Per Messari data, the hard fork has been scheduled on Horizen mainnet at block 1,363,115, estimated to arrive on Jun. 7, 2023, at approximately 13:00 UTC. Node operators have been asked to update to Zen v4.0.0 before May 31, 2023.

The upgrade would bring enhancements to Horizen’s sidechain version 2 and fix minor bugs encountered in the current node version.

Sidechains refer to independent networks that operate atop a main blockchain, such as Horizen in this case. These are similar to layer 2 networks, but different in one key aspect: Sidechains have their own security mechanism, unlike layer 2 networks which rely on the security of their mother network.

Different sidechains can be customized to serve specific purposes, such as having a governance-focused sidechain or a decentralized finance (DeFi)-focused sidechain. This ensures an exploit in one sidechain doesn’t impact the other.

Horizen’s ZEN tokens have gained 8% over the past week, as per Coingecko.

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Shaurya Malwa

Shaurya is the Co-Leader of the CoinDesk tokens and data team in Asia with a focus on crypto derivatives, DeFi, market microstructure, and protocol analysis. Shaurya holds over $1,000 in BTC, ETH, SOL, AVAX, SUSHI, CRV, NEAR, YFI, YFII, SHIB, DOGE, USDT, USDC, BNB, MANA, MLN, LINK, XMR, ALGO, VET, CAKE, AAVE, COMP, ROOK, TRX, SNX, RUNE, FTM, ZIL, KSM, ENJ, CKB, JOE, GHST, PERP, BTRFLY, OHM, BANANA, ROME, BURGER, SPIRIT, and ORCA. He provides over $1,000 to liquidity pools on Compound, Curve, SushiSwap, PancakeSwap, BurgerSwap, Orca, AnySwap, SpiritSwap, Rook Protocol, Yearn Finance, Synthetix, Harvest, Redacted Cartel, OlympusDAO, Rome, Trader Joe, and SUN.