ZenIP 42207: Complete Removal of Shielded Pool from the Horizen Mainchain

ZenIP 42207 for the complete removal of the shielded pool from the Horizen mainchain was submitted on January 4th, 2024, opened for Community voting on January 8th, with voting closing on January 11th, resulting in 99.97% vote share “for”. Here’s what it means. 

This ZenIP proposed the complete removal of the shielded pool from the Horizen mainchain, achieving a wide range of various goals. This change builds upon the deprecation of access to the shielded pool enacted by ZenIP-42204 and is a response to the evolving regulatory environment around privacy tokens, re-confirming and showcasing the project’s strategic pivot away from privacy-focused features. 

• Complete Disabling of Shielded Transactions: All functionalities related to the shielded transactions (z-addresses) will be completely deactivated, preventing any type of transaction related to the shielded pool.
• Removal of Related RPC Calls: RPC calls specifically related to shielded transactions, such as z_sendmany and z_mergetoaddress, will be deprecated.
• Migration Path for Users: A migration path with the necessary tools and guides will be provided to users to move their assets out of the shielded pool before the hard fork. Community support and detailed documentation will be available to facilitate this transition.
• Network Upgrade: The deactivation of the shielded pool will occur through a network upgrade at a specified block height (TBD). Extensive testing, community preparation, and communication will precede this upgrade.
• Communication and Timeline: Representatives of the Horizen ecosystem will communicate regularly with the community about the timeline, necessary user actions, and available support resources throughout the transition process.

IMPORTANT: ZEN 5.0.0 is expected to be released in January and go live on Mainnet in February 2024. Once active it will not be possible to send any shielded transactions, including transactions to de-shield coins from shielded to transparent addresses.

ZenIP 42207 goes further than the hard fork originally announced with ZEN 4.2.0-rc1, ZEN 5.0.0 will completely remove the shielded pool. We strongly recommend that all users with existing funds in private addresses unshield their funds to their own transparent addresses using Sphere by Horizen or zen-cli before February 2024. After February 2024 it will not be possible anymore to transfer any funds inside of the shielded pool to any other address.  Unshielding funds directly to exchange deposit addresses is strongly discouraged. Failure to remove ZEN from shielded pools prior to the hard fork will result in the loss of your ZEN.

Voting Timeline

ZenIPs are for the community to approve or decline. Horizen has always believed our community comes first, we encourage you to join the discussions on Discord, Discourse, and Twitter around ZenIP 42207 and voice your thoughts. We highly encourage you to read the full ZenIP on GitHub to get a complete understanding of what this means. 

Voting on ZenIP 42207 started on January 8th, 2024, 5pm UTC and ended on January 11th, 2024, 5pm UTC. The Horizen DAO voting is done on Horizen EON, using Snapshot and Discourse for governance. At the same time that the voting began, the snapshot was also taken. You can view the results of the vote here on Snapshot. 

Who is Eligible to Vote? 

Any $ZEN holder can vote on improvement proposals, and those who hold (or who have been delegated) the requisite amount of $ZEN may put forth proposals to the community. 

Voting power is determined by the amount of $ZEN you hold on the Horizen mainchain and on the Horizen EON chain. Therefore the more $ZEN you hold, the more voting power you have. 

How to Vote – Instructions

1. Go to the Horizen DAO Governance page on the Horizen EON web app to get started.
2. Connect your web3 wallet (ex. MetaMask). Please follow this guide if you need help.
3. Link your Horizen mainchain $ZEN address to Horizen EON. In order to vote with your mainchain $ZEN, you need to have $ZEN on a Sphere mainchain address and link that address to your MetaMask Horizen EON chain address. You only need to link your Sphere wallet once. You can use the same wallet for future voting rounds. 
   1. Please see this guide for step-by-step instructions on linking Horizen Mainchain and Horizen EON $ZEN Addresses to aggregate your voting power. 
4. Make sure you have sufficient ZEN in your MetaMask address for the gas fee. Follow this tutorial to learn how to transfer ZEN from Horizen mainchain to your Horizen EON address on MetaMask
5. Once your mainchain ZEN address is connected to Horizen EON, and you have sufficient ZEN in your MetaMask for gas fee, it’s time to vote using Snapshot!
6. Join the Horizen Foundation space on Snapshot if you haven’t done so, to receive notifications about future ZenIP voting. 

We have a helpful video tutorial here with instructions on how to vote for the Horizen DAO.