It’s an identity crisis. Horizen was a privacy coin. Now it is not. So what is it?
New Horizen defines the path forward.
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+1
There’s no denying that Horizen has lost relevance over the last few years. The team’s expertise in cryptography has been applied to some big projects, most recently Zendoo, but the industry had moved on to other solutions for the same problem by the time it came to market. Now the team sees an opportunity to make the project relevant again by solving a real problem in the industry that fits into its wheelhouse.
The best thing that Horizen can do is to build a service that creates real value, that’s demanded by the market, and that solves a real problem. The rest will follow from there.
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Just reiterating response from @john. Horizen has an identity crisis (and based on the negative sentiment in Discord these days, many believe the price of $ZEN being in the dumps is a crisis), but there is a well-governed ecosystem with a DAO, a Treasury, and Horizen Labs has years of runway on its balance sheet…we’re not going anywhere. I didn’t mean to imply there’s that kind of “we’re going broke” crisis where the project would die. That said, it’s time that Horizen regain relevance to the broader industry in a big way, and that’s what this proposal is all about.
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I could not agree more with this statement ^^
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Thank you for clarifying, as I took it as funding was a major issue. I understand what you mean by crisis now, as I wasn’t sure how to interpret that. I will say that the discord does seem to have some commentary, or quite a bit that seems negative, but I also think that some of the topics being brought up there are very valid. Not sure if this is the right forum for it or if discord is more appropriate, but I would say the one piece of commentary I have seen there over the past few months that I tend to agree with is having Horizen talked about more publicly on social media and forming partnerships or collaborations with individuals, and not just entities. I think some of these crypto influencers or larger figures in the space can have more of an impact than some groups or entities. Not sure what it would entail to try and get some bigger names onboard as I’m sure other projects attempt to do the same, but I do believe that would be a real catalyst. It’s clear in the discord that price is bringing out more emotion in people and questions they may have overlooked in the past because Horizen was thriving in a bull market. Anyways, I know this may have gone off topic a little, but that’s just my two cents!
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I agree with all that, though I keep coming back to first we need to get our story straight, which is choosing the right core value proposition that we’re going to be evangelizing.
I’ll give credit where it’s due bc this is a key insight from our HL CTO, Zain: This New Horizen concept turns $ZEN’s value prop into a cross-sectional bet on ZK in Web3. That’s a really cool story. Anyone who buys that thesis that ZK will be massively growing, should be interested in $ZEN. Not as a single bet on a ZK project, like it has been historically when we were a privacy coin, but, rather (and really importantly), as a service that grows in value with the entire ZK segment of Web3. Any ZKP-based dApp or ZK rollup could use the NH proof verification service, and the more that ZK proliferates in Web3, the higher the demand for $ZEN. That’s a super cool and clear story that we can then get into the right hands to share with the world.
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While I love the idea of the proof verification chain, comparing Zen to Eth doesnt make sense at this point in time, if at all. Im all for anything that increases demand for Zen but right now Zen is so small we cant afford to compete with ourselves by creating another token to compete with Zen. I might would think different if we were even 5% the size of Eth. I believe the proof verification is a great step in that direction, hopefully followed by a settlement chain.
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I’m glad you like the proof verification concept, and, yes, the broader NH vision is to also include a settlement chain so that we grow into a hub for ZKRs that’d like to massively collapse settlement costs even beyond proof verification.
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I hear you on the identity part, and I agree with you there. I don’t think you have to have a perfectly strong identity to start pushing to gain new crypto enthusiasts and people that would like to build on Horizen and participate though. I understand that Horizen and HL are not market makers or traders as a company or foundation. However, I do believe it is important to have some real understanding of where the crypto market is right now, seeing other projects really take off. My worry is if it takes a long time to find the identity or develop New Horizen, those projects that are moving upwards right now will have a significant advantage as they will likely be having a larger warchest so to speak compared to projects that aren’t moving up in terms of the market. I feel like it will make it exponentially more difficult to compete and gain traction in situations like that. Not saying it can’t or won’t be done, but I do think time and speed getting people involved that aren’t already involved is paramount.
Well Zen can be something new and exciting. That is what NH aspires to be right and its something the market is in demand after. We have the opportunity to lead the market with scalability. 
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I agree. I guess I was more or less saying that you don’t have to wait for something to be far along in development to really try to go out and gain users. The longer a project stalls or stays stagnant in the market with other projects making monetary gains, it becomes much more difficult to compete and overcome that. Those projects will have more resources to higher more engineers, developers, marketers, etc.
