Horizen (formerly Zencash) was created following a fork of Zclassic. This new network was therefore not financed by an ICO (Initial Coin Offering). ZCL holders, Zclassic parts, were able to obtain ZENs, the new parts of the Horizen network. Indeed, each user who owned ZCLs before the 110,000 block was issued automatically received an equivalent amount in ZEN. In this new system, 8.5% of the parts were kept for the development and maintenance of the platform.
What is Horizen?
Horizen is a blockchain platform with state-of-the-art privacy technology that allows everyone to maintain confidentiality and full control over their digital identity. The system allows completely anonymous exchanges thanks to cryptographic processes and an advanced technology called “Zero knowledge”. This project was created to address the weaknesses of some existing virtual currencies that do not guarantee anonymity in transactions. The Horizen platform allows real uses in addition to the ZEN token, including the ability to chat privately with other people.
The team is working towards the day when anyone will be able to create and generate revenue from privacy-based applications on the Horizen platform. Horizen currently offers a system of “securenodes” and “supernodes” to decentralize its network as much as possible, while paying network node operators.
How does the ZEN token work?
Horizen pursues the objectives inherited from Zcash, and aims to protect the privacy of its users. For example, Horizen incorporates secure messaging and secure transaction capabilities. These improved features fully protect the identity of users and ensure the security of their data.
The whole system is based on zk-SNARKs technology coupled with a decentralized infrastructure. If you would like to learn more about this technology, Zcash’s website includes a very detailed explanatory article on this subject.
Horizen also uses a network of independent and independent securenodes and supernodes with different objectives. These nodes have complete copies of the blockchain stored in their memory, but each allows a different part of the network to operate, so to put it simply, securenodes, or secure nodes, focus only on “classic” transactions, i.e. money transfers.
In addition, supernodes, or super-nodes, assume not only this function of validating traditional transactions, but also a function of validating transactions relating to intelligent contracts and other applications existing on the network. Thanks to the supernode system, Horizen is therefore able to present itself as an application platform, instead of a simple cryptographic currency.
The disadvantage of supernodes remains, however, that the implementation requirements are more stringent: while a secure node requires only 42 ZEN and 92% availability (among others), a super node requires 500 ZEN and 96% server availability. Super nodes are therefore clearly less easy to set up and more expensive.
Technical specifications
Horizen uses a hash algorithm called Equihash, used by Zcash in particular. The maximum number of coins in circulation will be 21 million, like Bitcoin.
The duration of a block is 150 seconds and gives a reward of 12.5 ZEN. At the beginning of the project, 88% of the rewards went to the miners, 8.5% to the team’s cash reserves and 3.5% to the securenodes and supernodes.
From now on, 20% will go to the people running the super and secure nodes (10% for each), cash flow will get 20% and miners 60%. This change was made to encourage people to run more super and secure nodes, which increases network security.
Comparison between conventional and Horizen masternodes
In order to understand in detail how masternodes work, we invite you to consult our dedicated article: What is a MasterNode? How does it work?
The main difference between traditional masternodes and Horizen nodes is to block a minimum number of tokens outside the network in order to create artificial price inflation, keep an entry barrier accessible to as many people as possible and guarantee maximum network security.
Horizen nodes are rewarded for participating in the following actions:
Verify that all network communications are encrypted between nodes and wallets.
Run the Horizen blockchain.
Provide trusted certificates based on encryption for connections to the storage portfolio.
Horizen nodes maintain a certain level of security and performance. This allows the system to remain distributed and resist computer attacks such as DDoS.
In order to rotate a Horizen node, it will be necessary to provide either 42 ZEN or 500 ZEN. This will allow a large number of people to own a secure node, if not a super node. For example, the DASH project requires a total of 1,000 parts to run a central node, which in January 2018 was more than the price of some houses.
Current and future applications
Several projects are currently being studied and developed. Horizen will offer several applications around its blockchain to ensure the protection of the privacy of its users:
ZenDAO: Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) as a voting mechanism to allocate cash funds to further develop the Horizen platform. As of April 2019, this organization is not yet available.
ZenHide: domain fronting to bypass censorship and guarantee free access to information. In other words, the concealment of the recipient of communications, when the recipient is censored by any authority.
ZenPub: Allows users to anonymously publish data, documents and media in general in a way that resists censorship.
