Horizen Price Today – Live ZEN Chart

What is Horizen?

Horizen (ZEN) is a zero-knowledge-focused blockchain project launched on May 30, 2017, originally under the name ZenCash as a fork of Zclassic. The project was co-founded by Rob Viglione and Rolf Versluis, who later established Horizen Labs, the technology company that drives core protocol research, engineering, and enterprise partnerships. Horizen rebranded from ZenCash to Horizen in August 2018 to better reflect its expanded vision beyond a privacy-focused cryptocurrency toward a broader platform for scalable, interoperable blockchain applications.

For eight years ZEN ran on its own Equihash Proof-of-Work mainchain, whose block rewards historically went to miners, secure nodes, super nodes, and the DAO treasury that funds ecosystem development; at its peak the network counted thousands of secure and super nodes. Its flagship technology, Zendoo, was a cross-chain transfer protocol for deploying customizable sidechains that communicated with the mainchain without requiring the mainchain to track their internal state, and in 2023 Horizen introduced EON, its first public, EVM-compatible smart contract sidechain.

Notable ecosystem partnerships and collaborations have included work with IOHK (Input Output), which helped shape early research on zero-knowledge sidechains, as well as integrations with major exchanges, custody providers, and infrastructure services. In November 2023 the community passed ZenIP 42206, which ended secure-node block rewards and sent that 10% share to a subsidy fund for EON forgers, and ZenIP 42207, passed in January 2024, removed shielded transactions from the mainchain in February 2024.

In 2025 the Horizen DAO voted to move ZEN to Base: on July 23, 2025, ZEN became an ERC-20 token on Base and the Proof-of-Work mainchain became legacy. ZEN that was on EON moved automatically to the same addresses on Base, and ZEN left on the mainchain can be claimed on Base through Horizen's portal. The 21 million supply cap was kept. In December 2025 Horizen relaunched as Horizen Mainnet, a Layer 3 network on Base aimed at privacy-centric applications, and since July 2026 ZEN can be staked there.

The ZEN token is listed on leading global exchanges including Binance and KuCoin, and it also trades on decentralized exchanges on Base such as Aerodrome and Uniswap. Horizen has also participated in regulatory discussions and academic research, with its team publishing peer-reviewed work on zk-SNARK constructions and latus-type sidechain protocols.

ZEN remains a distinctive asset within the privacy narrative, though it competes with other privacy and zero-knowledge projects. For investors and developers tracking Horizen price action, the token's performance is closely tied to adoption of Horizen Mainnet and the privacy applications built on it.

Key Features of Horizen

• ERC-20 Token on Base: Since July 23, 2025, ZEN is an ERC-20 token on Base, an Ethereum layer-2 network, with the same 21 million supply cap as on the old mainchain. It works with standard EVM wallets and trades on Base decentralized exchanges such as Aerodrome and Uniswap as well as on centralized exchanges.
• Horizen Mainnet, a Layer 3 on Base: In December 2025 Horizen relaunched as Horizen Mainnet, a Layer 3 network on Base built for privacy-centric applications and designed for opt-in privacy with selective disclosure. Solidity developers deploy with familiar Ethereum tooling; EON, Horizen's earlier EVM sidechain, was wound down under the migration plan, and its ZEN moved to the same addresses on Base.
• Zero-Knowledge Cryptography: Horizen's roots are in zk-SNARK cryptography, which powered its original mainchain's shielded transactions until 2024. Horizen Mainnet is built for privacy-centric applications, with a confidential compute environment in development.
• Legacy Node Network: At its peak Horizen ran one of the largest node networks in crypto, with thousands of secure and super nodes. Secure-node rewards ended under ZenIP 42206 (2023), and the mainchain was retired in July 2025; Horizen Mainnet is an execution layer that derives its security from Base.
• DAO Treasury Governance: The Horizen DAO's treasury, funded by the 0.75 million ZEN it received at the 2025 migration and the share that vests after it, finances grants, research, and ecosystem initiatives through community-driven ZenIP proposals. This gives ZEN holders and contributors a direct role in shaping the protocol's long-term direction.

Horizen Use Cases

• Privacy-Centric Applications: Developers can build privacy-centric applications on Horizen Mainnet, which is designed for opt-in privacy with selective disclosure instead of exposing everything on-chain. This suits payments, identity and financial settlement, where confidentiality and compliance both matter.
• DeFi on Base: As an ERC-20 token on Base, ZEN can be traded and supplied as liquidity on Base decentralized exchanges such as Aerodrome and Uniswap, and used in other Base DeFi protocols that list it.
• Peer-to-Peer Transfers: ZEN can be sent to any Base-compatible wallet quickly and at low cost. ZEN transfers on Base are ordinary ERC-20 transfers visible on-chain; the old mainchain's shielded transactions ended in 2024 under ZenIP 42207.
• Web3 Apps and NFTs: Builders can deploy games, NFT projects and other applications on Horizen Mainnet with standard Ethereum tooling, and use ZEN within their app economies.
• Confidential Compute (In Development): Horizen is developing Vela, a confidential compute environment based on trusted execution environments, so that applications on Horizen Mainnet can process sensitive data without exposing it on-chain. It is in early access for developers on Base Sepolia, a test network, and not yet on Horizen Mainnet.

Horizen Tokenomics

Total Supply

ZEN has a hard cap of 21,000,000 tokens, kept when ZEN moved to an ERC-20 token on Base on July 23, 2025. Proof-of-Work mining, and with it the old four-year halvings, ended with that migration.

Circulating

Circulating supply was about 16 million ZEN before the migration; the move to Base was projected to raise it to about 17.25 million as 0.75 million ZEN went to the Horizen DAO and 0.5 million to the Horizen Foundation, with their remaining allocations vesting over the following years.

Utility

ZEN is an ERC-20 token on Base that can be bridged to Horizen Mainnet and staked there in a program the Horizen DAO approved; gas on Horizen Mainnet is paid in ETH. ZEN also funds the Horizen DAO's treasury through the DAO's allocation and trades in Base DeFi. On the retired mainchain, ZEN paid transaction fees and rewarded miners and node operators.

Emission

There have been no block rewards since the July 2025 migration to Base. The roughly 5 million ZEN not yet issued at that point went to the Horizen DAO and the Horizen Foundation: a quarter was released at the migration and the rest vests linearly over four years, within the unchanged 21 million cap. Before the migration, mainchain block rewards halved roughly every four years, and ZenIP 42206 (2023) had redirected the secure nodes' 10% share to a subsidy fund for EON forgers.

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