Zano Monthly Project Update #11 - August 2025

Gonbatfire

• 7 min read
Zano Monthly Project Update #11 - August 2025

Welcome zAnons to the 11th Zano Project Update!
August has been nothing short of impactful for the Zano ecosystem. We’re talking about game-changing integrations that are the culmination of long, dedicated effort: Unlocking the ability to spend $ZANO anywhere in the world through Mastercard, securing our very first direct fiat off-ramp, and laying new foundations for every Confidential Asset in our ecosystem. Dive in!

Community Member of the Month

Congratulations to Atma Love for earning this month's award! With a years-long presence in our community, Atma is *the* most active member on our Telegram, holding the top non-staff spot on the activity leaderboard. But beyond numbers, Atma is always there to welcome newcomers, answer questions, and share their deep knowledge about Zano. Outside our chat, Atma also writes about Zano and broader privacy topics across decentralized social media (Maybe we should get there too!). Thank you, Atma, for your commitment and impact. You set the bar high!

Zano Fact  #1: Since the Confidential Layer Bridge is live, you can now trade $BTCX, $ETHX, $BNBX & $DAIX with ZANO pairs on Zano Trade.

Major Key Integrations

This month, we’re rolling out several major strategic integrations, some of which are the result of months of hard work. Let’s take a closer look at what’s new!

Zebec Network

Zano integrated with Zebec Network, making it possible to spend $ZANO anywhere in the world through their Mastercard payment card.

Yes, you read that right, $ZANO can now be used anywhere, and depending on the card option you select, transactions can even be made with zero fees.
Even more importantly, the groundwork laid for this integration means that any Zano Confidential Asset looking to partner with Zebec will benefit from a substantial integration discount. This not only boosts the utility of $ZANO itself but also strengthens the entire Zano ecosystem.

Get your Zano Zebec Card here!

DFX & OpenCryptoPay

Zano has partnered with DFX and OpenCryptoPay, providing us with a new fiat on/off-ramp and a new point-of-sale system.
For the first time ever, Zano now has a direct fiat off-ramp—a major milestone that paves the way for seamless integrations. The first of these is OpenCryptoPay, which allows any merchant to accept $ZANO alongside hundreds of other cryptocurrencies.

There are now 100+ SPAR supermarkets ready to accept unstoppable private digital money. First person to post a video on X of their purchase at Spar paying with $ZANO gets $100 worth of $ZANO!

Because OpenCryptoPay is built on a permissionless, open payment standard, we expect adoption to grow significantly. As its usage spreads, so too will Zano acceptance. This integration also lays the foundation for other Confidential Assets to plug into the same ecosystem.

Unstoppable Domains

Zano has partnered with Unstoppable Domains, allowing our community to create and claim .ZANO Web3 domains.
You can use your .ZANO domain to:

  • Receive multi-chain crypto payments.
  • Showcase your verified UD.me profile.
  • Access secure Messaging & Group Chats through XMTP clients.
  • Build on-chain censorship-resistant websites (with Brave browser support).

Set up your .ZANO Web3 domain here. No renewals. Minted on-chain. Lifetime ownership.

New Exchange Listing

Zano has been listed on a new exchange, BTSE.

Events and giveaways

We hosted another community giveaway on Instagram. Make sure to follow us there if you haven't already!

Zano Fact  #2: Because of Zano’s hybrid PoW/PoS consensus algorithm it is way harder to perform a 51% attack on our network, it would require both significant stake and hashpower!

Ecosystem Growth

Technical Upgrades

Zano Github illustration

August was another month of focused improvements across the Zano ecosystem, from cryptographic upgrades and protocol refactors to frontend work on governance and a redesigned mobile experience. Here's everything we shipped and explored:

Core, Protocol & Research

Random Number Generation Refactor

The generate_system_randombytes* implementation was refactored:

  • Split into _normal and _or_die versions
  • Improved error handling
  • On Windows, the backend was migrated to the BCrypt API

Wallet & CLI Fixes

  • Fixed transfer_so in simplewallet
  • Resolved listing issues for unknown assets
  • Minor UX/CLI improvements
  • Fixed an issue in wallet RPC where tx_comment was not added to the transaction payload correctly

LMDB & Database Layer

  • Various robustness improvements in LMDB usage
  • Re-implemented low-level DB transaction management for increased stability and better crash recovery

SSL Handling

Windows builds now correctly load SSL certificates from the system CA into Boost.Asio

Spy Node Monitoring

We continued tracking spy node activity across the network. While activity has significantly declined, we still encourage all stakers to follow our privacy guidelines to protect metadata associated with staking and block propagation.