Zenchat: allows conversations with messages of up to 512 characters, which are encrypted by well-known algorithms known as AES-256.
Governance as a Service (GaaS): opening up their governance model and platform to allow other individuals to develop their projects.
Decentralized Exchange (DEX): allows tokens to be exchanged without an intermediary.
Decentralized bank: possibility to borrow and make loans thanks to the blockchain.
Peer-to-peer insurance: pooling the resources of several individuals in order to obtain better deals with insurers.
Team and partners
The team behind the Horizen project is composed of 37 people. Here are some of the team members:
Rob Viglione — Team Manager: Rob holds an MBA in finance and marketing as well as a PMP certification. A former physicist and mathematician, he has worked at Bitshares, BlockPay, Zclassic, Seasteading and Bitgate. He is currently doing a doctorate in cryptofinance and gives courses on crypto-currencies.
Rolf Versluis — Co-founder: Nuclear engineer for the US Navy, he co-founded Horizen and advises them. He has also founded / managed many companies in the IT industry.
Alberto Garoffolo — Director of Research and Development: Alberto has 15 years of experience in programming with Java, C and C++ languages. In recent years, he has been a CTO in a startup, programming the infrastructure and building a team to create video engagement solutions.
Rosaria Pabst — Operations and Marketing Director: Rosario has 12 years of experience as a project manager for satellites, aircraft and IT systems. She has successfully demonstrated her expertise in all aspects of project management by combining the advantages of each team member.
Luca Cermelli — Project Manager: Luca has a Master’s degree in Economics and is passionate about mathematics and new technologies. He worked as a Community Manager in a video game company of 5,000 people and as a Marketing Manager for a company operating in the IT sector.
Rowan Stone — Business Development Manager:. Rowan owns a medium-sized company that mines crypto-currencies in Scotland. He also has experience as a mechanical engineer, in IT and as a sales manager.
32 other members: Horizen still has 32 other people on its development team: list of all Horizen project members.
Partners :
The project has also succeeded in building interesting partnerships:
Code Particle and Infopulse, two companies that develop computer programs.
Iohk Contract, a company specialized in research and development.
Xeeda, a company that creates wallets for mobile phones.
Advantages
Has an extremely decentralized network. At present there are more than 23,000 securenodes and 3,000 supernodes.
Excellent team in several countries around the world.
A very active community.
Big partners.
Disadvantages
The implementation of Securenode and Supernode is more complicated than for a classic masternode, the criteria to be respected being more stringent.
The future of anonymous crypto-currencies is uncertain, as some governments have clearly stated their opposition to this type of crypto-active.
How to buy Horizen (ZEN)?
To buy ZEN, you must go to Binance. It is also possible to buy ZEN on Bittrex or Cryptopia.
Other exchange sites also allow the purchase of ZEN tokens, but for security reasons, we advise you to buy them on one of these 3 exchange sites.
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How to store your ZENs?
The safest way to store Horizen tokens is to use a hardware wallet. These are electronic wallets in the form of USB keys. The 2 best known are the Nano S Ledger and the TREZOR.
Since the Horizen is not an ERC-20 token, it is not possible to store ZENs on wallets such as MyEtherWallet (MEW).
There are also a multitude of wallets that allow you to store your ZEN parts. Simply go to the storage portfolios page on the official website: List of the different storage portfolios to secure your ZEN parts.
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Useful links
Website
Reddit
Whitepaper
Twitter
Notes and opinions on the Horizen (ZEN)
The team behind Horizen is important and appropriate to manage a project of this size and comes from all over the world. The user community behind Horizen is also important and its members are strong supporters of the project.
The 23,000 securenodes and 3,000 supernodes guarantee network security by making any attempt at a computer attack quite difficult. In addition, this number is expected to continue to grow since revenues to maintain these securenodes and supernodes have increased from 3.5% to 20% of the rewards offered when a block is validated.
Ensuring the privacy of users by making transactions anonymous is a noble cause. However, this is not really the view of many governments who (wrongly) see this anonymity as a way to launder money and finance terrorism. In addition, there are other anonymous crypto-currencies whose capitalization is higher than ZEN and which also have a large community behind the project.
If you want to invest and buy ZEN tokens, you should carefully monitor the regulators’ positioning regarding anonymous crypto-actives and do not hesitate to immediately resell your ZEN tokens in case of bad news.
⚠️ This is not investment advice. Always do your own research before investing.
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