Privacy Technology
Every transaction on Zano is private at the protocol level. Three technologies work together to hide the sender, the receiver, and the amount:
Hybrid PoW/PoS Consensus
Zano alternates between Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake blocks. The PoW side runs on the ProgPowZ hash algorithm; the PoS side uses Zarcanum, the first scheme where stakers don't reveal their balances. Blocks arrive about once a minute, and 100% of each block reward goes to the miner or staker who found it.
Confidential Assets
Confidential Assets let anyone issue their own tokens on the Zano chain. Issued assets get the same privacy as native ZANO: hidden addresses, hidden amounts, and a hidden asset type, with the same public verifiability that no transaction creates or destroys coins.
Ionic Swaps
Ionic Swaps are Zano's improvement on atomic swaps: two parties exchange assets peer-to-peer, in a single on-chain transaction signed by both sides, with full privacy. Neither party can cheat or gain an unfair advantage, and no intermediary ever holds the funds.
Aliases
Aliases are human-readable names registered on-chain: send to @username instead of a long address. One registration works across the whole ecosystem. Aliases are already used for receiving payments, authenticating with dApps, and as identities in Zano Matrix.
Auditable Wallets
Auditable wallets are opt-in transparency: a special wallet type whose balance and transaction history can be verified by anyone holding its tracking seed, while spending stays under the owner's control. They exist for organizations, funds, and anyone who prefers "verify" over "trust".