August 31, 2026 – Zano’s Hard Fork 6 is now live on mainnet after activating at block 3,833,000, completing the largest network upgrade in the privacy blockchain’s seven-year history.
The upgrade introduces Gateway Addresses, a new type of account-based addresses that make Zano easier for centralized exchanges, DEXs and bridges to integrate, while preserving Zano’s privacy.
Zano is known for its strong privacy, but its UTXO model previously required custom engineering for other platforms to integrate. A bridge or exchange checking a balance had to reconstruct its current state and manage multiple spendable outputs, and standard exchange and custody systems were not designed to handle.
Gateway Addresses, now live in mainnet, give services a single directly tracked balance and instant synchronization. They sit alongside Zano’s existing addresses rather than replacing them, so users who continue using standard addresses retain the same privacy model as always.
“Until now, integrating Zano required custom engineering. With Gateway Addresses now live, exchanges, bridges and DEXs can use a more familiar account-style setup, making the path from technical review to a working integration easier” said Andrey Sabelnikov, co-founder and lead developer at Zano.
Native ZANO Can Now Move Out of the Privacy Chain
HF6 also enables native $ZANO to bridge non-custodially from Zano to transparent chains including Ethereum, Solana and TON for the first time. Those assets are public while on external networks and regain Zano’s privacy protections when bridged back.
Previously, supported assets such as BTC, ETH and SOL could be bridged into Zano, where they gained Zano’s privacy protections. Now it works in both ways, ZANO can move cross-chain non-custodially, while standard Zano addresses remain private and unchanged.
“With Gateway Addresses live, ZANO has a clearer path into DEX liquidity and broader exchange access. We’re already talking with several platforms about post-HF6 integrations” said Quinten van Welzen, Head of Growth at Zano.
Security and Reliability Changes
Hard Fork 6 also introduces a stronger consensus with tighter and more uniform validation rules, and a more decisive fork-choice rule.
The upgrade also hardened wallet encryption making a stolen or copied file far harder to crack, and made mining pools more resilient so they can dry-run a block before finalizing it, dropping bad transactions instead of stalling.
Now, each output carries its own payment ID, so exchanges and merchants can reconcile payments cleanly with recipient privacy intact
The release also adds anti-DoS limits, SOCKS5 proxy support so operators can route traffic through Tor, and a hardened RPC interface for third-party services.
Zano launched in 2019 and supports confidential transactions, private staking and Confidential Assets, tokens issued directly on the network with privacy at the protocol level.
What comes next?
HF6 is also a prerequisite for the Zano Execution Layer (ZEL), an EVM-compatible chain in development that is intended to bring smart contracts to the wider Zano ecosystem while keeping the existing Zano layer private. ZEL does not yet have a fixed launch date.
Zano has announced its next consensus protocol, Zenith. A pure proof-of-stake design built on Zarcanum’s privacy foundations. Under currently proposed parameters, blocks arrive every 15 seconds in epochs of roughly 10 minutes. Zenith is on the roadmap for 2027.
About Zano
Zano is a privacy-first Layer 1 launched in 2019. It supports confidential transactions, hidden amounts, stealth addresses, private staking and Confidential Assets. Privacy is built into the protocol rather than added at the application layer, enabling users to trade, stake, issue assets, and build apps, all confidential at the protocol level. Learn more at zano.org.
Contact
Quinten van Welzen,
[email protected]
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