Zano Monthly Project Update #20 - May 2026

Welcome zAnons to the 20th Zano Project Update!

May was a month of major accessibility wins and steady momentum toward Hardfork 6. The team shipped the first public beta of the Zano Lite Wallet, removing the biggest barrier to newcomers trying the network. The Companion extension's permission system now gives users real control over their wallet data, while metrics showed strong growth in transactions and TVL. Let's dive in!

• Zano Lite Wallet Beta
• Zano Turns 7
• Libertarian National Convention
• Technical Upgrades
• Zano Around the World
• Looking Ahead

Zano Lite Wallet Beta

The biggest barrier to trying any privacy blockchain has always been the same: sync the full blockchain, wait hours, and only then can you start using it.

The Zano Lite wallet connects to a remote node instead of running a full node. No full blockchain sync. No technical setup. The same mobile wallet experience, now on desktop.

What you get:

• Connect to a remote node and skip the full sync
• Full privacy-by-default on every transaction
• Send, receive, and manage your assets
• Zano Companion extension support built in
• Available on desktop alongside the full node wallet

This is a beta release. We encourage everyone to try it alongside the existing wallet and share feedback.

Full node wallets are important for decentralization. Lite wallets are important for adoption. Now Zano has both. 🔒

Download the beta at zano.org/wallets

Zano Fact #1: Did you know Zano's founder helped pioneer privacy crypto? Andrey Sabelnikov wrote the original CryptoNote reference implementation, the codebase most of today's privacy coins were built on. Zano is the modern continuation of that lineage.

Zano Turns 7

Zano turned 7 on May 8th. In 2019, we launched with one mission: make financial privacy the default, not a feature. No opt-in. No compromise. No exceptions. Seven years later, here's what that actually looks like:

• Zarcanum: the world's first Proof of Stake consensus with hidden amounts. No other blockchain has done this.
• Confidential Assets: private tokenization on Layer 1. Issue your own tokens with the same privacy guarantees as native ZANO.
• Ionic Swaps and Zano Trade: a privacy-focused DEX where all your trades are completely shielded.
• On-chain governance: stakers vote anonymously on protocol decisions.
• Real-world spending: together with our partners, Zano can be spent at millions of merchants worldwide.

None of this happened because of hype cycles. It happened because a small team and a dedicated community showed up every single day for seven years. Year eight is already in motion. Two major upgrades are ahead: Hardfork 6 with Gateway Addresses, opening Zano to exchanges, protocols, and payment networks, and Hardfork 7 with full Proof-of-Stake consensus for a faster and more secure blockchain. Together, they will turn infrastructure into adoption.

Thank you to every zAnon who has been part of this. We're just getting started.

Libertarian National Convention

The Zano team attended the 2026 Libertarian National Convention in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
We spent the event spreading the word about why privacy coins are essential for real financial freedom, and what privacy-by-default money actually looks like in practice.

Highlights from the weekend:

• Hands-on workshops onboarding new people into the Zano ecosystem.
• A presentation introducing people to Zano, breaking down the dangers of transparent blockchains, and why privacy-by-default money is the solution.
• Aaron Day's main stage keynote: how technocracy and CBDCs threaten freedom, and why using privacy coins like Zano and Freedom Dollar is how you opt out.

The message landed: private-by-default money is how you refuse to participate in a surveillance economy.

Huge thanks to the Libertarian Party for having us. The fight for financial freedom is just getting started.

Ecosystem Growth and Integrations

• Zano Companion now puts users in control of their wallet data. Websites must request access before reading any data. Permissions scoped per site and address. Read the full blog post
• Zano was represented on Akademi Republikan in Indonesia.

• $ZANO returned to the top 200 on CoinGecko.

Zano Fact #2: Did you know you can issue your own token on Zano with zero code? Just open the wallet, fill in a name, ticker, and supply, and your Confidential Asset is live on a privacy chain.

Technical Upgrades

May was focused on the final stretch of Hardfork 6 preparation. The core team tightened security across wallet encryption, RPC interfaces, and gateway operations while shipping a round of wallet RPC improvements including new methods for UTXO management and staking stats. The Companion extension received a permission system, the mobile app shipped v3.2.0 with 124 commits, and the first beta of the Zano Lite Wallet went live for desktop platforms.

