ZEN Mining Guide

Intended audience

This guide is intended to be a practical introduction to mining ZEN - Horizen's cryptocurrency.

Horizen uses a Bitcoin-style blockchain, or decentralized ledger of transactions. The blockchain is maintained though a Proof of Work (POW) consensus mechanism. 

Miners use specialized mining hardware and software to solve difficult mathematical problems. Miners compete against each other to be the first to do so. The winner of that competition receives a reward for adding that new block to the blockchain, after a consensus is achieved (by other miners) that the problem has been solved correctly. 

Horizen uses the Equihash hashing algorithm. Equihash is a memory-intensive algorithm originally conceived as being resistant to Application Specific Integrated Circuit based mining devices. The entry of Equihash ASIC devices capable of mining Horizen in the summer of 2018 has caused a lively debate about the future of the Equihash algorithm for Horizen. Current thinking is that this decision should be placed in the hands of the users and thus awaits the development and introduction of the ZenDao.

This guide is intended to be practical. For more in-depth information about the role mining plays in a cryptocurrency eco-system , please visit the Horizen Academy's Mining page.