I just know it becomes exponentially more difficult the longer development takes and the longer it takes to make a real push to bring new users in. Not just hoping people stumble across Horizen. It can feel like quicksand when a project is taking a while to develop and wait to really promote and try to gain new users when other projects are currently attacking those areas. Not saying Horizn isn’t trying to onboard new users, but it’s more of a worry about resources and falling behind while other projects parlay their recent upwards momentum into delivery that’s tough to compete with. Not sure if that makes sense?
For sure, which is why this ZenIP, if passed via DAO vote, establishes our new identity I also don’t want to wait any longer and want to move this along with urgency.
The tech will be delivered faster than we’ve ever delivered anything before because we’ve entirely changed how we do dev and we’ve adopted, albeit belatedly, the obvious tech strategy of using common frameworks that are already in production at scale, like Sustrate. We were able to prototype this concept in about a month and we’re racing to testnet with the proof verification component in a couple of months. This is lightening speed for protocol development, so stale timing for finding our identity and bringing it to market aren’t things I’m concerned about with this idea.
Finally, “Old Horizen” (aka the current system) will continue to remain in operation and EON will continue growing our Web3 ecosystem over the first half of the year while we’re building out this system and bringing it to market. We’re trying to make this proposal and pivot as easy as possible for the community–we’re not asking for money upfront and from the POV of current users, nothing changes until this full vision goes into effect, is proven successful, and we all agree on a further migration plan that deprecates the old system. Even when the first part, the proof verification system goes live, nothing really changes for the current system, we’re just adding another chain and agreeing that it gets to be part of the Horizen ecosystem from a branding perspective and gets to use $ZEN.
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The polls are open! Come out and vote everyone:
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Among the modular blockchains, there are CELESTIA#33, POLYGON#14, OPTIMISM#27, ARBITRUM#40, and OSMOSIS#89, which are already high in market capitalization and are famous to the public. New Horizon is still only #335th. Is there anything in this 42400 that NH can win or differ from them? Will the development speed be fast? The above-mentioned coins, especially CELESTIA, are ranked #33 in market capitalization with expectations even though they are in the early stages of development. It seems that we need a big promotion, too. I think we need to add a modular blockchain TAG to the coin market cap first.
Got it. Not sure if this is the right thread to ask, but I figured I would as I only view the discord and haven’t really commented there. I know you are saying the tech will be delivered faster than anything before, and I’ll just have to take that at face value. You also said you’re not asking for money upfront. I don’t want to seem like I’m laser focusing on this one point, but do you believe not raising money and capital is sustainable in this market with the amount of money that is coming in? Also, I decided to read the general section of the discord from the past month just today. One question that was raised or I noticed was partnerships. One of the posters in there was talking about a conversation he had with a larger account on Twitter about some sort of partnership or promotion with HL or Horizen, and said it didn’t or hasn’t gone as planned. Is reaching out to influencers or something along those lines something that has been considered or even done?
Hello @ZenMan2024 I invite you to open a new thread to discuss all this, under the general section.
There are interesting points and I am afraid that the discussion get lost here. you’ll get more visibility and thoughts from the community on another post.
Thank you
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Sounds good. I will try that!
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The new horizen discussion here is a major change and very exciting. On the one hand, the prospect is very attractive. Still, it also brings new uncertainties:
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This is equivalent to restarting the stove, and there is no effective connection with past development work. It is a waste, which is a pity;
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secondly, the previous series of products took a long time and lagged behind market demand. How can the new plan be completed and delivered on time? Will it once again fail to keep up with the market trend? How to boost market confidence in $zen?
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At the beginning of the bull market, is there a risk of missing out on the bull market by making such a major change? Can the market recognize the new narrative and new positioning? If the new plan cannot be completed in the bull market, even if there is significant progress in the next round of the bear market, it will not be able to keep up with the general trend of the market.
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This pivot is forced upon us by government pressure on private coins. There really is no choice in the matter. Read the ZENIP and you will understand the direction of ZEN. This is a great move in my opinion.
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As for the market it usually lags a few months behind Bitcoin. And with its release in the first quarter of the year its well within the range of said timeline. Q1 is an estimate but that is pretty near in the future.
But adaption of the chain is however takes a longer while for the market to take notice. How long i am not entirely sure it all depends on where the service will be available at the time and how fast it will grow. Ill leave the rest for someone else to respond.