An attacker used a flaw in Zano's Gateway Address feature to create 36.9 million ZANO that the network never authorized. Zano disclosed the figure on Oct 2, 2026, according to Cointelegraph. The attacker also created Freedom Dollar (fUSD) tokens. The report does not say how many.
The exploit ran for about a month before it was stopped. The unauthorized ZANO looked exactly like legitimate ZANO, so the team had no way to pick them out and delete them one by one.
That left one option on the table. Zano decided to roll the blockchain back by roughly a month, to a point before the attacker's coins existed.
Several things are still unknown. The report does not say who the attacker is or whether any of the unauthorized ZANO or fUSD was moved or sold before the rollback. It also does not say who lost money, or how much.
For anyone already holding a perpetual position on Bitget, Bybit, MEXC or OKX, this report changes nothing directly. It names no exchange and does not say whether ZANO trades as a perpetual contract anywhere. It gives no information about funding rates, fees or liquidity, so Perp Desk has no change in holding costs to report from this story.
Source: cointelegraph — Zano exploiter created 36.9M unauthorized ZANO before blockchain rollback