Zen is a platform designed for censorship-resistant communications and anonymous economic activity
Zen will be the product of an intentional divergence of the zclassic blockchain, this will occur on May 23 of this year, that is 2017.
It’s important to note that the zclassic team will continue the development of both networks.
Zen is an evolution of the Zclassic codebase built by Zclassic's original developers aimed at primarily enabling intrinsically secure communications and resilient networking.
Is there really a need for another crypto coin that boasts privacy?
How will Zen differentiate itself from the competition?
Despite the growing number of cryptocurrencies that value privacy as their top feature, there has yet to be one that exists that can certify complete end-to-end encryption of the distributed network.
Zen is designed to do just this, not only for communications, but also as a means of sending money. Not only is Zen tackling the full encryption dilemma, but it’s also a completely encrypted, massively distributed storage system.
There is no cryptocurrency in existence that guarantees full end-to-end encryption of the distributed network. Zen is designed to be fully encrypted as a network and also as a means to send and distribute money.
Zen doesn't stop there though. It is also a massively distributed and fully encrypted storage system with endless possibilities.
How is Zen doing things differently than zclassic?
Well, the team behind zclassic learned a few things and they’re taking these lessons and applying them to zen.
Because zclassic was community funded and r eliant on independent donations, the team realized that this was delaying growth.
Since Zen doesn’t want to make the same mistakes twice, they are using a DAO-style governance model based upon proof-of-shares.
In the Zen network, 8.43% of the tokens are allocated for community development, marketing, maintenance, and the DAO. This ensures that there are always enough resources available for growth.
How can you prepare for the coming of Zen?
If you own any zclassic coins and you store them in a wallet that you control and have possession of the private keys, you can receive zen coins on a 1:1 basis if you import your private keys into the new zen wallet. They are also working with Bittrex so that if you hold any zclassic on that exchange you will also receive an equal amount of zen coin.
Additional Reading/Sources:
Zen homepage
BitcoinTalk Post Explains Zen
What is end-to-end encryption?
Harmonious Split from Zclassic