Horizen is a privacy-centric blockchain project that originally forked from ZClassic, which itself is a fork of Zcash, leveraging the advanced zero-knowledge proof technology known as zk-SNARKs. This technology enables transactions to be verified without revealing sensitive information about the parties involved or the amounts transferred, thus ensuring a high level of privacy and security.

The Horizen ecosystem is designed to be highly secure and interoperable, boasting the industry's largest and most decentralized node infrastructure. Its mission revolves around ensuring data integrity and enabling real-world use cases through its secure and interoperable blockchain ecosystem. The platform facilitates the creation of public or permissioned blockchains via its unique sidechain technology, Zendoo, emphasizing scalable data confidentiality .

Horizen has developed an array of products and services aimed at enhancing privacy for enterprise applications. These include ZenChat, a private messenger; ZenPub, an anonymous publishing platform; and ZenHide, a service that provides domain fronting to protect users against censorship and data collection. The ZEN cryptocurrency, which underpins the Horizen ecosystem, was launched without an initial coin offering (ICO), being distributed to holders of ZClassic at its inception. ZEN utilizes the Equihash algorithm for achieving consensus and operates as a Proof-of-Work blockchain, with a unique reward distribution model that allocates a portion of block rewards to miners, secure node operators, super node operators, and the Horizen Team Treasury.