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2025 was a redefining year for Horizen.
In 2025, Horizen made the decisions that define long-term relevance. The team clarified what privacy must mean in an onchain world, sharpened who Horizen is built for, and aligned the network around real users, real businesses, and real developers - not abstract ideals. These choices shaped everything that followed, from product direction to ecosystem design, and set the foundation for sustainable growth.
The results of that work became visible toward the end of the year, with milestones that mark the beginning of Horizen’s next chapter.
A major emphasis was placed on research and discovery. Throughout the year, the team developed a structured understanding of market dynamics, emerging privacy technologies, regulatory realities, competitive approaches, developer needs, and real-world user needs. This targeted work was designed to answer one question:
Where can Horizen win, and why?
That research-driven approach created clarity and alignment across product, engineering, and ecosystem growth. It sharpened Horizen’s positioning around practical and regulatory-compliant privacy, and clarified how privacy must function inside open ecosystems like Ethereum and Base, not outside of them.
Several initiatives that will define Horizen’s future were born from this approach, including initial product designs like Horizen Confidential Compute Environment (HCCE).
By choosing to prepare deliberately, Horizen entered mainnet not as a project searching for relevance, but as a network launching with purpose.
One of the most significant milestones in Horizen’s history took place in 2025 with the successful migration of the ZEN token to Base, accompanied by the introduction of a new tokenomics model designed to support Horizen’s next phase of growth.
This migration marked a strategic shift in how Horizen participates in the broader onchain ecosystem. By migrating ZEN to an ERC-20 asset on Base, Horizen moved from operating as an isolated Layer 1 to becoming a first-class participant in the Ethereum ecosystem. The migration unlocked immediate access to deep liquidity, native DeFi integrations, and composability with the tools, protocols, and capital that developers already use. More importantly, it removed friction for builders, creating a faster and more credible path from idea to live application.
Just as importantly, the transition was executed with ZEN holders front and center. Horizen delivered a seamless, user-friendly claiming experience that enabled holders to move their assets safely to Base with confidence.
Throughout the migration, the team worked closely with major exchanges to ensure uninterrupted access to ZEN, preserving liquidity and minimizing disruption for the community. This combination of thoughtful execution and broad exchange support ensured continuity, accessibility, and trust at a critical moment of change.
Together, these efforts laid the economic and infrastructural foundation for Horizen’s next phase of ecosystem growth, one that is fully embedded in the Ethereum and Base environments, without leaving its community behind.
That foundation was completed with the launch of the new Horizen chain at the end of the year. With this launch, Horizen finalized its transition to a fully EVM-native, privacy-enabled Layer 3 blockchain on Base.
By launching on Base, Horizen positioned privacy where it matters most: alongside deep liquidity, mature tooling, and a rapidly growing developer and user base. The new chain will enable a practical and compliance-friendly path to private onchain activity, allowing users and businesses to participate without exposing sensitive strategies, positions, or data. Rather than treating privacy as an add-on or an edge case, Horizen established it as a foundational capability that works natively within real onchain workflows.
The launch also introduced the first cohort of ecosystem applications and infrastructure partners, reinforcing Horizen’s focus on execution, composability, and ecosystem readiness from day one.
We’re live!
Join us as we celebrate Horizen’s mainnet launch on @Base. Tune in to hear from special guests and core team members as they share insights on what’s ahead.
x.com/i/broadcasts/1…
Most importantly, the mainnet launch marked a clear transition in Horizen’s trajectory. The network moved from preparation to participation, from laying foundations to enabling real usage. With the core infrastructure live, Horizen is now positioned to shift its focus toward growing adoption, supporting builders, expanding the ecosystem, and delivering the next wave of privacy-enhancing capabilities, including staking and confidential compute.
In parallel with these significant infrastructure milestones, Horizen launched the Thrive Builder Program in 2025, establishing Horizen’s long-term commitment to ecosystem growth.
First announcements from our Horizen x @thriveprotocol builder funding program drop next week
These aren’t just ideas - they’re applications already building on our infrastructure
The privacy-first builders we’ve been waiting for are here.
