Horizen

Horizen's sidechain platform focuses on decentralization, data privacy and enabling developers to custom build their own blockchains. Horizen’s mission is to ensure data integrity and privacy freedom by enabling real-world blockchain use cases.

One of the key metrics of the Horizen network is the total number of active Secure and Super Nodes, which exceeds 40,000 - more than Bitcoin and Ethereum nodes combined.

Zen Blockchain Foundation (ZBF) - is a Delaware taxable, non-profit corporation whose purpose is to develop and maintain the Horizen ecoystem. Historically, most protocol development has been largely handled by the ZBF. ZBF maintains "zend", the only production-ready node implementation, and develops Horizen's sidechain scaling solution “Zendoo” that leverages zero-knowledge encryption (zk-SNARKs). ZBF supports Horizen through developing ecosystem partnerships, providing education, driving marketing and community engagement.

Horizen Labs - a VC-backed for-profit technology company that provides blockchain development work and consulting services to ZBF. Horizen Labs is a Digital Currency Group (DCG) portfolio company that specializes in zero-knowledge technology and provides business support for Horizen's sidechain implementation “Zendoo”.

Horizen is an open and permissionless blockchain. There are no restrictions on who can set up a cryptocurrency wallet and own ZEN (the native cryptocurrency of the Horizen blockchain), run Horizen nodes, set up a sidechain with Horizen's sidechain implementation “Zendoo”, or participate in the network as a community member.

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Most development work for the Horizen blockchain network is currently done by ZBF.

Horizen network participants can support the current version of the blockchain protocol by running a full node and/or participating in the mining process.

Protocol development is governed by the Horizen Protocol Improvement Proposal (ZenIP) process, whereby anyone in the open source Horizen community can submit draft proposals. ZenIP process description can be found here.

Horizen Community Council (HCC) is a community organization that is actively supporting the Horizen community and has a representative in the ZenIP process.

Horizen seeks to encourage the growth of the Horizen community and ecosystem. This is done in a number of ways. For example, miners and node operators are compensated via the block reward. Furthermore, Horizen encourages open-source development through the Horizen Ambassador Program and the Horizen Developer Environment (HDE) - a purpose-built platform that incentivizes open-source contributions to the Horizen ecosystem and cultivates collaboration among developers. The project also encourages engagement on social media and is supporting new ideas and proposals to further develop and decentralize the protocol.

Horizen is a community driven project. Day-to-day decisions are handled by ZBF but efforts to incorporate community feedback and voting has been central to all major decisions. To that end, the project is also seeking to implement a DAO in the near future so that all decisions can be made according to a formal voting process.

Most protocol development for Horizen has been handled by ZBF, the founding nonprofit organization. ZBF receives an allocation of the treasury reward from every block, which consists of 20% from the block reward. Moving forward, ZBF plans to further decentralize protocol development decisions and funding through building a treasury governance system on a Horizen sidechain, increasing community involvement, and taking steps to reduce the influence of ZBF on the development of Horizen's protocol. Meaningful steps to this end also include the creation of the Horizen Community Council (HCC), a community organization having a representative in the ZenIP process.

Currently, a governance decision associated with Horizen is considered legitimate if it has been transparently communicated (ZBF hosts weekly calls on Discord that are open for the community to participate and listen in), supports the long-term development and growth of the Horizen network, and has been approved by the ZBF's leadership team and ultimately its Board of Directors.

From the very beginning Horizen has been envisioned as a decentralized platform and ecosystem where decision making regarding infrastructure, funding and development of Horizen's protocol were all decentralized.

Introducing the ZenIP process is an important step towards a decentralized decision-making process. Similar processes have proven to work well for other projects; hence it is being implemented as a tool to distribute influence and power towards a broader community.

Anyone can introduce governance proposals. ZBF intends ZenIPs to be the primary mechanism for proposing protocol improvements, new features, for collecting community input on issues, and for documenting the design decisions that have gone into Horizen.

ZBF has so far been the main entity making decisions and driving implementation of protocol improvements for the Horizen network. However, ZBF intends ZenIPs to become the primary mechanism for proposing new features, for collecting community input on issues, and for documenting design decisions for Horizen.

The process is described here:

After discussions between the Horizen community and the ZenIP editors, features are selected for the upcoming network upgrade. There are three organizations - Horizen Community Council (HCC), Zen Blockchain Foundation (ZBF) and Horizen Labs, each that have one editor elected for the ZenIP process. ZenIP editors will make their decisions. Depending on the proposal, it might require majority, supermajority or unanimous decision. Majority decision means more than half (>50%) of the editors need to agree. Supermajority decision means that more than two thirds (>66.6%) need to agree. Unanimous decision requires all ZenIP editors to agree. Decisions from the ZenIP process are written into the Horizen specification, as well as the software that runs the network. Protocol changes are "ratified" on-chain when the majority of the network adopts the upgrade and doesn’t break consensus.

Currently, ZBF acts as the entity that approves and implements proposals and protocol improvements for the Horizen network.  Steps are being taken to distribute the decision making and interpretive powers to a broader community through the ZenIP process, HCC, HDE and DAO.

Currently, ZBF acts as the entity that approves and implements proposals and protocol improvements for the Horizen network. Steps are being taken to distribute the decision making and interpretive powers to a broader community through the ZenIP process, HCC, HDE and DAO.

In case of disagreement on protocol upgrades, the community and ecosystem can express their protest through not supporting the new protocol version software. That is, miners and node operators can elect to continue supporting older versions of the software as might be done in Bitcoin and other decentralized projects.

The collection of sentiment from the community is a non-binding process. ZBF collects the sentiment and publishes results as part of a network upgrade.

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The 21M hard cap of ZEN token supply.

ZenIP process is the primary mechanism for proposing changes to Horizen whereby anyone in the open-source community can submit draft proposals. After discussion between the Horizen community and the ZenIP editors, features are selected for the upcoming network upgrade and are implemented based on protocol priorities and development bandwidth.

HDE is a platform that incentivizes open-source contributions to the Horizen ecosystem and cultivates collaboration among developers. It includes bounties for specific tasks that anyone can claim from the community. The scope of activities is broad and can include: software development, infrastructure development and maintenance, education and outreach, science and research, and many more.

ZBF is looking to build a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) as a voting mechanism to allocate treasury funds to continue the development of Horizen. The ZenDAO will be one of many sidechain applications of the Horizen's platform, demonstrating the power of Horizen's technology and commitment to a decentralized, community-based governance. More detailed information can be found here.

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