Allowing users from Ethereum to move to Horizen and vice versa
The Horizen blockchain now has the ability to tap into the wealthy DeFi ecosystem on the Ethereum blockchain by using wrapped tokens. The platform has announced a partnership with StakeHound, a liquid staking platform. This marks a major milestone in Horizen’s progress into the world of decentralized finance.
A wrapped token locks away the original token from for example a different blockchain, and in exchange issues a new token that’s 100% compatible with the new blockchain. In this case ZEN is now allowed to operate on the Ethereum blockchain. That is an important move for Horizen, as it broadens the reach of their ecosystem through this form of interoperability. In addition users on Ethereum now have an easy way to move value to Horizen.
stZEN tapping into DeFi
Horizon’s partnership with StakeHound will enable users to participate in the dominant Ethereum-based DeFi ecosystem while earning Horizen node staking rewards using stakedZEN (stZEN). This stZEN token exists on the Ethereum blockchain and is issued by Stakehound, and it represents a staked ZEN token. Furthermore, the arrival of stZEN is hoped to provide a seamless way for Ethereum-based DeFi users to join Horizen’s rapidly growing ecosystem.
StakeHound is focused on building bridges between staking protocols and Ethereum’s DeFi ecosystem. They have plans to issue further staked tokens aside from stZEN. Platforms such as StakeHound give users, who for example want to participate in both staking and DeFi, an opportunity without already holding a lot of ETH.
SushiSwap and other partnerships
stZEN is expected to be available on SushiSwap in late March 2021 but in preparation, Stakehound released a publicly accessible test version of stZEN on the Ethereum Ropsten test network that It emulates how a typical user would acquire stZEN once it’s listed on a decentralized exchange on Ethereum.
After partnering with crypto lending platform Celsius Network and many notable blockchain-based projects, such as IOTA, Dragonchain, and LTO Network, the partnership with StakeHound will unlock additional utility to ZEN and broadens Horizen’s reach in the DeFi space.
