Horizen’s relaunch as an EVM-native Layer 3 on Base was overwhelmingly approved by its community, with ZenIP 42406 recording a 99.71% ‘for’ vote. The decision formalizes a migration that completed ERC-20 issuance of ZEN on July 23, 2025, positioning Horizen as a privacy-focused, auditable execution layer within the Ethereum/Base ecosystem and consolidating governance, liquidity and developer distribution for regulated on-chain use cases.
Governance mandate, migration path and “auditable execution”
With the move, Horizen aligns its architecture and token operations to the Base network, emphasizing selective disclosure and compliance-ready privacy. The rollout confirms the project’s plan to transition from a legacy Layer 1 to a purpose-built L3 that integrates with existing Ethereum tooling and infrastructure.
ZenIP 42406 specified the migration path and won near-unanimous support, providing a clear governance mandate for the shift from a legacy Layer 1 to an L3 model. Node operators were required to upgrade to ZEN 5.0.7 by June 11, 2025, while holders of wrapped ZEN (wZEN) and EON-based DeFi tokens had to withdraw assets before the EON network was wound down on July 23, 2025, with a claim portal deployed to distribute the new ERC-20 ZEN now tradable on Aerodrome, Uniswap and major centralized venues including Binance, Coinbase and OKX.
The project began its formal transition in February, when the DAO voted to deprecate the legacy blockchain, framing this relaunch as an executed governance roadmap rather than an ad-hoc pivot. This sequence of votes and technical milestones cemented the mandate for the mainnet launch on Base and coordinated operational steps for node operators and token holders.
Technically, Horizen now runs as an L3 on Base, inheriting Ethereum-grade security and Base distribution while offering an execution environment optimized for confidential operations. The chain implements zk-SNARKs to allow transaction validity proofs without exposing underlying data, and selective disclosure mechanisms enable auditors or regulators to verify specific proofs without revealing full transaction metadata in what the team describes as “auditable execution.” Horizen Labs supplies a native ZK proof generation layer to simplify integration for Solidity-based dApps.
Strategic infrastructure partners include Caldera (rollup-as-a-service), LayerZero (omnichain interoperability), Stork (low-latency oracles) and Den (multisig support). A developer funding program commits 100 million ZEN over five years in partnership with Thrive Protocol to seed privacy-first applications, while a Confidential Compute Environment using Trusted Execution Environments is targeted for Q1 2026. On tokenomics and incentives, a pending ZenIP 42407 proposes shifting a larger share of block rewards to the Horizen Foundation and introducing protocol-level staking via an AURA mechanism, changes that would reshape reward flows and on-chain economic power.
“The market for regulatory-compliant privacy is a trillion-dollar opportunity,” said Rob Viglione, CEO, framing the relaunch as product-market positioning toward regulated on-chain business. The mainnet launch on Base formalizes Horizen’s transition from a standalone privacy chain to a purpose-built L3 that balances confidentiality with selective auditability, with immediate implications centered on developer onboarding via the 100M ZEN program and the governance review of ZenIP 42407.
