A privacy-focused blockchain is about to become a lot easier for the rest of crypto to work with, without giving up what makes it private in the first place. Zano, a cryptocurrency network bu
A privacy-focused blockchain is about to become a lot easier for the rest of crypto to work with, without giving up what makes it private in the first place.
Zano, a cryptocurrency network built around strong transaction privacy, has announced the block height at which its sixth hard fork will activate.
The upgrade, known as HF6, is scheduled to go live at block 3,833,000, expected between August 25 and 27, 2026.
Wallets, miners, node operators, and infrastructure providers now have a concrete deadline to upgrade ahead of the fork. The updated wallet is already live.
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Zano's privacy model has historically made it difficult for exchanges, decentralized exchanges, bridges, and other platforms to integrate with the network using their standard workflows.
The way private blockchains handle balances and transaction tracking does not map cleanly onto how most crypto infrastructure is built.
HF6 addresses this directly by introducing Gateway Addresses, a new account-based address type that gives services a directly trackable balance and instant sync.
This makes it significantly easier for third-party platforms to connect to native ZANO and Confidential Assets, while leaving standard private Zano addresses completely unchanged for regular users.
"Hard Fork 6 could make a real difference for Zano's adoption, as it opens an easier path for ZANO into DeFi liquidity pools and broader exchange listings," said Quinten van Welzen, Head of Growth at Zano.
"Zano is already in touch with platforms including Thorchain and other DEXs about post-HF6 integrations."
HF6 also makes Zano's Bridgeless integration two-way for the first time. Native ZANO and supported Confidential Assets will be able to move outward to Ethereum, TON, and Solana, while external assets will be able to move into Zano.
This gives ZANO a non-custodial path into public-chain liquidity, and users can return to Zano whenever they want private transactions again.
Beyond the headline features, HF6 ships a wave of security and reliability improvements. Wallet encryption has been strengthened, making a stolen or copied wallet file significantly harder to crack.
Per-output payment IDs now allow exchanges and merchants to match payments cleanly while keeping recipient privacy intact. Mining pools can now dry-run a block before finalising it, automatically dropping bad transactions rather than stalling.
Nodes have been hardened against denial-of-service attacks, with added support for routing traffic through a proxy such as Tor via SOCKS5.
Developer RPC interfaces have also been tightened for safer integrations. At the consensus level, tighter validation rules and a more decisive fork-choice mechanism strengthen network-wide agreement.
The upgrade is the result of more than a year of development work and represents one of the most significant steps in Zano's history, an attempt to make the network accessible to the broader crypto ecosystem without compromising the privacy that defines it.
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