On January 4, 2024, a proposal was made in ZenIP 42207 to completely remove the shielded pool on the Horizen mainchain. The community approved the proposal with votes being cast between January 8 and January 11. At 5 PM UTC on January 11, 2024, the voting for ZenIP 42207 came to an end, with a resounding 99.97% voting “for” and 0.03% voting “against.” This ZenIP represents a tactical change, continuing the shielded pool access deprecation started by ZenIP-42204. It highlights Horizen‘s shift away from privacy-focused features in response to changing privacy token requirements.
The proposal details major modifications, notably the full deactivation of shielded transactions and the deprecation of related RPC functions. Before the hard fork, a user-friendly migration path with tools and instructions guarantees a seamless transfer. Deactivation of the protected pool will take place via a network upgrade, which will be preceded by extensive testing, community involvement, and transparent information.
With a planned January release, Zen 5.0.0 is scheduled to launch on the Mainnet in February 2024. Shielded transactions, such as transferring money from shielded to transparent addresses, will not be feasible once they become live. ZEN 5.0.0 goes above and beyond the hard fork first revealed with ZEN 4.2.0-rc1, as it eliminates the shielded pool.
It is highly recommended that users use Sphere by Horizen or zen-cli to unshield cash from private addresses to their transparent addresses by February 2024. It will be unable to transfer money from the shielded pool to any other address after this date, and it is not advised to directly unshield and trade money to exchange deposit addresses. As a reflection of Horizen’s community-focused philosophy, ZenIPs are open to approval by the community or disapproval. Users are urged to join in conversations on Discord, Discourse, and Twitter regarding ZenIP 42207. For a thorough understanding, reading the entire ZenIP on GitHub is highly advised.
ZenIP 42207 was put to a vote from January 8th to January 11th. Voting for the Horizen DAO is open to all $ZEN holders and is conducted through Snapshot and Discourse for governance. Voting power emphasizes decision-making that is democratic within the community and is correlated with the quantity of $ZEN held on both the Horizen EON chain and the Horizen mainchain.
How to Vote – Instructions
- To get started, visit the Horizen EON web app’s Horizen DAO Governance website.
- The next step is to connect your web3 wallet.
- Connect your Horizen EON to your Horizen mainchain $ZEN address. To vote using your mainchain $ZEN, you need to have $ZEN on a Sphere mainchain address and link that address to your MetaMask Horizen EON chain address. Your Sphere wallet just has to be linked once. You can vote in subsequent rounds using the same wallet.
- Verify that your MetaMask address has enough ZEN in it to cover the gas cost.
- Voting is done using Snapshot after your mainchain ZEN address is linked to Horizen EON and you have enough ZEN in your MetaMask to cover the gas charge.
- If you haven’t already, join the Horizen Foundation space on Snapshot to get alerts about upcoming ZenIP voting.
The shielded pool will now be completely removed from the Horizen mainchain, in line with the project’s strategic move away from privacy-focused features in response to changing privacy token laws, thanks to this successful vote.
Wrapping up
The passage of ZenIP 42207 marks a pivotal moment for Horizen as it reflects its proactive approach to adapting to the changing landscape of privacy token regulations. This strategic transition showcases Horizen’s commitment to compliance and transparency while maintaining its core values of community involvement and decentralized governance. The introduction of ZEN 5.0.0 is set to be a major network upgrade.
