Deep Dive
1. Mainnet Launch on Base (9 December 2025)
Overview: Horizen successfully launched its mainnet as a privacy-focused Layer-3 blockchain built on Base. This marks the completion of its transition from an independent proof-of-work chain to an Ethereum-aligned rollup, giving developers access to Base's tools and liquidity.
The launch enables developers to deploy Solidity smart contracts on a network designed for privacy-enabled applications. Key infrastructure partners provide services like rollup-as-a-service, oracles, and data indexing. The project also previewed a Confidential Compute Environment for private on-chain computation, with a full launch targeted for Q1 2026.
What this means: This is bullish for ZEN because it moves the project into a high-growth ecosystem, making it easier and cheaper for developers to build privacy-focused apps. Users benefit from faster transactions and access to a wider range of DeFi services.
(The Defiant)
2. Token Migration to Base (24 July 2025)
Overview: Horizen completed the migration of its native ZEN token from its original blockchain to Base as a standard ERC-20 token. This technical upgrade involved shutting down the legacy UTXO mainchain and EON sidechain.
The migration required a contract swap, which major exchanges like Coinbase and Binance supported automatically for their users. Self-custody holders gained access to a claim portal. The circulating supply increased to 17.25 million ZEN (from 16 million) as allocations were released to the DAO and Foundation, while the hard cap remained 21 million.
What this means: This is bullish for ZEN because becoming an ERC-20 token drastically improves its liquidity and makes it composable with the vast Ethereum DeFi ecosystem. It allows holders to easily trade and use ZEN on popular decentralized exchanges.
(CoinMarketCap)
3. Horizen 2.0 Consensus Finalized (8 November 2024)
Overview: The development team completed all preparation work for the consensus and staking mechanisms powering Horizen 2.0. This included finalizing the AURA (Authority-Round) consensus algorithm, a proof-of-stake based system for selecting collators to produce blocks.
Protocol-level staking was established as a key component for network security and tokenomics. Simultaneously, all technical work for migrating ZEN from the old mainchain to the new Horizen 2.0 chain was finished, setting the stage for the eventual claim process.
What this means: This was a neutral foundational update for ZEN, as it laid the essential technical groundwork for the subsequent migration and appchain launch, ensuring a secure and smooth transition for the network.
(Horizen DAO)
Conclusion
Horizen's development trajectory is defined by its strategic pivot from an isolated Layer-1 to a specialized privacy appchain within the Ethereum ecosystem via Base. This multi-stage technical overhaul, from finalizing its new consensus to executing the token migration and mainnet launch, fundamentally reshaped its codebase for greater scalability, interoperability, and developer accessibility. How will the rollout of its Confidential Compute Environment in 2026 further differentiate its privacy offerings?