Hello Horizen Fam,
I’m Vano (officially Ivane) Narimanidze. Many of you know me from my time on the Horizen team, but my involvement with ZEN began earlier, as a miner and community member during the ZenCash days. I’m running for the September 2026 Horizen Special Council.
I spent more than four years working at Horizen, first as Country Lead for Georgia with regional business development responsibilities, then as Business Development Manager. My work covered the relationships that connect ZEN to the wider market: exchanges, market makers, wallets, research partners and third-party integrations.
I want to bring that experience to the Council so the community has someone at the table who understands how these relationships work, what they cost and how to judge whether they are delivering value.
My experience with Horizen
I began mining ZEN with GPUs in its early days and I watched how the team handled the hardest moments, including the 2018 51% attack, with full transparency toward the community. That is the standard I would hold myself to on the Council.
I joined the Horizen team in August 2018. Starting at the community and regional BD level taught me how much adoption depends on trust, education and people who consistently show up.
As my responsibilities expanded, I managed Horizen’s exchange and partnership relationships, including work involving Binance, Coinbase, OKX and many other third-party providers. During my time on the team, ZEN’s exchange coverage reached more than 40 venues. My scope also included market makers, wallet providers and the integrations that help people access and use ZEN.
I also helped build Horizen Academy as well as Horizen’s first community tasks and grants program, contributing to an early effort to turn community participation and outside talent into useful work for the ecosystem.
These were collaborative efforts together with many team members of Horizen and Horizen Labs, and I am proud of the part I played alongside the team and community.
When I left Horizen in January 2023, I coordinated the handover of partner relationships and integration responsibilities to maintain continuity. Since then, I have remained a supporter of ZEN, continued to hold and stake ZEN and to bring partnership intros to the Horizen BD team.
What I bring today
I have been active in crypto since late 2016 - first as a miner and then professionally since 2018 at Horizen and then at HLV and Ventari.
My work at HLV and Ventari keeps me closely involved with Web3 teams and the practical challenges of partnerships, integrations, token launches and liquidity.
That experience builds on a technical background in infrastructure, systems administration and information security (I hold an MSc in Information Security). I am comfortable looking at both the commercial proposal and the operational dependencies behind it.
When a team proposes an integration, I want to understand who will use it, who will maintain it and what happens if a key provider stops supporting it. When money is requested for liquidity or exchange access, I want to understand the terms, incentives, counterparty exposure and expected benefit to ZEN holders.
Those are questions I have dealt with professionally, and I would bring that experience to Council reviews.
I also have extensive experience in community engagement, during my time at Horizen and elsewhere, through my work at Association Blockchain Georgia and Overclockers GE - the largest tech community in Georgia.
My priorities on the Special Council
- Make ecosystem spending easier to evaluate. Proposals should explain the problem, the cost, the responsible parties and what success would look like. For exchange, liquidity and partnership initiatives, I would push for meaningful measures such as usable liquidity, access, reliability and sustained adoption. Commercial confidentiality can coexist with clear reporting on spending and results.
- Help promising builders deliver. My experience with Horizen’s early grants work gives me a practical interest in how ecosystem funding is structured. I would advocate for clear milestones, proportionate checks and support that helps capable teams complete useful work. Delivery plans should include what happens after launch.
- Keep ZEN’s role explicit, prioritize utility and partnerships. A growing ecosystem should be able to explain how its activity benefits ZEN. I would ask where the token fits into a product, why users would choose it and whether that use can continue after initial incentives end.
- Be an accessible and accountable representative. I would participate in proposal discussions, explain my reasoning where confidentiality permits and maintain a regular opportunity for community questions and feedback.
The Council’s responsibility is to review proposals, protect the DAO’s interests and provide oversight. I would approach that responsibility with independent judgment and respect for the authority of tokenholders. My experience would inform my decisions and the interests of the Horizen DAO would guide them.
Affiliations, independence and availability
I am a resident of Georgia, the country. I am a non-US person.
I currently work with HLV and Ventari - token launch advisory firms. I am not employed by Horizen or Horizen Labs.
HLV, previously called Horizen Labs Ventures, was spun out of Horizen Labs in December 2022 and has operated as an independent company since. The two companies have no shared management or ownership.
Recently, I co-founded Ventari, a new token launch advisory firm. Details are available on its website.
I would disclose relevant professional, client and financial interests on an ongoing basis and recuse myself from any matter where a conflict exists. I can also confirm that neither HLV nor Ventari currently advises a competing chain.
I am prepared to make time for regular meetings, proposal reviews and urgent matters when needed.
Horizen has been an important part of my professional life since 2018. I know the work involved in building its relationships, supporting its community and connecting its technology to the outside world. Since then, I have continued developing experience that I believe can serve this ecosystem well.
I’m asking for your support to bring that experience to the Special Council.
ZEN UP
Utility, Partnerships.
#ZENUP
Vano (Ivane) Narimanidze
Country of residence: Georgia
I welcome your questions in this thread.