Core & Protocol

HF6 Finalization:

Hardfork 6 preparation is nearing completion. Key hardening work this month included making ASP and balance proof generation noexcept for HF6, fixing alt chain height validation, introducing CURRENCY_TX_PRACTICAL_MAX_INPUTS (80) as a soft limit on the wallet side, and fixing the peerlist size check for HF6 and earlier. Testnet hardfork heights were updated and the testnet was restarted multiple times during the cycle, with improved PoS difficulty override for testnet effective since formation version 104.

Security & Cryptography:

• Domain separation added to gateway transfer and owner_change signatures, preventing cross-operation replay attacks
• Corrected the hash function used for gateway operations
• Gateway view secret key is now required for gateway_create_transfer and gateway_get_address_history
• Gateway self-directed transfers forbidden, matching the existing restriction on non-gateway transfers
• sign_message made more secure using hierarchical deterministic signing (HDS), with validate_signature adapted for legacy support
• Fixed a bug in validate_asset_meta_info and limited asset meta_info to 4,000 bytes

Core Fixes:

• Fixed max decompression size check in the zlib unpack function
• Improved serialization for unordered_map with explicit sorting
• Improved decoy selection algorithm
• decrypt_tx_details refactored with gateway support, plus new decrypt_tx_outs_and_update_op method
• --pos-mining-reward-address now shows a discouraging warning due to well-known privacy implications
• Fixed a bug in on_decrypt_tx_details

P2P & Network:

• --threads_count CLI option fixed
• Added upper limit to conn_fails_cache map, with oldest entries removed on overflow
• Added load() return value check for serialized result in levin invoke

Wallet & RPC

Wallet Encryption v5:

Introduced v5 encryption of the wallet body with a memory-hard password key derivation function (ROMix-Keccak). This improves wallet file security against brute-force attacks on the wallet password.

RPC Security:

• encrypt_data and decrypt_data RPC methods rewritten to a more secure format. Old data can still be decrypted using decrypt_data_legacy with the --allow-legacy-decrypt flag
• Wallet RPC now refuses to start without authentication unless explicitly acknowledged with --unsecure-no-auth

New RPC Methods & Improvements:

• get_outputs and get_utxo_stats implemented, providing detailed UTXO information for wallet analysis
• current_pos_attempts and est_iterations_per_pos_block added to wallet_status_info, enabling PoS staking probability calculations in the GUI
• out_ids_to_spend parameter added to the transfer method for explicit output selection
• sweep_below improved with max_inputs and min_outputs parameters, now available from both simplewallet and RPC. Clear error codes added: -7 (not enough money for fee) and -13 (no eligible outputs). Asset sweeping now supported as well
• Wallet now automatically adds own assets to the custom list on incoming transaction processing, which helps after a resync

Simplewallet:

• Added version command
• Fixed decoy heights sent to the daemon with correct 10-block unlock time distribution
• Fixed potential overflow in get_ionic_swap_proposal_info()

Frontend & Ecosystem

Zano Explorer:

Refactored the backend infrastructure. Fiat and cryptocurrency price APIs for assets outside the Zano ecosystem now use CoinGecko instead of direct exchange queries, improving data reliability. Indexing performance for blocks, alt-blocks, and aliases was improved.

Zano Companion Extension:

Implemented a permission management system. Websites must now call REQUEST_ACCESS before accessing wallet data or initiating transaction proposals. Permissions are scoped per origin and per wallet address, with three independent types (general, balance, history). GET_WALLET_DATA omits balance, assets, and transaction fields unless the corresponding permission has been granted. Users can review and revoke granted permissions at any time in the extension UI.

• Full wallet addresses can now be expanded and copied during transaction confirmation
• zano_web3 SDK updated with a method for requesting user permissions
• Dev build on the feat/permission-system branch of hyle-team/zano-extension
• Public rollout via Chrome Web Store scheduled for June 15, 2026

Ecosystem:

• Permission system support added to Zano Trade, Messenger, and Wrapped Zano, with backward compatibility maintained
• Security audit completed, resulting in 10+ security and reliability enhancements across ecosystem applications

Desktop GUI:

• Refactored deeplink handling and modularized settings
• Improved wallet lifecycle management
• Added Husky pre-commit hooks with linting and test enforcement

Mobile

v3.2.0 released May 20 with 124 commits on the develop branch.

