Zano, a privacy-centric blockchain that has been quietly building since 2019, just pulled the curtain back on Zenith, a new consensus protocol that will move the entire network from its hybrid proof-of-work/proof-of-stake setup to a pure proof-of-stake model.

The announcement, made on July 16, positions Zenith as the most significant architectural change in Zano’s history. A full network transition is targeted for 2027, with no specific activation date locked in yet. In the meantime, the project has a more immediate milestone on the calendar: Hard Fork 6, expected to activate around August 25-27, which will introduce new gateway addresses to the ecosystem.

What Zenith actually changes

Zenith cuts target block time from 60 seconds down to approximately 15 seconds. Recommended confirmations drop from 10 to just 4-6, which means typical confirmation times land somewhere in the 60- to 90-second range.

First, all transaction fees will be burned. Not partially redistributed to validators, not sent to a treasury. Burned. Every fee paid on every transaction gets permanently removed from the circulating supply.

Second, the protocol is moving to a lower block reward emission schedule. Validators will still earn rewards for producing blocks, but those rewards will be smaller than what miners and stakers received under the hybrid model.

Third, Zenith introduces what the team calls “ephemeral blocks” to optimize chain size and efficiency, designed to prevent the blockchain from bloating as transaction volume increases.

Privacy stays private

Zano solved the challenge of private staking with Zarcanum, a protocol the team developed that enables fully private staking. Stake amounts remain hidden, and block production is non-linkable, meaning observers cannot connect a specific validator to a specific block. Zenith builds directly on top of this foundation, so the transition to pure PoS does not compromise any of the privacy guarantees that already exist.

The project has been working on this in collaboration with Common Prefix, a blockchain research and development firm.

The broader context for privacy chains

Zano’s mainnet launched in 2019 with a hybrid consensus model that let users both mine and stake. The shift to pure PoS simplifies that architecture, removing two consensus mechanisms, two potential attack vectors, more complicated upgrade paths, and higher overhead for node operators.

What this means for investors

The combination of burned transaction fees and reduced block rewards creates a dual supply reduction mechanism. Moving entirely off proof-of-work also eliminates the energy-intensive mining component.

The Hard Fork 6 activation in late August will serve as an immediate proving ground for the team’s ability to execute network upgrades on schedule, with gateway addresses being introduced as the primary change in that fork.