On January 11, 2024, Horizen officially shared the results of its community making the decision to stop being a private coin. Obtaining 99% approval, removing of the shielded pools on its mainchain became a must-do. This decision aimed to mitigate regulatory threats, eliminate technical debt, and drive ecosystem growth.
This February 7, 2024, the shielded pools will be permanently deactivated thanks to the hardfork of the mainchain that Horizen will carry out to no longer be officially a private currency.
It is essential to recognize the primary obstacles faced by private currencies:
- They cannot be used in conjunction with smart contracts.
- Some cryptocurrency exchanges prohibit their usage.
- They lack global legal recognition.
Given these challenges, the Horizen community began questioning the philosophy behind and the reasons for Horizen’s shift in perspective. Confusion arose among those who were unsure whether Horizen was still a private currency.
This discussion will elucidate the three reasons why Horizen should no longer be considered private.
Reason 1.- (Zcash → Zclassic → ZENcash)
The origins of the Horizen blockchain contribute to the initial confusion. Co-founders Rolf Versluis and Rob Viglione initiated their journey with a Zcash fork called Zclassic. Motivated by cryptographic privacy, they forked Zclassic and utilized its anonymity features to lay the foundation for their own project, the predecessor of Horizen — ZENcash.
One feature inherited from ZENcash was the “Shielded/Private Address” functionality, allowing addresses to keep transaction values private on the mainchain, ensuring user privacy and anonymity.
However, this feature, integral to the blockchain network, was subject to elimination due to its classification as a technical feature that classified Horizen as a private currency. This posed a risk of being delisted from the bigers regulated exchanges (how happened witk OKEX on Korea) and the censorship on crypto.com, despite the decentralized products launched in 2023 as part of the Horizen ecosystem expansion.
Disabling private transactions was not a proposal created overnight. the Horizen ecosystem had foreseen these changes for over a year, providing time for users to adapt and avoid losses. The decision to remove the shielded pools marked a shift in the root philosophy of Horizen, moving from securing transactions in anonymity to a new focus while ensuring the ecosystem’s growth.
Reason 2.- (EON)
EON, the Ethereum virtual machine developed by Horizen, is a fully EVM-compatible sidechain and smart contract platform designed for efficient scalability. It seamlessly integrates Ethereum-based dApps into the rapidly growing Horizen ecosystem using the Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) and zkSNARKs, enabling permissionless cross-chain communications.
The objective is to create opportunities for developers to access superior tools, providing flexibility and interoperability for greater reach. Security is ensured through the robust decentralization of the Horizen main chain, support and technical guidance by community devs and incentive to create on our network
The question now is this: how will this whole process be carried out?
Reason 3.- (DAO)
Horizen introduces its new governance platform to operate its public chain — a decentralized autonomous organization directed by stakeholders. Anyone can freely publish and vote on proposals not only development projects, but any idea that enriches and contributes to Horizen
The platform aims to promote the use of EON, provide security to stakeholders, encourage the use of $ZEN, and facilitate the integration of ideas into the ecosystem. Contributors can finance their projects, proposals, and work time through the treasury if voters approve.
In Conclusion
Horizen’s roadmap has consistently envisioned becoming a secure, community-driven public blockchain. This transition, although challenging for those who value privacy and anonymity, is a necessary step in creating a not restricted ecosystem.
Keep in mind: Supporting privacy features on the mainchain level is not the only way to offer privacy capability for the Horizen ecosystem. Horizen’s mission is to ensure data integrity and privacy freedom by enabling real-world use cases. Horizen’s privacy vision relies on a secure and decentralized mainchain that supports Horizen’s sidechain platform to focus on more scalable and resilient data privacy. The purpose of the deprecation of the mainchain shielded pools is to de-risk the Horizen vision. (READ)
If you have any questions about the Horizen hardfork you can open a support ticket via Discord:
