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This is a more detailed review about Zenon Network and contains updates about present development. This review is based on information that is currently publicly available.

Disclaimer: This review is intended for educational purposes and should not be considered as financial advice. Before investing into any project I recommend you do your own research and consult a registered financial adviser.

1. About Zenon Network

What is Zenon Network?

What started as a quiet project back in march 2019, is slowly starting to get the attention of cryptocurrency investors. The mystery of Zenon Network and it's goal to achieve true decentralization has conquered many investors hearts. Things are starting to gain traction and slowly but surely more people will become interested in this project.

Zenon network opened their social media accounts to the public on the 21st of march 2019.

According to team's light paper, it is a new type of project with an architecture designed to overcome the limitations of current blockchain or DAG based cryptocurrencies. They promise to do that by enabling an efficient trust layer for transfer of value and data globally, based on a novel and secure sharding protocol for a permission-less public data ledger called the Network of Momentum.

The cryptocurrency built on top of the distributed ledger technology provides :

fairness of access (no one can stop or delay transactions to enter the system)

fairness of ordering (no one can manipulate the order of transactions)

fairness of timestamping (the timestamp is not given by a single entity)

What problems does Zenon Network solve?

Zenon Network will have a number of use cases, one being solving the current problem of network congestion from which so many blockchain projects suffer. As they say in one of their tweets : "Before adopting cutting edge technologies, projects should ensure that they have a strong network foundation to begin with."
For more details on how they are planning to solve this issue, I have attached the lightpaper at the end of the article.

The core features of the Zenon project are as follows :

Network of Momentum
Zapp's
Satellites

Some examples of technologies that will benefit from the protocol are :

Digital Assets
Decentralized storage solutions
Artificial inteligence (A.I.) systems
Digital Identity services
Internet of Things (IoT)
Distributed Computing platforms

2. Product

Product Readiness

The Network of Momentum is the foundation technology underlying the Zenon cryptocurrency. This technology will go live on main net in 2020 or maximum 2021. There isn't an official date published yet.
It is designed to scale without compromising decentralization while preserving long term security properties under a permission-less operation. So it seems Zenon's Network primary use case is to solve the network congestion issue that other current blockchains suffer from.

The project is currently in the first main phase called PILLARS GENERATION. In this stage the foundation of the network is created to properly secure the network and be able to scale when the second main phase called NETWORK GENESIS goes live.

There are three more days left to secure a pillar on the network at the time of this writing.

After that it will be impossible to secure a pillar on the network, unless other participants decide to shut down their pillars. A pillar node requires a collateral of 15000 ZNN, grants you development voting rights on the Network of Momentum and will have four times the weight of a regular node. Another bonus is that Pillar owners will be the first network participants to experience the Network of Momentum testnet.

Space in the Market & Competitive Landscape

Zenon Network is aiming to provide the world with something different than a blockchain or DAG protocol that ensures decentralized trust and allows individuals and organizations to manage their own digital assets, build applications referred to as Zapps and possible bring communications and internet to a new era with satellites.

Being that they claim to be something different from a blockchain or DAG we can't properly compare it to other projects in the space. Yet we can choose some blockchain project competitors in the decentralized application(dapps) market :

Ethereum 16.3 billion $
EOS 2.6 billion $
Tezos 1 billion $
Cardano 1 billion $
NEO 640 million $

Zenon network current marketcap is 4.3 million $.

While there appears to be a high number of projects trying to address the area of decentralized applications, there is still a sizeable market for the Zenon Network team to target, and they may not face as much direct competition from smaller projects. The high number of operators in the decentralized applications sector illustrates that it is one of the more viable use cases for blockchain technology and any project that provides a secure and scalable protocol that gains a significant amount of adoption can be expected to appreciate considerably in value.

Innovation

The Zenon Network protocol called Network of Momentum code is currently private. Only current available code is from the fork of PivX they are using, which is used as a current method for distribution of the token until the Network of Momentum goes live.
That being said there are two parts that I consider innovative in the space : their fund raising mechanism and the possibility of deploying satellites into space in the pursue of true decentralization. More on that later in the article.

