Horizen (ZEN), the privacy-focused blockchain project originally launched in 2017 as ZenCash, has officially deployed its mainnet as a Layer 3 on Coinbase's Base network. This marks the completion of a major strategic transition from its original standalone Layer 1 blockchain, a move ratified by the project's DAO governance earlier this year.
The relaunch represents a significant pivot for the nearly nine-year-old project, aiming to make privacy a "practical option" for developers and users on the increasingly popular Base Layer 2. Horizen Labs CEO Rob Viglione described the transition as less of a technological feat and more of a "rare governance victory" for a lesser-known project, emphasizing the value of continuity and grit in a fast-moving market.
A core component of the new strategy is a massive 100 million ZEN developer funding program, set to run over the next five years. The fund is designed to bootstrap a vibrant ecosystem by financing application and tooling projects across various sectors, including confidential financial services, "GambleFi," and "SocialFi."
Viglione framed the move as a pivot toward a "trillion-dollar market" of regulatory-compliant privacy. Horizen practices "selective disclosure," allowing for opt-in privacy features for on-chain transfers and swaps without eliminating the possibility of regulatory oversight. This pragmatic approach follows a 2023 decision to remove support for shielded transactions on its legacy mainnet in response to exchanges like OKX and Huobi delisting privacy coins.
The newly relaunched ZEN token is now tradable on Base-based decentralized exchanges like Aerodrome and Uniswap, and remains supported by major centralized exchanges including Binance, Bitget, Bybit, Coinbase, and OKX. Grayscale also continues to offer its ZEN trust product.
From a technical standpoint, becoming a Layer 3—a pure execution layer that derives security from Base (a Layer 2)—allows the approximately 70-person Horizen Labs team to focus on middleware and value-added services rather than commoditized infrastructure like wallets and explorers. The project has partnered with infrastructure providers including Caldera (rollup-as-a-service), LayerZero (cross-chain messaging), Stork (data oracle), and Den (multi-sig wallet platform).
Viglione noted that while launching as an Arbitrum Orbit chain would have been the "easiest path," the team made a business decision to align with the Coinbase ecosystem for its distribution potential. He cited "long-term value alignment" with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Base creator Jesse Pollak, who have recently signaled strong support for privacy, including the acquisition of the privacy project Iron Fish.
Looking ahead, Horizen plans to roll out its Confidential Compute Environment next quarter. This proof-of-concept system uses trusted execution environments (TEEs) to enable a plug-and-play "authority mechanism" where developers can import jurisdiction-specific modules to meet local regulatory requirements, such as revealing certain financial data to authorities.