Network Privacy Improvement

Removed the hop counter from block relaying to slightly improve network-level privacy

Mix-in Distribution Research

Continue our internal analysis of output distributions for decoy selection. This will guide future improvements to ring signature and privacy mechanisms.

Testing

Continued enhancements to core test coverage and test infrastructure for more robust and reliable development workflows

Frontend & Ecosystem

Zano Trade

  • Added API endpoints for trading statistics: /api/stats/*
  • Minor improvements to the current frontend
  • New Zano Trade frontend now in the dev branch
  • New backend APIs developed to support upcoming frontend deployment

Voting Launch Prep

  • Stage version of frontend launched
  • Backend development in progress, initial on-chain voting to follow soon

Explorer Improvements

  • Explorer now caches 1 year of historical ZANO price data
  • New API allows fetching ZANO’s price at any timestamp
  • Explorer and Zano Trade now use this API to calculate ZANO-neutral price changes
  • Minor UI polish and infrastructure updates

Mobile

The Zano Mobile app saw its most comprehensive update yet.

  • The long-awaited UI redesign is now complete, remaining legacy screens like Aliases, My Assets, and transaction-related states have been brought in line with the new design system.
  • The internal browser was overhauled and now preserves the connection context for each tab, eliminating the need to reconnect the wallet when switching between dApps.
  • Swipe actions have been added across key UI components, including tabs, bookmarks, aliases, and asset listings.
  • Users can now burn or modify their assets directly from the mobile app.
  • Biometric authentication (fingerprint/face unlock) has been added and can be enabled via settings.
  • A large dependency update improved performance and restored support for older Android devices.

We also began porting the mobile app to desktop, starting with remote node support, bringing us closer to a unified cross-platform lightweight Zano client.

Released Content & Coverage

Zano Fact  #3: Did you know we have an official Zano community on X? You can join here.

Zano Around the World

Zano Africa
August was an incredible month for the Zano African community! The Zano workshop was a massive success with 250 registrations and 209 attendees who created hundreds of aliases and assets on-chain. Community growth has been phenomenal, with Telegram reaching 600 members and the Zano African WhatsApp community just shy of 700 members.

Zano France
August has been a steady month for the Zano Francophone community!
A French platform specialized in computer equipment, distributing across Europe, is in its final testing phase before launching with Zano payments. We’re also preparing an AMA with a French crypto community in the coming days. Summer may be quiet, but we keep building!

Zano Latam/Spain
This month has been amazing. Interest in the project is growing, and more Spanish-speaking people are following us and asking questions. Additionally, we’ve partnered with a crypto content creator to collaborate on producing valuable content across all social media platforms, continuously reaching new audiences. We have more bounties coming up to encourage community participation, and we’re looking to attend developer events to share the project and help grow our blockchain.

Zano Brazil
This month was a very productive one for Zano Brasil. We had the chance to attend Coinfest Asia, where we connected with several teams working on privacy-focused protocols and engaged in meaningful conversations with developers from across the ecosystem. Beyond the conference, we presented Zano at a community gathering of Latin expatriates in Bali, helping introduce the project to a new audience. We also joined a Twitter Space alongside other privacy projects active in Brazil, where we discussed the current landscape of Brazilian crypto regulation and how it may impact privacy technologies. Looking ahead, we are excited to continue our outreach and technical conversations, with our next stop being Devcon Buenos Aires, where we will showcase Zano and further strengthen our presence in the global developer community.

Zano Netherlands
Hi everyone! My name is Gino. I’ve been active in crypto since 2019 and have been following ZANO for quite some time now. I’m very interested in privacy tokens, and I believe ZANO really gets everything right when it comes to privacy, security, and usability. I’m a huge fan of the project and I’m excited to help bring ZANO to more people together with the other ambassadors and the team.
As a first step, I'm hosting a giveaway running until next Monday. Looking forward to working together and growing the ZANO community!

Miscellaneous

Conclusion

This month’s integrations mark yet another turning point for Zano, opening doors to new possibilities and laying the groundwork for even more adoption ahead. With your continued support, we’re building momentum toward a more private and decentralized future. See you in the next update, zAnons!

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