3. Coin sale and current metrics

Coin sale

As previously mentioned, I found their coin sale being an innovative approach to the other many coin/token sales I participated in. The participants in the sale invested BTC through the Zenon Network wallet interface where a BTC address was created for every participant. In return of the BTC contributed they got the ZNN coins in the Zenon Network wallet. The innovative thing was that every investor that participated with 1 BTC or more gets their BTC back through a process called xStake, over a 24 months period of time. Until now there where 8 successful distribution of xStakes BTC back to the participants in the sale. In the wallet interface it also asked the participant to provide a return BTC address to which the monthly xStakes will be sent. As long as those participants keep their nodes up and running the, BTC will be returned to them in the form of xStakes. This is a nice approach to incentives people to hold by giving them a free ride on the coins.

This lead the community to think that there is some sort of smart contract mechanism involved which can be a huge breakout in the space : Smart contracts on BTC. When this was asked in the their main telegram channel, one of their developers said this :

"We have a proprietary system designed to provide a secure and fair distribution for xStakes".

Coin sale statistics :

HARDCAP : 4.5M ZNN (not reached). 1.630.000 ZNN where distributed to participants in the sale
DISTRIBUTION FUND : a premine of 70000 ZNN to create the first nodes in order to secure the network, that are returned to node participants every month
STRUCTURE FUND : 800.000 ZNN locked in 4 publicly known addresses, making no rewards of any kind. Community will decide what happens with them if there is any need as the project progresses
PRICE : 0.0002 BTC per ZNN
AMOUNT RAISED : 326 BTC. As mentioned before, most of this BTC was returned to the initial investors and will continue to be returned through xStakes to those that keep their nodes running.

The remaining ZNN until the maximum possible supply of 6.6M ZNN are distributed via POS and Masternode emissions every block until the Network of Momentum is launched.

Coin Metrics

SYMBOL : ZNN

CIRCULATING SUPPLY : 4.033.018 ZNN

MAX COIN SUPPLY : No more than 6.6 million, but could be less depending on when the Network of Momentum is launched, as the proof of stake mechanism will stop then.

BLOCK EXPLORER : EXPLORER

BLOCK TIME : 60 seconds

BLOCK REWARD : 3 ZNN

CONSENSUS : POS/MN ,

The current chain is a fork of PivX that is used by team to distribute the coin in a decentralized way as a placeholder until the true chain called Network of Momentum goes live

PRICE BTC : 0.00014100 BTC

PRICE USD : 1.07$

CURRENT CIRCULATING MARKETCAP : 4.315.329 $

EXCHANGES : https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/zenon/markets/

MASTERNODE COUNT (LOCKED) : 164 (820.000 ZNN)

PILLAR COUNT (LOCKED) : 129 (1.935.000 ZNN)

There are currently 164 Nodes and 129 Pillars in the network. One node equals 5000 ZNN and one Pillar equals 15000 ZNN. This means 2.755.000 ZNN are locked in nodes. If we add the 800.000 ZNN structure fund, there are currently 3.555.000 ZNN locked, which means only 478.018 ZNN are in circulation.

4. Team, Decentralization & Community

Team & Decentralization

The team is anonymous. This can have two different views : positive or negative.

Positive

Any project that claims to reach true decentralization and has public figures is probably not going to reach true decentralization. That's why Satoshi Nakamoto chose the anonymous way. Every project that has a face on it will eventually be controlled if it becomes to dangerous. Being anonymous can protect you from regulatory issues.

Negative

Most of the 2016-2017 scam projects had anonymous team's. This may keep people away from projects who don't have public faces. And they are right to be afraid of this, having this past experiences.

Don't let past experiences cloud your judgement, but also keep an eye open and make sure you are not missing some details. While researching this project I don't see why would they go through all this trouble to make some money. BTC is given back to initial investors through xStakes and also they could have raised more in the sale.

The team seems to know what they are doing. They are very professional and always helping users in case of need. Their innovative approach with the xStakes leads me to think they are well experienced developers. They also seem to know when it's the best time for marketing and also have a strong foundation for this through branding : a very well designed website, logo and wallet interface.

