Zano activated Hard Fork 6 on mainnet at block 3,833,000, marking the privacy blockchain's largest network upgrade since its 2019 launch.
The upgrade introduces Gateway Addresses, a new account-based address type designed to simplify integration for centralized exchanges, DEXs, and bridges. Previously, Zano's UTXO model required custom engineering for platforms to integrate, as services had to reconstruct network state and manage multiple spendable outputs. Gateway Addresses provide a single directly tracked balance with instant synchronization, while existing standard addresses retain their original privacy protections.
Hard Fork 6 also enables native ZANO to bridge non-custodially to transparent blockchains including Ethereum, Solana, and TON for the first time. Assets remain public on external networks and regain Zano's privacy protections when bridged back to Zano. Previously, only supported assets such as BTC, ETH, and SOL could bridge into Zano.
Security and Technical Improvements
The upgrade introduces stronger consensus mechanisms with tighter validation rules and a more decisive fork-choice rule. Wallet encryption has been hardened to make stolen or copied files more difficult to compromise. Mining pools are now more resilient, able to dry-run blocks before finalizing them and dropping invalid transactions instead of stalling.
Each output now carries its own payment ID to enable clean payment reconciliation with recipient privacy intact. The upgrade also adds anti-DoS limits, SOCKS5 proxy support for routing traffic through Tor, and a hardened RPC interface for third-party services.
Future Development
Hard Fork 6 serves as a prerequisite for the Zano Execution Layer (ZEL), an EVM-compatible chain in development intended to bring smart contracts to the Zano ecosystem while maintaining privacy on the base layer. Zano has also announced Zenith, its next consensus protocol, a proof-of-stake design proposed for 2027 launch.
