Zano rolls its blockchain back a month following the Gateway Address exploit.

Zano Rolls Back a Month of Blockchain History to Block 3,833,000 After Gateway Address Exploit

Zano's core team said Sunday that the network had restarted at block 3,833,000, the point immediately before Hard Fork 6 introduced the affected feature, after a Gateway Address vulnerability let unauthorized ZANO and Freedom Dollar enter circulation. The rollback erased approximately a month of blockchain history and required participating nodes, miners, stakers, exchanges and other services to adopt the update.

Gateway Addresses Were Built for Easier Integration

At the time of publication, Zano had not released a post-mortem, but the team confirmed the issue came from Gateway Addresses. The feature was developed to make it easier for bridges, exchanges and payment services to integrate with Zano by letting them manage funds through a single account-style balance, similar to other blockchains.

Before Gateway Addresses, Zano's ordinary wallets tracked funds as separate transaction outputs rather than a single account balance. Exchanges and other services had to scan the blockchain to identify incoming payments, track those outputs and select which ones to spend when processing withdrawals.

Zano's blockchain explorer showed the rollback taking place on Sunday, and the Zano Explorer was cited as the source.

A Month of Transactions Is Gone and Other Chains Are Not Reversed

Because the chain was restarted before Hard Fork 6, the rollback invalidated a month of legitimate transactions along with the unauthorized tokens. Transactions made during that period will no longer appear on the recovered chain and may need to be reconciled. The team said the action cannot reverse payments already settled on other blockchains.

Losses, Claims and Related Coverage

The team said it is working to account for any losses and will publish a reimbursement and claims process. Quinten van Welzen, Zano's head of marketing and growth, said doing nothing would have left unauthorized ZANO and fUSD in circulation without limit, diluting every holder and breaking the fixed-supply promise that a currency must keep. He argued that such a path would also tell future attackers that exploited coins could keep their value, and said no project could survive that outcome.

Van Welzen also framed the chain restart as costly but necessary. Restarting from before Hard Fork 6 costs a month of history and trust that the team will have to earn back, he said, but it restores the supply everyone signed up for and leaves a path to rebuild, rather than letting 7 years of hard work die. He acknowledged that the decision hurts, but said not doing it would have hurt more.

Zano launched in May 2019 as a layer-1 blockchain focused on private payments. Its standard private transactions conceal senders, receivers, transferred amounts and asset types. While it has a native token, ZANO, the blockchain also allows users to deploy and mint custom digital assets. Freedom Dollar (fUSD) is one such token that operates on the Zano blockchain.

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