Every step that Zenon Network took leads us to think they are trying to achieve true decentralization :

Anonymous team as Bitcoin
Fund raising in BTC that is returned in the form of xStakes over a 24 months period
Big accent on community plus future voting rights
Voting by the community on how the structure fund is spent
Possible satellites into space for higher decentralization
Placeholder PivX fork for fair distribution of the coin
Academically reviewed whitepaper in q1 2020
Against all kinds of bought members and false marketing. They are encouraging natural community growth as you can see if you check their telegram channel. They are deleting "deleted" accounts. One time someone bought members for their telegram channel and all the members were removed.

Community

Cool design by @blokceyn from the zenon network community

Community statistics :

Telegram - 838 members
Twitter - 914 members
Discord - 467 members
Community discord - 144 members

The community is very helpful in all situations and consists of experienced cryptocurrency investors. The kind of investors that ask a lot of questions and have experience on how to spot a good project from a bad one.

The majority of the engagement takes place on their official telegram and the community discord. The official discord is not so active, but updates are always posted in time and whenever someone needs help he/she gets engagement.

The community is also very active on twitter. You can find a lot of information on the $ZNN tag there. Some big crypto influencers are also tweeting about the project.

The team seems to value the community a lot and want a natural growth in numbers, which aligns with the fact that they seek true decentralization. Recently they are providing a series of educational articles about Bitcoin and blockchain which I found very interesting. You can find the first article here

They also have a community portal on their website where you can actually register to help the project. They are looking for people in the following areas : strategy, marketing, development, social media, design, support. You can find the portal here : https://zenon.network/portal

5.Development Roadmap

development roadddmapp.png

Cool design by @blokceyn from the zenon network community

The project is currently in an important phase called Pillar lock in that we talked about earlier in this article. This is an important stage because this is when the foundation of the network is created. Also no more pillars will be generated after this next 3 days, when this phase will end. You can still join the queue with a pillar after this, but you must wait for another network participant to shut down theirs.

Pillar lock in details : Securing a pillar

With this event the team held an awareness initiative for four weeks that took place on twitter. And this last week they are rewarding the community with a trading competition on stex exchange plus for writing an article on medium or steemit. You can check that out here

Next on their roadmap comes the release of zWallet beta with initial functional features. At approximately the same time the much waited release of the academically reviewed whitepaper will take place. Community seems to be very interested in that and they hope to learn a lot of new things.

Last point that we can see on their roadmap is the launch of the Network of Momentum and the nano-satellites deployment which will follow after it, bringing decentralization and privacy to a new standard.

6. Hype Factor

Cool design by @blokceyn from the zenon network community

Hype is something that constantly changes and is subjective. However, I do feel that it is important to consider it when analyzing a project.

The project has not developed any significant hype until recently and has been flying under the radar for a number of months now. The primary reason was that the team wasn't interested in the marketing aspect. The community did some promotion on their own and attracted few investors. But with the pillar lock in phase, the team started a small marketing campaign called the awareness initiative and more people started to become interested in the project. Many new people are joining the official channels and this could act as a snowball effect.

Some medium and big twitter crypto influencers have also starting to take interest in the project by tweeting about it, so hype has increased already.

What can also lead to a serious increase in hype is that most of the circulating supply is now locked in nodes and pillars. Only 478018 ZNN out of 4033018 ZNN is currently in circulation. This creates scarcity and possible lead to price appreciation. That usually leads to what cryptocurrency investors call : FOMO.

7. Final conclusion

Zenon Network is a project that has flown under the radar and one that I am becoming much more interested in. It is an intriguing project with solid use cases and the team are setting out to disrupt the cryptocurrency space, that has somewhat becoming dependent on centralized entities and distant from Satoshi Nakamoto's original version about blockchain.

The possibility of deploying satellites into space would be a first of it's kind. Through this innovation all people on the planet could have access to internet and sending/receiving digital assets, no matter where they are located on this planet. And if we want to think at a larger scale, imagine when Elon Musk finally manages to create a Mars society. I bet satellites will have a huge role on communicating and possible setting up the interplanetary decentralized financial sector.

Despite all the positives, there are still some areas of concerns and some points to consider. Having an anonymous team works both way, but at the same time, you can't achieve true decentralization with being a public figure.

That being said I wish you a happy pillar hunting !