchestrate bad news; leads to people panic selling. Whales now enjoy a brief window where they can slurp some cheap coins.

I suppose I am one of the lucky ones. I am a devout believer, my faith unshakeable. I saw the whole thing as a negligible speed-bump which gave us a source of hilarious memes and a juicy dip to buy. Master your mind and you master your reality.

The BSC Hack

Now I feel bad for dramatising our run-in with the purple-haired keyboard warrior. This could have been something absolutely devastating for the project.

Instead, something amazing happened.

The liquidity providers who lost all of their funds? Most projects would take months to fix the situation, only offering partial compensation (if they offered any at all). Zenon fixed the situation within a WEEK, which also included compensating the liquidity providers in FULL (actually, they gave them MORE than what they lost, possibly as a way to say sorry for the mental distress caused by the unfortunate hack).

It’s somewhat ironic that such a malicious hack actually led to investors being stunned at how skilled, efficient, generous and genuine the Zenon team is. Their integrity with handling the whole thing inspired confidence to new heights for many of the long-time members. And as a sign that Zenon is indeed a “self-evolving superorganism” the upcoming 2-way BSC bridge has had its code released publicly, with the invitation for the community to also pool funds to audit it if they so choose before the bridge goes live.

The Big Bang

This occurred when Chad banged your mum. Note to self, edit out this immature joke later, crypto audiences are primarily grumpy boomers. Open with something formal, yet catchy. And don’t forget to buy beef liver, I read online that its nutritional profile solves every problem in your life.

The alphanet went live 24/11/2021. The culmination of many years hard work, blood, sweat and tears. I’m sure Zenon’s developers, all three of them, took a well-deserved rest that day. Zenon’s twenty graphic designers though? They were in a frenzy with a sick video that day, compulsory watching for every Zalien!

Unizen tournament

round 1: Zenon BEATS Ethereum (ETH was disqualified for botting)
in Dec 2021, Zenon wins the Unizen tournament of alts 2.0
Unizen and ZenX labs are supporting inception of a project built on Zenon
Zenon is announced as one of four cryptos for the supernode program
Unizen’s supernode program runs validator nodes and provides liquidity
customised pair ZNN/ZCX is on its way

Of interesting note, the final round of the tournament took place in a telegram chat. There was some BS official reason given, but the real reason is because of the comment wars which took place the previous round. They wanted to contain any splash damage. The final was bloody as well, it was a real clash of intellects from both sides. I like to think that this reverberated to the wider crypto twitter audience … making them thirst for a good fight. In fact, not long after, a furore over the centralised “web3” broke out. Some big players may have been taking a keen interest in the tournament proceedings it seems. At any rate, Unizen + ZenX labs are no slouch, having worked with Elon Musk to help launch his doge-1 satellite.

What’s Next?

We’ve taken a walk through Zenon history. We visited important milestones, cultural landmarks, triumphs and adversities. We’ve walked from point A, to point B; forming a vector which has both magnitude and direction. All things considered, I’d say the magnitude is huge, and the direction ever-green. This is one vector I’m going to be riding for the longterm, it truly is one of a kind. It also brings hot anticipation for what’s coming next … (NFTs, Apps, BTC smart contracts, Strategic Partnerships; fun fun fun!)