Zano Reverts Month of Blockchain History Following Gateway Exploit

The rollback targets the period immediately following Hard Fork 6, which went live on August 26 to introduce account-style balances for exchanges and payment providers. While the project core team insists that individual wallet keys and underlying consensus mechanisms remain secure, the exploit enabled the creation of illicit assets. To resolve the breach, developers released version 2.2.3.600, requiring node operators, miners, and exchanges to manually adopt the recovered chain.

This recovery process has placed a significant burden on network participants, as transactions finalized during the affected month are now considered invalid on the primary chain. MEXC has suspended all deposits and withdrawals for ZANO and fUSD, and the project has advised users to retain transaction records while awaiting further instructions. Despite criticism regarding the scope of the rollback, Zano head of marketing Quinten van Welzen emphasized that the team lacks the authority to unilaterally alter history, noting that the network’s survival depends on the consensus of independent operators and mining pools.

To address the financial fallout, Zano plans to initiate a reimbursement program funded by developer reserves, team holdings, and major stakeholders rather than issuing new tokens. While the technical specifics of the vulnerability remain under internal review, the Gateway Address feature will stay disabled until a comprehensive security audit is completed. Following the news, the ZANO token dropped more than 12% to trade near USD 6.32, reflecting investor uncertainty during the ongoing restoration efforts.