Backed by a community-approved allocation of one million ZEN over five years, the program established a structured path for builders to ship privacy-preserving applications that drive real ZEN usage.
The program introduced milestone-based funding accountability and transparent oversight while prioritizing high-impact use cases across DeFi AI gaming and governance.
Meet the first builders funded by the Horizen x @ThriveProtocol Builder Funding Program:
- @LighterIM - ZK-enabled DeOTC protocol for private, compliant OTC trading
- @datahubz - Automated compliance workflows (SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA) powered by Hubz
- @tachyonpe -
Together, the program and the new Horizen chain create a reinforcing loop: infrastructure designed for privacy-aligned applications, paired with a funding mechanism built to bring them to life. The program is already supporting a growing set of live and in-development applications, including:
Zendex as a private DEX designed to stop MEV bots from front running trades
Tachyon enabling cross chain transfers that break the surveillance trail
DataHubz delivering enterprise compliance through cryptographic proof instead of trust based audits
Nyra bringing private perpetuals trading onchain
Obscura powering social trading with verifiable PnL
Lighter.IM enabling ZKP based on and off ramps
AdPriva building verifiable ad engagement with zero knowledge proofs
Gamblor introducing provably fair gaming with privacy built into every hand
Learn more about the program
Further Supporting Builders and the ZK EcosystemThroughout 2025, Horizen hosted and supported a select number of workshops and hackathon-style events, in collaboration with the ecosystem partners such as zkVerify. These efforts focused on education, experimentation, and early developer engagement.
Notable activations included:
Fhenix
ETHDenver participation through SporkDAO
SocialConnect New Delhi
0xCairo
Berlin Hackathon
The Horizen community voted in on 7 ZenIPs (ZEN Improvement Proposals) in 2025, including:
ZenIP 42406 Addendum: Proposing a Bold Leap Forward to Base for $ZEN and EON – 99.7% in favor
ZenIP 42407 Addendum: Horizen 2.0 Tokenomics Proposal – 99.4% in favor
ZenIP 42410 Horizen Developer Grants Program - Thrive Partnership – 100% in favor
ZenIP 42411: A Treasury Management Framework for Horizen DAO – 100% in favor
Exchange Listings and Marketing Allocation – 99.2% in favor
The community also voted to elect new Special Council members to maintain strong governance and continuity throughout the year.
March Cohort Special Council Election
September Cohort Special Council Election
Check out all ZEP IPs and their details.
With the core network live and ecosystem taking shape, Horizen enters its next phase focused on deepening utility, expanding adoption, and delivering privacy capabilities that scales with real-world demand.
A major milestone on the near-term horizons is the release of the Horizen Confidential Compute Environment (HCCE). Designed to make privacy-preserving computation accessible without complex cryptography, HCCE introduces a powerful new execution layer that enables developers to run sensitive logic securely and verifiably onchain. This will unlock a broad class of applications, from institutional workflows to privacy-sensitive business use cases. This will mark a significant step forward in making privacy practical at scale. Read the HCCE whitepaper to learn more.
ZEN staking will be relaunched in Q1 2026, re-establishing a crucial participation and incentive mechanism for the Horizen community.
The ZEN staking is designed to strengthen network security, reward long-term participation, and reinforce ZEN’s role as the economic backbone of the Horizen ecosystem. This will turn passive holding to active engagement, tying network growth more closely to community involvement.
At the same time, the Horizen ecosystem will continue to expand. More new applications are preparing to go live across DeFi, business infrastructure, gaming, and emerging onchain categories. As more teams deploy and iterate, Horizon’s ecosystem will move from early formation to sustained momentum, driven by real usage and real demand for privacy-enabled execution.
Together, these developments signal a clear shift in Horizen’s trajectory. With infrastructure in place, aligned incentives coming online, and a growing pipeline of applications, Horizen is positioned to turn its vision of practical, compliant privacy into durable, onchain reality.
Stay tuned for what comes next.
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