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Zano

ZANO · Field entry
PrivacyPayments & moneyPrivacyCaution flagNot on major US exchanges

A private-by-default blockchain for payments, staking and confidential tokens

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$4.2210.53%Snapshot · October 20, 2026 · updates live
Market cap
$65.27M
24h volume
$916,539
Rank
#378
Circulating
15.47M ZANO
Max supply
No fixed cap
All-time high
$17.81 January 7, 2025

ZANO price chart

7-day snapshot. Chart data from CoinGecko.

Read this first — caution flag. In September 2026 an attacker used a Hardfork 6 bug to mint about 36.9 million unauthorized ZANO; the network restarted from before that fork, erasing about a month of legitimate transactions, and reimbursement of affected users was still being worked out as of October 2026. Centralized trading is also concentrated on a few offshore exchanges. How to evaluate a project.
Not on major US exchanges. As of October 2026 Coinbase and Kraken do not offer ZANO; the project points buyers to offshore exchanges such as MEXC, XT and BTSE and to its own Zano Trade DEX. How to buy crypto safely.

What is Zano?

Zano is a layer-1 blockchain, live since 2019, that conceals who paid, who got paid and how much in every transfer by default. Miners and stakers take turns securing it, and anyone can issue their own private tokens, called Confidential Assets, on the same chain. In September 2026 the network was restarted from an earlier block to remove coins created through a bug in a recent upgrade.

Utility Lens

What Zano actually does

Gives people and token issuers one chain where payments, staking and custom assets stay private by default.

Real-world usage
earlyPrivate payments, staking, a DEX and token issuance are all live, but activity is modest and centralized trading sits on a few offshore venues.
Token necessity
essentialZANO pays every transaction fee, is the coin that is staked, and is the reward paid to miners and stakers.
Decentralization
moderateAnyone can mine or stake with no minimum, but one core team leads development and holds a foundation fund from the premine.
Track record
provenThe network has run since 2019, but in September 2026 a flaw in Hardfork 6's Gateway Addresses let an attacker mint about 36.9 million unauthorized ZANO, and the chain was restarted from just before that fork, erasing about a month of transactions.

How we rate

What it’s used for

People send ZANO privately, stake it from the desktop wallet for block rewards, and trade ZANO and Confidential Assets peer to peer through Zano Trade and in-wallet swaps. The coin also works in Cake Wallet. For centralized trading, the project's own list points to offshore exchanges such as MEXC, XT and BTSE rather than US platforms.

Role of the ZANO token:

paymentsgasstaking security

Evidence of real use

  • Confidential Assets went live on Zano mainnet with the Zarcanum hard fork in the first quarter of 2024. Source
  • Zano was added to Cake Wallet, a privacy-focused mobile wallet, in late 2024. Source
  • An emergency release on September 27, 2026 rolled the chain back to block 3,833,000 and activated Hard Fork 7, which temporarily disabled Gateway Addresses after they were exploited. Source

Privacy: what’s hidden, what isn’t

Privacy model
default (every transaction)
What it hides
Sender, receiver, amount and asset type for ZANO and Confidential Assets, plus the size of each stake under Zarcanum.
What stays visible
That a transaction happened and roughly when; balances in any wallet the owner has made auditable; and all activity of wrapped WZANO on Ethereum, which is an ordinary public token.
Reality check
Sender privacy relies on rings of 16, so the spender is hidden within a set rather than among every output, and the project has been researching full-chain membership proofs. Coinbase and Kraken do not offer ZANO, and the EU AML Regulation bars regulated providers from handling such coins from July 2027.

Privacy coins, explained

How Zano works

Each Zano transfer is protected in three ways. A ring signature scheme called d/v-CLSAG hides the real input among decoys, with a standard ring of 16 candidates. One-time stealth addresses keep the recipient's public address off the chain. Commitments backed by Bulletproofs+ proofs conceal the amount and even which asset moved, so a payment in ZANO cannot be told apart from a payment in any token issued on Zano. An outside observer mainly learns that a transaction took place.

