About the Zano Blockchain

Origins

Zano was launched in 2019 by Andrey Sabelnikov, a former Monero core contributor (briefly), and other developers. The project's stated goal was to extend privacy-coin technology beyond a single currency to support a broader range of private financial primitives — tokens, staking, decentralized exchange, identity.

The chain is derived from CryptoNote, the same cryptographic family that Monero descends from. CryptoNote introduced ring signatures (hiding the sender among a set of decoys), stealth addresses (every transaction goes to a unique address derived from a public key), and a UTXO-based privacy model that has been refined over a decade.

Zano's specific innovations on top of CryptoNote include the Zarcanum staking mechanism, Confidential Assets, and on-chain aliases.

Technology overview

Privacy primitives: Ring signatures + stealth addresses (CryptoNote-derived) + Bulletproofs+ (modern range proofs for amount hiding) + Confidential Assets (extending privacy to tokens).

Consensus: Hybrid PoW + PoS. ProgPoWZ for PoW (GPU-friendly, ASIC-resistant). Zarcanum for PoS (hidden-amount staking).

Block time: ~120 seconds average.

Coin issuance: ZANO has a fixed schedule with a premine (more on that below) and ongoing emission from mining + staking rewards.

Total supply: Variable depending on staking participation. The chain has both miner and staker rewards in its emission schedule.

The premine

Honest disclosure: Zano launched with a premine of approximately 4 million ZANO (about 33% of an estimated long-term supply, though emission continues from PoW and PoS rewards over time). This is a legitimate point of criticism in the privacy-coin community — Monero famously had no premine — and has been part of community discussion since launch.

The Zano Foundation's documented use of premine funds covers development, infrastructure, and ecosystem support. The specifics are detailed at docs.zano.org/docs/learn/emission/ (the one external link we maintain). Users evaluating the chain should read it directly.

We make no claim about the premine being optimal or sufficient. It is a fact users should understand when evaluating Zano. Different users will weigh it differently.

Current state (2026)

• Mainnet: Active and operational since 2019. Multiple major protocol upgrades since launch.
• Foundation: The Zano Foundation continues development.
• Wallets: Foundation wallet, Cake Wallet integration (mobile), Unstoppable (iOS, limited Confidential Asset support), Bitcoin.com integration. Zano Wallet (this software) is independent third-party desktop.
• Exchanges: TradeOgre, MEXC, CoinEx, Bitmart, several others. Not on Coinbase, Binance, or Kraken.
• Community size: Smaller than Monero or major chains. Active on dedicated forums and chat channels.

What Zano is not

• Not a fork of Monero. Distinct codebase, distinct chain history, derived from common CryptoNote ancestors.
• Not affiliated with Zano Foundation (in the context of this wallet — we are independent third-party software).
• Not a replacement for Monero. Different chain, different feature surface, smaller community.

Related

• What is Zano
• CryptoNote explained
• Features
• Is Zano safe?