Zano Rolls Back Blockchain by a Month After Gateway Address Exploit

The team behind Zano, a privacy-focused layer-1 blockchain, has rolled back roughly a month of chain history after a flaw in its Gateway Addresses feature let unauthorized ZANO and Freedom Dollar (fUSD) enter circulation. The chain was restarted at block 3,833,000, right before Hard Fork 6, which introduced the affected feature. Nodes, miners, stakers, exchanges and other services need to adopt the update for the recovery to work.

Legitimate Transactions Wiped Along With Fake Tokens

The rollback erases a month of genuine transactions along with the unauthorized coins, and it cannot undo payments already settled on other blockchains. The team says it is working to account for losses and will publish a reimbursement and claims process. No post-mortem has been released yet. Gateway Addresses were built to help bridges, exchanges and payment services connect to Zano by managing funds through one account-style balance, instead of tracking separate transaction outputs.

Team Defends the Difficult Decision

Head of marketing and growth Quinten van Welzen said doing nothing would have left unlimited unauthorized coins diluting every holder and would have shown future attackers that exploited coins keep their value. He admitted the restart costs a month of history and public trust, but said it restores the fixed supply and gives the project a path to rebuild after seven years of work.