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Zano

A hybrid proof-of-work and proof-of-stake cryptocurrency that hides senders, receivers, amounts and asset types by default, with ring signatures, hidden amounts and confidential assets.

LivePrivacy coin

As of 23 October 2026 the chain, restarted from block 3,833,000 in September, had reached block 3,871,273; Gateway Addresses stayed disabled under the emergency Hard Fork 7, with no date found for their return, and no claims process for the lost transactions had been reported.

Market cap
$58.8MDefiLlama, 29 Oct 2026
Launched
8 May 2019
Token
ZANO
Chains
Zano

Checked on 23 Oct 2026. Information only, not investment advice.

How it works

Zano is a cryptocurrency with its own blockchain, whose first block was mined on 8 May 2019 by the team behind Boolberry, a coin its founder launched in 2014; Boolberry holders could swap BBR for ZANO one for one from 30 June 2019. It combines proof-of-work, mined with ProgPowZ, and proof-of-stake: proof-of-work and proof-of-stake blocks each target two minutes, so a block arrives about every minute, and each pays a fixed reward of 1 ZANO. Since the Zarcanum hard fork at block 2,555,000 on 21 March 2024, staking is private too: Zarcanum, a proof-of-stake scheme published by sowle and koe, lets a staker win a block without revealing the amount staked or which output was used.

Privacy applies by default: Zano's documentation states that amounts, addresses and asset types are hidden. Payments go to one-time stealth addresses derived from the recipient's address, and inputs are signed with d/v-CLSAG ring signatures, in which, since the Zarcanum fork, the protocol requires each real input to be hidden among 15 decoys, a ring of 16. Amounts are hidden in commitments with Bulletproofs+ range proofs. The same fork added confidential assets, tokens that anyone can issue on Zano, such as the fUSD (Freedom Dollar) stablecoin, whose transfers hide the asset type as well as the amount.

Hard Fork 6, at block 3,833,000 on 26 August 2026, added Gateway Addresses, account-based addresses with a single tracked balance meant for exchanges, DEXs and bridges, and opened non-custodial bridging of native ZANO to Ethereum, Solana and TON, where bridged tokens are public. A flaw in Gateway Addresses let an attacker create unauthorised ZANO and fUSD from 29 August 2026; after the team's tools raised the alarm on 25 September, the chain was restarted from block 3,833,000, removing about a month of transactions, and Gateway Addresses were taken offline pending a code review.

Zano does not hide everything. The real input of a transaction hides among 15 decoys, not among every output on the chain. A wallet's IP address is visible to the nodes it broadcasts to unless it relays through a SOCKS5 proxy such as Tor, which the wallet supports as an option. Each asset's descriptor is public: Zano's explorer lists every asset's ticker, name, maximum and current supply and owner key, with a flag for assets whose supply is hidden. ZANO bridged to another chain is as visible as any token there.

Market cap over time

Zano has no TVL: it is a coin with its own blockchain, so the chart shows its market cap. Daily market cap from Coin Metrics Community Data (CC BY-NC 4.0) since 13 Dec 2024, and the current value from DefiLlama. The latest value is from 29 Oct 2026, 04:53 UTC. The series is in protocol-zano.json, listed on the Data page.

What it hides and what it does not

What it hides

  • Who was paid: each payment goes to a one-time stealth address derived from the recipient's address.
  • Which coin is being spent: since the Zarcanum fork of 21 March 2024, each input must be signed as one of 16 ring members, the real one and 15 decoys.
  • Amounts and, for confidential assets such as fUSD, the asset type of each transfer.
  • How much a staker holds and which output won a proof-of-stake block, through Zarcanum.

What it does not hide

  • The real input with full certainty: it hides among 15 decoys rather than among every output on the chain.
  • The IP address of a wallet to the nodes it broadcasts to, unless it relays through a SOCKS5 proxy such as Tor, which is optional.
  • Each asset's descriptor: the explorer lists its ticker, name, maximum and current supply and owner key, unless the issuer hid the supply.
  • ZANO bridged to Ethereum, Solana or TON, which is public on those chains until it is bridged back.

