Ethereum is the most popular blockchain for tokenization, developing decentralized applications (DAPPs), and it is the most instrumental for moving digital ledger solutions to productions but the fact is that one size does not fit all when we try to leverage the blockchain technology. Customizability to a blockchain network at the protocol level is absent at Ethereum. As more organizations are trying to extract value from blockchain, we need a more dynamic framework for blockchain solutions across their lifecycles.

EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) is a software environment that executes smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. EVM can be considered the backbone of the Ethereum blockchain as it allows the creation and execution of smart contacts. The EVM also manages the states like – data storage, transaction processing and gas fee calculations. The developers prefer the Ethereum blockchain to develop and deploy their DAPPs as the EVM offers a high level of programmability. There is no wonder that due to this reason, Ethereum has taken centre stage in the smart contract ecosystem.  

Horizen is a general-purpose blockchain that is composed of the main Horizen blockchain and sidechains. The mainchain does not natively support smart contracts but natively supports the creation of sidechains. The mainchain maintains a parent-child relationship with the sidechains and the horizontal scaling solution Zendoo allows communication with the sidechains irrespective of their structure. This unique sidechain solution of Horizen allows the developers to build their own scalable blockchains with flexible design. The best thing is that the customization comes at the protocol level. This consistently made Horizen very powerful but the flexibility of the EVM was missing. Horizen EON fills that gap.

Horizen EON (Ethereum Open Network) is a fully EVM-compatible sidechain and smart contract platform. EON has adopted Ethereum’s Account-based transaction model to represent assets as balances within accounts. This is completely different from the mainchain of Horizen which is a UTXO model chain like Bitcoin. The account model of EON has two account types - Externally-Owned Account (EOA) and Contract Account. Due to EVM compatibility, EON opens the ability to use smart contracts on chains. The developers can easily deploy their Ethereum-based DAPPs on EON and take advantage of Horizen’s growing ecosystem.

To interact with applications on EON, you need to have a valid EVM-compatible wallet. The recommended wallets are Cobalt and Metamask. Cobalt is a web browser extension wallet that is compatible with Chrome or Brave browser and it is optimized for the Horizen ecosystem. You need to connect to the Horizen EON mainnet in Cobalt. You can import your existing EVM wallet keys to Cobalt or create a new wallet. If you are a Metamask fan, you can add the Horizen EON mainnet to Metamask from this Chainlist link. Wanna add the network to Metamask manually? Here is the manual configuration:

Network name:  Horizen EON

New RPC URL:  https://eon-rpc.horizenlabs.io/ethv1

Chain ID: 7332

Currency symbol: ZEN

Block Explorer: https://eon-explorer.horizenlabs.io/

Once you have got your EON wallet, you need to have ZEN, the native token of the Horizen blockchain. The gas fees on EON are paid by ZEN. Presently, no centralized exchange supports withdrawal to the Horizen EON chain. So, if you have ZEN in any centralized exchange, you need to deposit it into your Sphere by Horizen wallet. Sphere by Horizen is the official Horizen wallet. You can download Sphere from here. It is a desktop wallet and supports Windows, Mac, and Linux. The current version is 1.13.0. Once you have deposited ZEN to your Sphere by Horizen wallet, you can do a forward transfer from the mainchain to EON. Old versions are not recommended to be used and you may not find a forward transfer option there.

Horizen EON mainnet Alpha was released some months back. The ecosystem is developing fast but you have fewer options to explore EON now. A $75,000 bug bounty program is still running for reporting vulnerabilities to strengthen the security and integrity of the EON chain on the permanent public testnet Gobi. The beauty of Horizen is that the sidechains and the mainchain are independent of each other. Horizen’s mainchain operates on a Proof-of-Work consensus but EON operates on Proof-of-Stake.

Yes, you can stake ZEN on the EON chain in order to participate actively in the network consensus. Forger nodes play a critical role in the Proof-of-Stake consensus of EON by creating blocks, validating transactions, enhancing security, and promoting the efficiency of decentralization. To be an active participant, you can lock a certain amount of ZEN and become a Forger. The higher the stake, the greater the chance that you will be able to forge a block. The recent submission of ZenIP 42206 states that the reward currently paid to Secure Node in the Horizen mainchain block will be redirected to an EON Forger Subsidy Fund. It is significant as the allocation of Horizen’s block reward will be changed. Check this link if you want to run a Forger node.

There will be a DAO-controlled address called “EON Forger Subsidies” set up on both EON and the Horizen blockchains. The 10% of the block reward currently paid to the Secure Nodes of Horizen mainchain is supposed to go to Forger Nodes when the proposal is passed. So, the deprecation of the Secure Node tracking service is inevitable. Forging on EON is yet to become public but a mechanism to automatically forward transfer 10% of the block reward to the EON chain’s “EON Forger Subsidies” address has been added to the mainchain. Please note that Horizen DAO is already launched and Horizen community members are already getting involved in governance and making their voices heard in the direction of the project. ZEN serves as the governance token for both the Horizen mainchain and the EON sidechain.

With the addition of EON, Horizen goes one step ahead to build the industry’s most complete blockchain platform. Massive scalability without compromising decentralization can be delivered by Horizen due to its networked structure. 10,000 sidechains can run in parallel with a TPS (transactions per second) limit of 1000 and thus the total network can support up to 10,000,000 TPS. With EVM compatibility of EON, Horizen now can take benefit of the already developed and vibrant Ethereum ecosystem. NFTs, DeFi and many blockchain games will gradually arrive on Horizen now. EON is destined to supercharge the utility of ZEN also. Smart contracts, the “build-your-own” blockchain nature of Zendoo, and an intra-ecosystem secure bridging protocol – Horizen offers everything that the industry stands in need of!

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This article is also published here.

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