Wrapped ZANO — Bridging Privacy and Ethereum

Wrapped Zano (wZANO) is a token that lives on a decentralized network outside of Zano’s native blockchain. In the case of this first implementation, it’s an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum mainnet. Essentially, it represents a guarantee: at any moment, whenever you desire, you can exchange your wZANO on a 1:1 basis for ZANO itself. The process of exchanging ZANO for wZANO is known as “wrapping” and wZANO to ZANO as “unwrapping”.

The Benefits of Wrapped Zano (wZANO)

To New Users

You can think of Zano as encryption for your digital money. On networks such as Ethereum where balances and transactions are completely public, it’s possible to make inferences about a person’s holdings and network activity. Zano offers a cash-like alternative, where the extent of your holdings and personal transactions are completely private.
wZANO also allows you to easily invest in privacy technology and can be conveniently stored in your wallet of choice alongside the rest of your ERC-20 tokens.

To Existing Zano Users

First, wZANO gives us an all-access pass to the entire Ethereum ecosystem. Smart contracts, dApps and DeFi, MetaMask, hardware wallets… with wZANO you get all of that and more.

It also facilitates new token liquidity via permissionless decentralized exchanges like Uniswap, Sushiswap, and Balancer. And what could be better for privacy enthusiasts than exchanges without sign ups or KYC requirements.

wZANO is also easier to list on major centralized exchanges since it is a standard ERC-20 token. And who knows what else you might be able to do with your WZANO in the future. Lend a little here, provide liquidity there, and even earn yields across the DeFi ecosystem.

wZANO Supply and How to Wrap/Unwrap

For now wZANO only exists on Ethereum mainnet. You can view the token contract on Etherscan. The “max total supply” is shown as 100,000, but in wZANO’s case, it’s really the “current total supply”. The smart contract does permit minting more wZANO, but the supply is currently capped at 100,000. This means that Zano wallets will not allow wrap transactions if all 100,000 wZANO are already in circulation, and any wrap transactions created manually will be processed only when the requested amount of wZANO becomes available.

You convert ZANO to wZANO by entering an Ethereum address as the destination for a send transaction in your Zano wallet (desktop or mobile). An estimate of the ZANO required to cover the transaction fee on the ethereum network is calculated and displayed and, if you proceed, the ZANO is automatically sent to the custodial wallet. After this transaction receives 50 confirmations on the Zano blockchain (this number might change in the future), the corresponding amount of wZANO (minus the fee) is sent to the provided Ethereum address. The fee is an estimate because transaction fees on Ethereum adjust dynamically based on overall network demand.

Converting wZANO to ZANO (or “unwrapping”) is done via MetaMask and a web interface on zano.org. ZANO is released when an unwrap transaction has 20 confirmations on the Ethereum network.

In full transparency, the Zano team are custodians of both the ZANO that has been wrapped (which is held in a custodial wallet), and all wZANO that isn’t in circulation. While not ideal, this is intended as an MVP option until the technology to provide a trustless alternative becomes available. Also, the custodial wallet used in this process is an auditable wallet; its transactions can be fully monitored in real time. And unlike Tether — each wZANO in circulation is always backed by one ZANO in the custodial wallet. Anyone can confirm this at any time by performing a simple audit of the reserves. Full instructions can be found on zano.org: link.

It should also be noted that the ZANO held in the custodial wallet will be staked to cover the wrap service’s infrastructural expenses.

Privacy

Finally, some of you might be wondering about the privacy implications of the service. We’ve designed the system to make public as little information as is necessary when wrapping and unwrapping ZANO. Both the Ethereum address when wrapping, and the Zano address when unwrapping, are completely encrypted, and even users tracking the auditable custodial wallet will have no access to this information.

Wrapped Zano (wZANO) is another exciting step on our project’s journey. It’s a gateway to new worlds of functionality. It’s a seemingly innocuous ERC-20 token that gives Ethereum users superpowers — letting them slip on and off the cloak of invisibility that is native ZANO at will. It’s all this and more and it’s yours now to explore. Install the updated client for your preferred platform and you’re ready to go. See you on the other side!

Wrapped Zano landing page: https://wrapped.zano.org/