Drawn from how it works, above; the sources are listed at the end of the page. Where privacy still leaks explains the patterns, such as timing and amounts, that can give users of any design away.

Audits

Two security reviews, oldest first, with what each covered and found. Dates are when each report was issued, unless the entry says otherwise.

DateFirmScope and findings
Cypher Stack (Sarang Noether)

Review of the Zarcanum proof-of-stake paper, which a Zano report of 18 November 2021 said Sarang Noether of Cypher Stack would carry out at the end of that month; no report or findings were found, so this review is not confirmed. The paper was also put on the IACR ePrint archive for peer review.

Sources: Zano Bi-weekly Report (18th November 2021) Zano (Publish0x), 18 Nov 2021; Zarcanum: A Proof-of-Stake Scheme for Confidential Transactions with Hidden Amounts (ePrint 2021/1478) IACR Cryptology ePrint Archive, 15 Mar 2022
Immunefi audit competition

An invite-only audit competition from 17 February to 10 March 2025, with a USD 25,000 reward pool, on about 5,000 lines of Zano's C++ code, focused on its cryptography and core consensus rules, such as Bulletproofs and CLSAG; the assets in scope were not published. Immunefi's report site lists five reports: one of high severity, on JWT salt expiry in the wallet RPC server's authentication, and four rated insight, among them a reported double spend using zero-point stealth address and signature elements in CLSAG-GGX proof verification and a report on breaking asset surjection proof assumptions.

Sources: IOP | Zano: scope Immunefi; Zano IOP: reports Immunefi

Incidents

One incident that affected the project or its users.

  1. Exploit

    A flaw in the Gateway Addresses added by Hard Fork 6 let an attacker create unauthorised ZANO and fUSD; Bitcoin.com, citing the team, reported a first mint of about 18.4 million ZANO on 29 August and another on 25 September, when Zano's tools raised the alarm. The chain was restarted from block 3,833,000, removing about a month of history, including legitimate transactions; payments settled on other chains could not be reversed, MEXC suspended ZANO and fUSD deposits and withdrawals at the team's request, and the team said wallet spend keys were not compromised and affected balances would be recovered without minting new ZANO.

    Sources: v2.2.3.600: emergency release Hyle team (GitHub), 27 Sep 2026; Zano announcement of the chain restart (X) Zano (X), 27 Sep 2026; Zano restarts chain at block 3,833,000 after exploit crypto.news, 28 Sep 2026; Zano rolls blockchain back a month after Gateway Address exploit Cointelegraph, 28 Sep 2026; Zano: over $200M in illicit tokens, 30-day blockchain rewind Bitcoin.com News, 1 Oct 2026

Milestones

Eight milestones, oldest first.

  1. The first block after genesis was mined, with 17,517,203 ZANO already allocated for the Boolberry coinswap and the premine.

    Sources: Zano explorer API: blocks 0 and 1 Zano explorer, 23 Oct 2026; currency_config.h (PREMINE_AMOUNT) Hyle team (GitHub), 23 Oct 2026

  2. A 30-day coinswap opened, letting Boolberry holders swap BBR for ZANO one for one; 7,782,192.31 BBR were swapped and the rest of the swap pool was burned.

    Sources: Coinswap launch Zano (Medium); The coinswap has concluded Zano (Medium)

  3. MEXC listed ZANO after a Kickstarter vote, with spot trading from 09:00 UTC; on 13 October 2026 it was the only one of the 14 large exchanges this site checks to list ZANO.

    Sources: MEXC Kickstarter - Vote Zano (ZANO) to Win Free 50,000 USDT Airdrops! MEXC, 28 Dec 2023; Spot exchangeInfo (public market API) MEXC, 13 Oct 2026

  4. The Zarcanum hard fork activated at block 2,555,000, bringing hidden amounts, private proof-of-stake, confidential assets and a mandatory set of 15 decoys for each input.

