Horizon State
Horizon State is an Australian company that built a blockchain-based voting and decision-making platform. The system used distributed ledger technology to record votes on a permanent, publicly auditable record — aiming to solve problems of vote integrity, transparency, and accessibility.
They ran several real-world pilots, including a contract with the South Australian government to run the election for the inaugural Minister's Recreational Fishing Advisory Council, and work with The Opportunities Party in New Zealand.
The original company collapsed in August 2019 under the legal costs of a lawsuit. That turned out not to be the end: a group of community members purchased the intellectual property and relaunched the platform in November 2019 under new management. In December 2024 the relaunched company issued a new Horizon State Token (HST) on the Base network — airdropped to prior Decision Token holders — and currently offers managed elections as a paid service, with a fully on-chain, self-serve voting product stated as its goal.
Why it matters as a case study
Horizon State is a useful reference point for the blockchain-in-democracy discussion. It attracted significant attention during the blockchain enthusiasm of 2017–2018, demonstrated that blockchain voting could be implemented in real government contexts, collapsed under commercial rather than technical pressure, and then became one of the few platforms in this space to be resurrected by its own user community.
The core lesson: technical feasibility is not the binding constraint for digital voting adoption. The challenges are political, institutional, and trust-related — blockchain's verifiability properties don't automatically translate into public confidence, and governments move slowly on changes to electoral infrastructure regardless of the technology's merits. Horizon State's afterlife adds a second lesson: a platform's community can outlive its company.
Horizon State operated in the same ecosystem as SecureVote and in the broader orbit of the Flux Party, which also used blockchain in its voting architecture.
See also
History
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2017-01-01
Founded by Jamie Skella and Nimo Naamani as a Melbourne-based blockchain voting startup
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Co-founded in 2017 by Jamie Skella and Nimo Naamani, Horizon State attempted to transform the voting process in Australia and New Zealand using blockchain
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2017-11-19
Token Generation Event (ICO) concluded, raising approximately $1.4M
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The TGE (Token Generation Event) announced by Horizon State has successfully concluded on Nov 19, 2017
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2019-02-01
South Australian government used the platform to run a public election for its Recreational Fishing Advisory Council
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In February 2019, the South Australian government used Horizon State to run a public election for the recreational fishing advisory council.
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2019-08-21
Company shut down after legal costs from a lawsuit
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an eye-watering expense [that] will see the business become insolvent, and ultimately force its closure
Horizon State, a blockchain platform for voting based in Australia, has been shut down after a lawsuit was filed against it.
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2019-11-01
Returned under new management after a community group purchased the platform's IP assets
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Award-winning tech company Horizon State today (1/11/2019) announced it is returning under new management.
Originally published at horizonstate.com/hst-faq/ — domain since parked.
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2024-12-04
Relaunched its token as Horizon State Token (HST) on the Base network, with an airdrop to prior Decision Token holders
Sourcing: High
Horizon State Token is a continuation of the Decision Token that came to an end in 2019. We are a new ownership and management team who have airdropped tokens to prior holders as goodwill.
Originally published at horizonstate.com/hst-token/ — domain since parked.
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