Zano, a privacy-centric blockchain network, disclosed on September 25 that an inflation bug involving Gateway Addresses has forced the network to perform an extraordinary fix: erasing roughly 24 hours of transaction history. The team announced the rollback would proceed without alternative options, instructing users to immediately halt economic activity involving ZANO and Confidential Assets.
Gateway Addresses were introduced with Hard Fork 6 on August 26 at block 3,833,000 following over a year of development. The feature was designed to simplify how exchanges, bridges, and decentralized exchanges interact with Zano by allowing services to work with directly tracked balances rather than Zano's private UTXO system.
According to Zano's announcement, an inflation bug within these addresses allowed assets to be created without authorization. The precise mechanics of the vulnerability have not been publicly disclosed, and outside observers have speculated the issue may involve transactions crossing between gateway and confidential outputs.
The rollback presents a significant challenge: while it aims to eliminate unauthorized transactions, it will also erase legitimate transactions that occurred during the 24-hour window. Zano has committed to reimbursing economic damages but has not yet published critical details including the exact rollback height, patched binaries, the reimbursement procedure, or the total amount of unauthorized assets created.
Following the announcement, ZANO's price declined approximately 20%, trading at $6.05 per unit at the time of reporting. The network continues to develop the full scope of details surrounding the incident, with Zano indicating the story remains developing.