    Sources: Zano explorer API: block 2,555,000 Zano explorer, 23 Oct 2026; currency_config.h (ZANO_HARDFORK_04_ZARCANUM, CURRENCY_HF4_MANDATORY_DECOY_SET_SIZE) Hyle team (GitHub), 23 Oct 2026; Zano blockchain's hard fork facilitates privacy coin creation, introduces confidential assets Bitcoin.com News, 25 Mar 2024

  5. Hard Fork 5 activated at block 3,076,400.

    Sources: Zano explorer API: block 3,076,400 Zano explorer, 23 Oct 2026; currency_config.h (ZANO_HARDFORK_05) Hyle team (GitHub), 23 Oct 2026

  6. Hard Fork 6 activated at block 3,833,000, adding Gateway Addresses for exchanges, DEXs and bridges and non-custodial bridging of native ZANO to Ethereum, Solana and TON.

    Sources: Zano explorer API: block 3,833,000 Zano explorer, 23 Oct 2026; Zano activates Hard Fork 6, opening the privacy chain to exchanges, bridges and DEXs Bitcoin.com News (press release), 31 Aug 2026

  7. Emergency release 2.2.3.600 rolled the chain back to block 3,833,000, mined at 15:50 UTC on 26 August 2026, and activated an emergency Hard Fork 7 at that height that temporarily disables Gateway Addresses; nodes that deploy it adopt the rollback, and the team said Gateway Addresses would return only after their code had been reviewed, audited and tested.

    Sources: v2.2.3.600: emergency release Hyle team (GitHub), 27 Sep 2026; Zano announcement of the chain restart (X) Zano (X), 27 Sep 2026; Zano rolls blockchain back a month after Gateway Address exploit Cointelegraph, 28 Sep 2026

  8. Release 2.2.3.603 moved the network to compact block synchronisation, to cut wallet sync traffic, and cut off older clients.

    Source: v2.2.3.603 Hyle team (GitHub), 5 Oct 2026

Funding

One source of funding. Amounts are in US dollars; a dash means the sources give no US dollar figure.

DateRoundAmountInvestors

Premine: 3,690,000 ZANO for a development fund and other project expenses, beside 13,827,203 ZANO reserved for the Boolberry coinswap (allocated in ZANO, so no US dollar amount)

Sources: currency_config.h (PREMINE_AMOUNT) Hyle team (GitHub), 23 Oct 2026; The coinswap has concluded Zano (Medium)

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Risks

In September 2026 Zano restarted its chain from block 3,833,000 to undo unauthorised ZANO and fUSD created through a flaw in Gateway Addresses, which removed about a month of legitimate transactions as well; payments already settled on other chains could not be reversed, and the reimbursement was to come from the development fund, the team and outside contributors, with no claims process reported by 23 October 2026. The rollback took effect because nodes, miners, stakers and exchanges deployed the team's emergency release, whose notes said that deploying it meant adopting the rollback. No full audit of Zano's code by an audit firm was found: the 2021 Cypher Stack review of Zarcanum is unconfirmed, and the invite-only Immunefi competition of 2025 produced five reports, one of them of high severity. Sender privacy rests on rings of 16, and IP privacy on the user choosing a Tor or other SOCKS5 proxy. The 3,690,000 ZANO premined for the development fund and project expenses equal about 24% of the 15.47 million ZANO the explorer reported on 23 October 2026. Access is narrow: of the 14 large exchanges this site checks, only MEXC listed ZANO on 13 October 2026, and from 10 July 2027 the EU's Anti-Money Laundering Regulation will bar crypto-asset service providers from keeping accounts that allow transactions to be anonymised or obscured, including through anonymity-enhancing coins.

Sources

The documents this profile rests on. Each audit, incident, milestone and funding round above also links its own sources.

Checked on 23 Oct 2026. Confidence: reported. Information only, not investment, legal or tax advice.

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