In my view, Horizen is one of the highest quality lesser known cryptocurrency projects out there. This is going to be a full technical and fundamental review of the project. I'm going to try to keep this concise and to the point, so let's jump straight into it.
On the daily technical chart, you can see that the price action has been trading in a nice ascending parallel channel for the last year, which comprises most of its chart history. Recently it broke out of that channel, which almost always indicates a larger move downward. I believe that the bottom red support line is the most likely reversal point where I would aim to go long. But if Bitcoin starts to pick up momentum and move strongly into a bull trend again, then Zen may find support at a higher level before it falls that low. However, I think that the whole alt-coin market is still reeling and performing very poorly overall, so I would approach this particular opportunity with patience, and I believe you will be well rewarded for it.
I should also note that there is a still a good chance that Bitcoin could break down below $5,000 later on this year, and if that happens, then Zen could potentially fall a lot deeper then the red support line and make a new all time low. But personally I think that the red support line is still a good entry point for a long position no matter what happens, as long as you're splitting your capital up and not going all in there. The bottom line is, you can never be sure where the "final bottom" is when you're going long. But if you believe that the market will visit new all time highs one day, then there are plenty of great entry points on the way.
Onto the fundamental side of things. Horizen is the newly branded name for a project I have followed closely and loved for the last six months. Personally I think that Horizen is a better name than Zencash, so I think they made a good move there. It sounds a lot more professional, and captures the vision of the project better.
This is a very complex project with multiple aims and goals. The heart of the project is the Zen cryptocurrency which is a privacy coin based off of the same code base as Zecash, which is one of the most well respected cryptocurrency projects in the industry. I am not going to go into all the technical details of that, because I know that most people won't understand it. I don't even understand it all that well, and I am fairly technically savvy. The basic idea is the coin allows for totally anonymous transactions of funds over a secure network.
I should mention now that three months ago Zencash suffered from a 51% attack that resulted in the attacker getting away with over 23 thousand Zen, which was worth over $700,000 at the time. If I understand this correctly, this balance wasn't stolen out of anybody's wallet, but rather created out of thin air through "double spending". These kinds of attacks have happened to several newly launched cryptocurrency projects unfortunately. This was obviously a big blow to the reputation of the project, and may help explain the subsequent price decline since then, as well as their decision to rebrand the project.
Personally, I think that this is an unfortunate event for such a high quality project that is still in its infancy, but not one that has the capacity to destroy its entire future. I leave it up to the reader to decide whether it is worth the risk to invest in Zen, but keep in mind that Ethereum and other major projects have also suffered major attacks in the past.
The other main features of the project are an anonymous messenger, which they have already launched, called Zenchat; a platform called Zenpub, which is still under development, for anonymously publishing data, media, and documents to the interplanetary file system; and Zenhide, which is best described on their website, "Domain fronting is a versatile censorship circumvention technique that hides the remote endpoint of a communication." Whatever that means! If any of my more technically proficient readers could explain Zenhide to me in laymen's terms I would be greatly appreciative.
The things that I find most attractive about this project are the versatility of the vision, the quality of the development team behind it, and the fact that IOHK, the company that is in charge of developing Cardano, is partnered with the research and development team of Horizen. Also worthy of note: Charles Hoskinson, the founder of IOHK, is the strategic advisor for Horizen. The Horizen team itself is comprised of professionals from all over the world, all working as volunteer agents of their own accord because they truly believe in the future of the project.
Horizen is not a for profit corporation. It never launched an ICO, or participated in any other kind of "money grab" like so many other bullshit projects out there. It has remained true to the philosophy of cryptocurrency from the beginning, and it is attempting to take that vision to new heights.
I am excited to be a part of that future, and I plan to run a Zen secure node eventually. Horizen has two types of nodes for securing the network: a secure node, and a super node. A super node requires 500 Zen to commit to staking, and a decent dedicated computer and internet connection, while a secure node only requires 42 Zen to commit to staking. The annual percentage payout is the same for both types of nodes, so both are equally attractive options for someone who wishes to play an active role in securing the network. I am viewing the current price decline as an opportunity to buy up the 42 Zen I need.
I hope this was helpful and informative for anyone interested in this amazing project. I know I didn't cover everything, but you can find all the information you need on their main website here: https://www.horizen.global/
NOTE: This is not investment advice. Everything written here is for educational or entertainment purposes only. Always do your own research before you invest, and never invest more than you can afford to lose.
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Thanks for visiting my page! Seldons PlanWriter | Trader | Traveler | Father of 5
