Zano crypto confirms network hotfix, vows to recover ‘affected balances in full’
Private pools are under scrutiny amid rising inflation flaws.
Zano has announced that the privacy-focused L1 chain is in a ‘stable’ condition following a recent hotfix and rollback.
In an X post, the team said it will recover affected balances in full, but it may take a little longer as exchanges verify ZANO transactions.
ZANO supply and emission will remain unchanged. Funding comes from the developer fund, team members’ personal funds, and contributors who have committed support.
On the 28th of September, the blockchain was rolled back by a month to resolve an inflation vulnerability that let hackers mint an unspecified amount of ZANO and fUSD.
The Freedom Dollar team behind fUSD said that a preliminary investigation showed “several million dollars” worth of assets were exchanged for counterfeit fUSD.
According to the Zano team, the rollback and hotfix were aimed at restoring the chain and maintaining a capped ZANO supply.
As part of the recovery, users will need to get updated mobile wallets. For third-party platforms and payment services, they can access the new network by updating their nodes.
These services will audit a month of transactions before reopening withdrawals and deposits. As such, the full recovery may take a little while to complete.
This (activity verification) takes time, and doing it carefully is what prevents balances from being credited to the wrong people or twice.
Zano vs. Zcash: Are private pools becoming a risk?
Interestingly, the Zano exploit took about a month to notice after its Hard Fork 6 went live in late August. It’s the upgrade that introduced the inflation bug that was exploited by hackers.
This is slightly similar to Zcash’s Orchard pool inflation bug in May. It took four years to be found, and this was the second incident for Zcash. Another counterfeiting flaw was found in 2018. And the private nature of these shielded pools initially made it challenging to flag these flaws in time.
To keep the privacy feature and still minimize these flaws, Zcash introduced turnstile accounting, allowing assets to be tracked and counted between protocol upgrades.
Zano’s aggressive network rollback is just another way privacy-focused protocols are adopting to respond to hacks and counterfeit flaws.
Still, it’s unclear if these remedies will restore the confidence of privacy-leaning investors.
In the past week, ZANO’s price declined by 36% to $5.5, fueled by the inflation bug. This level has been a key support in 2026, but it’s unclear whether bulls will increase exposure amid the network recovery plan.
Final Summary
- Zano project team promises full balance recovery as exchanges begin transaction audit.
- ZANO’s price dumped 36%, partly fueled by the inflation bug.