Companion Server:

Implemented a permission system matching the browser extension: third-party sites must call REQUEST_ACCESS before reading wallet data or proposing transactions. The server now runs on a separate thread to avoid blocking the main UI.

• Added whitelist methods to the companion server
• Server restarts automatically on port change
• Fixed core method proxying for companion requests
• Fixed alias selection and handling in companion context
• Added error surfacing when no wallets are available or wallet is busy

UI Updates, Desktop & Tablet, and Fixes & Improvements included redesigned screens, QR scanner, toast system, theme consistency, CI/CD matrix builds, and many stability fixes across platforms.

Zano Lite Wallet (Beta)

Released the first public beta of the Zano Lite Wallet. The Lite Wallet connects to a remote node instead of downloading the full blockchain (20+ GB), removing the need for extended initial sync and significant disk space. Functionality matches the full wallet: sending, receiving, asset management, staking via remote node, and Companion support. Built on the same React Native codebase as the mobile app, ported to desktop platforms.

• Available for Windows (x64, ARM64), macOS (x64, ARM64), and Linux (x64, ARM64)
• Download the beta at zano.org/wallets

Testing & QA

• New coretests for sweep_below covering max_inputs and min_outputs scenarios
• Introduced --report-block-stats option for per-test end-of-test blockchain snapshot summaries
• Fixed gateway address test keys
• Added wallet_rpc_gateway_history_after_outgoing test for outgoing gateway transaction verification

Build Releases:

Released Builds 2.1.19.476 through 481, with multiple testnet restarts to validate HF6 changes. The native lib was rebuilt across all platforms (iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Linux) on the HF6 branch.

As we head into June, the focus is on finalizing HF6 for mainnet activation and the public rollout of the Companion permissions update on June 15.

Zano Fact #3: Did you know $DAIx exists? DAI on Ethereum exposes every wallet's balance and full transaction history. $DAIx keeps the same collateralized peg but hides amounts, senders, and recipients on Zano.

Zano Around the World

Zano Africa

May was another incredible month for the Zano ecosystem in Africa. One of our biggest milestones was announcing the Zano Private Economy Conference, set to be the largest Zano event ever held in Nigeria. With an expected attendance of over 500 people, the community response has been overwhelming, with registrations already crossing 1,000+. See you all in Zaria on June 13th as we continue building the private economy together.

Zano Latam/Spain

May was an amazing month. Finally we created and established a new real and active community in this language. Now we have a telegram community where we talk everyday about privacy and crypto. In addition we thanked our community for their support, rewarding their engagement through various bounties and rewards. After months of work, we are very happy with the results.

Zano Indonesia

Zano Indonesia is embedding the privacy coin ($ZANO) narrative into the very heart of the civil resistance and intellectual opposition in Indonesia. Zano Indonesia is not just handing out merchandise or running typical crypto promotions. Zano Indonesia is engaging hard-line activists, human rights defenders who have faced state repression, critical sociologists, and cultural icons. In Substance, Zano Indonesia is positioning Zano no longer as a financial speculation asset, but as an absolute survival tool and defensive fortress for those whose movements are monitored by the state. Zano Indonesia is directly linking financial privacy to the frontline struggle for democracy and civil liberties.

Zano Venezuela

May was a month of education & planning for Zano Venezuela! 🇻🇪 We kept delivering top-tier content in Spanish about confidential assets and how ZANO empowers and protects our community. Building the ultimate foundation for financial privacy!

Zano India

Daily $ZANO Posts. Resource Hub: Wrote blogs on transaction privacy in Zano and how stealth addresses work. Episode #2 of the "Learn with Me" video series also went live. Privacy Advocate Branding: Episode #2 of Privacy Newsletter went live. Campaigns: Ran a Zealy campaign for engagement and growth of regional accounts. Zano India X crossed 200 followers. Zano India Telegram: 56 new joined. Engagement on Daily Zano posts. Total 17 ZANO Aliases have been created. In touch with an Indian KOL for a video and giveaway collaboration. Also in touch with another regarding further collaboration, and a possible DevCon appearance early July. Upcoming: June's focus will solely be Indian KOL and community collaborations.

Looking Ahead

The Zano Lite Wallet has opened the network to many more users. Meanwhile, Hardfork 6 remains the immediate focus, introducing gateway addresses and the interoperability they unlock. These are concrete steps toward the privacy-by-default future Zano has always promised. Thank you for building this with us. See you next month, zAnons!

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