Blocks arrive about once a minute and alternate between proof-of-work, mined with the ProgPowZ algorithm, and proof-of-stake. The staking side, Zarcanum, keeps each staker's balance hidden, and the project says staking requires no special validator node, no minimum balance and no lock-up period. The idea is that rewriting history would require a large share of hashpower and of staked coins at the same moment. The team has also published a design, called Zenith, for a future move to pure proof-of-stake.

Confidential Assets let anyone mint a token, such as a private stablecoin, that gets the same protection as ZANO itself. Ionic Swaps let two people trade these assets directly between wallets without a custodian. Where a business or auditor needs visibility, a holder can create an optional auditable wallet that a chosen party can inspect, and the project says this does not reduce privacy for other users.

Key moments

  1. 2019Zano's mainnet goes live, built by developers whose earlier work includes Boolberry and the original CryptoNote code.
  2. 2021Wrapped Zano (WZANO), an ERC-20 version of the coin on Ethereum, is released.
  3. 2024The Zarcanum hard fork adds private proof-of-stake and brings Confidential Assets to mainnet.
  4. 2026Hardfork 6 adds Gateway Addresses in August, and the team completes its Zenith design for pure proof-of-stake.
  5. 2026An attacker uses a Gateway Address flaw to mint unauthorized ZANO, so in September the network restarts from the block before Hardfork 6 and an emergency Hard Fork 7 switches the feature off.

Supply

Each block pays a fixed 1 ZANO to whoever mines or stakes it, and there is no maximum supply, so yearly inflation shrinks in percentage terms over time. Every transaction fee, a flat 0.01 ZANO, is burned. A premine of 3.69 million ZANO funded development, and the project says about 440,000 ZANO remained in its foundation fund as of July 2026.

Risks to understand

  • Coinbase and Kraken do not offer ZANO, and from July 10, 2027 EU-regulated crypto service providers may not handle anonymity-enhancing coins.
  • Centralized trading is concentrated on a few offshore exchanges, which brings thinner liquidity and counterparty risk.
  • One core team, funded by the premine, drives development and network upgrades.
  • The sender is hidden among a ring of 16 rather than the whole chain, and user mistakes such as publicly linking addresses can still leak information.
  • Upgrades carry real risk: a bug in 2026's Hardfork 6 let unauthorized ZANO be minted for weeks, and the fix rolled back about a month of legitimate transactions. The team says it is restoring affected balances from its developer fund and other contributions, mainly through exchanges, and the process was still under way in October 2026.

Zano FAQ

Is Zano legal in the US?

Yes. As of October 2026 owning ZANO is legal in the US, but Coinbase and Kraken do not offer it, so most buyers use offshore exchanges or swap services.

Is staking ZANO private?

Yes. Zano's Zarcanum design hides how much each staker holds, and the project says there is no minimum stake or lock-up period.

What are Confidential Assets?

Tokens that anyone can create on Zano. They get the same hiding of addresses and amounts as ZANO itself, which allows things like private stablecoins.

What happened to Zano in September 2026?

An attacker exploited a flaw in Gateway Addresses, a feature added by Hardfork 6, to mint about 36.9 million unauthorized ZANO. To remove those coins the network restarted from the block before that fork, which also erased about a month of legitimate transactions, and the feature was switched off pending review.

Sources

  1. What is Zano — Zano Docs
  2. Emission, funding and specifications — Zano Docs
  3. Roadmap — Zano
  4. Exchanges — Zano
  5. Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 (Anti-Money Laundering Regulation) — EUR-Lex, Official Journal of the EU
  6. Features and technology — Zano
  7. Releases (v2.2.3.600 emergency release) — Zano (hyle-team) on GitHub
  8. Zano exploiter minted more than a quadrillion fUSD before blockchain rollback — Cointelegraph

Last reviewed October 20, 2026. Written by . Utility Lens ratings are editorial judgments, not investment advice. Market data from CoinGecko. Spot an error? Request a correction.

About the author

Dave McNaught has worked in IT since 1999 and founded All Business Technologies (ABT) in 2003, a Boston-area firm providing Managed IT, Cybersecurity, Managed AI, Web Design and App Development. He publishes The Crypto Guide.

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