Zano’s Hard Fork 6 is now live on mainnet, completing the largest network upgrade in its 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.
HF6 also enables native $ZANO to bridge non-custodially from Zano to transparent chains including Ethereum, and Solana for the first time. Those assets are public while on external networks and regain Zano’s privacy protections when bridged back.
Before, 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.
Quinten van Welzen, Head of Growth at Zano, said:
“Hard Fork 6 could make a real difference for Zano’s adoption, as it opens an easier path for ZANO into DeFi liquidity pools and broader exchange listings, with Zano already in touch with platforms including THORchain and other DEXs about post-HF6 integrations”
Gateway Addresses
Zano is known for its strong privacy, but its UTXO model previously required custom engineering for other platforms to integrate.
HF6 brings Gateway Addresses to mainnet, a new account-based address type that gives services a single directly tracked balance and instant sync.
Gateway Addresses are an addition to the protocol intended for exchanges, bridges, DEXs and other infrastructure providers. Users who continue to transact through standard addresses retain the same privacy model as always.
Andrey Sabelnikov, Co-founder & Lead Developer at Zano, said:
“The UTXO model is fundamental to Zano’s privacy, so replacing it was never the goal. Gateway Addresses add the account-style state that large services need while preserving the privacy guarantees of standard Zano addresses.”
Hard Fork 6 also introduces security, privacy, and reliability improvements:
• Stronger consensus: tighter, more uniform validation rules and a more decisive fork-choice rule mean stronger network-wide agreement and a more solid base layer.
• Hardened wallet encryption: the wallet file now uses stronger encryption, making a stolen or copied file far harder to crack.
• Per-output payment IDs: each output carries its own payment ID, so exchanges and merchants can match payments cleanly, with recipient privacy fully intact.
• More resilient mining pools: pools can now dry-run a block before finalizing it, dropping bad transactions automatically instead of stalling.
• Tougher, more private nodes: new anti-DoS limits harden the network, and node operators can now route traffic through a proxy like Tor via SOCKS5.
• Safer developer surface: the RPC interfaces used to build on Zano have been hardened for safer integrations.
What comes next?
The Zano Execution Layer (ZEL)
Zano is developing ZEL, an EVM sidechain that brings smart contracts to the ecosystem while Zano L1 remains the privacy chain. Standard Solidity contracts and tooling are expected to run unmodified, Hardhat, Foundry, MetaMask, and audited contract libraries all expected to work from day one, with bridged $ZANO as the native gas coin.
Zenith: private pure proof of stake
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 Q2 2027.
About Zano
Zano is a privacy-first Layer 1 launched in 2019, supporting confidential transactions, hidden amounts, stealth addresses, private staking and Confidential Assets, with engineering roots in the original CryptoNote. With Zano you can trade, stake, issue assets, and build apps, all confidential at the protocol level.