What is Freedom Dollar (fUSD)?
Freedom Dollar (fUSD) is a private US dollar stablecoin on the Zano blockchain. It aims to stay worth about one dollar, and every transfer hides the sender, the receiver and the amount, the same privacy that Zano's own coin has. It launched on 5 January 2025 as the first private stablecoin on Zano.
fUSD is not backed by dollars in a bank. It is backed by a public reserve of ZANO, Zano's native coin, and new fUSD is created when someone swaps ZANO for it. There is no company that issues it and no one who can freeze an fUSD balance. Because the backing is ZANO, the reserve's dollar value moves with ZANO's price, which is the main thing to understand about how fUSD differs from the large dollar stablecoins.
Freedom Dollar at a glance
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Type | Private, crypto-backed US dollar stablecoin |
| Ticker | fUSD |
| Network | Zano, as a Confidential Asset |
| Launched | 5 January 2025 |
| Target value | About 1 US dollar |
| Backing | A public, staked reserve of ZANO |
| Supply | Elastic: fUSD is created and removed as people swap ZANO in and out |
| Privacy | Sender, receiver, amount and asset type hidden by default |
| Network fee | Paid in ZANO, not in fUSD |
| Issuer | No company; reserve and rules are public and verifiable |
How fUSD works
fUSD is a Confidential Asset, a token issued directly on Zano without a separate blockchain or smart contracts. Zano has no general-purpose smart contracts; the rules for issuing fUSD are enforced by its asset protocol and by the project's public reserve.
Creating fUSD: when a user swaps ZANO for fUSD through the protocol, new fUSD worth the same number of dollars is released, and the ZANO goes into the reserve. The supply and the reserve grow together.
Redeeming fUSD: fUSD can be swapped back for about one dollar's worth of ZANO, which takes that fUSD out of circulation.
A staked reserve: the ZANO in the reserve is staked on Zano, earning about 2.5% a year according to the project, and those rewards are added to the reserve.
Fees in ZANO: like every transaction on Zano, an fUSD transfer pays its network fee in ZANO, so you need a little ZANO in your wallet to move fUSD.
How fUSD holds its $1 peg
fUSD relies on its reserve and on market incentives rather than on a bank account.
Overcollateralization: at launch, the ZANO in the reserve was worth more than ten times the fUSD issued, a cushion against falls in ZANO's price.
Arbitrage and market making: automated market-making bots on Zano's decentralized exchange buy fUSD just below a dollar and sell it just above. If fUSD trades above $1, traders can mint new fUSD with ZANO and sell it; if it trades below $1, they can buy it cheaply and swap it through the protocol for about a dollar of ZANO. Both pull the price back towards $1.
A public coverage ratio: the Freedom Dollar site publishes the reserve's value against the fUSD in circulation, so anyone can check it. That ratio falls when ZANO's price falls. In early October 2026 it stood just below one, meaning the reserve was worth slightly less than the fUSD in circulation, far from the ten-times cushion at launch.
Privacy: what fUSD hides
Because fUSD is a Confidential Asset, it gets the same protocol-level privacy as ZANO itself:
Ring signatures sign each payment on behalf of several possible senders, so an observer cannot tell which one spent the funds.
Stealth addresses send every payment to a new one-time address that only the receiver can recognize.
Commitments hide the amount and even which asset was sent, while still letting the network check that no tokens were created from nothing.
In practice, a public observer can see that a Zano transaction happened, but not that it moved fUSD, how much, or between whom. That is what separates fUSD from most stablecoins, whose every transfer is visible on a public ledger. It shares this property with privacy coins, but its job is different: a stable unit of account rather than a coin whose price floats. The swap between ZANO and fUSD is public at the reserve, and fUSD moved to another chain through a bridge is visible on that chain.
fUSD and the September 2026 Zano rollback
A flaw in Gateway Addresses, a feature added to Zano by Hard Fork 6 on 26 August 2026, let an attacker mint unauthorized ZANO and a huge amount of fake fUSD between 29 August and 25 September 2026. The network halted on 25 September, and on 27 September node operators restarted the chain from block 3,833,000, where Hard Fork 6 began, which erased the fake fUSD along with about a month of ordinary transactions. Gateway Addresses are switched off until they have been reviewed and audited, and Zano plans to compensate affected users without issuing new ZANO, though it had not published the details by early October. User keys and normal transaction privacy were not affected, but the episode showed that a bug in the base chain can reach the stablecoin built on it. Read more on the Zano price page.
What is fUSD used for?
Private payments: paying or getting paid in a dollar-denominated asset without the transaction appearing on a public ledger.
Holding dollar value: keeping savings in a dollar unit rather than in a volatile coin, with the backing risk described below.
Remittances and cross-border transfers: sending value across borders for a small network fee, without a bank in the middle.
Trading on Zano: fUSD can be swapped for ZANO and other Zano assets on Zano Trade, Zano's decentralized exchange, where each trade settles in one transaction signed by both sides.
Donations: fUSD has been used for donations where the sender wants privacy; in August 2025 a $100,000 fUSD donation marked Ron Paul's 90th birthday.
fUSD vs USDT, USDC and USDS
| Column 1 | fUSD | USDT and USDC | USDS (formerly DAI) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Backing | ZANO reserve, staked | Cash and short-term government debt held by the issuer | Crypto and other collateral in Sky Protocol |
| Issuer | No company | Tether; Circle | Sky Protocol, governed by token holders |
| Transfer privacy | Private by default | Public | Public |
| Main networks | Zano | Ethereum, Tron, Solana and many others | Ethereum and some other networks |
| Size | Small, a few million dollars | Tens to hundreds of billions of dollars | Billions of dollars |
Tether and Circle can freeze addresses that hold their tokens; no one can freeze an fUSD balance. Learn more about the different kinds in our guide to stablecoins, and see how state-issued central bank digital currencies compare.
Who is behind Freedom Dollar?
fUSD has no issuing company, foundation or bank. It is run by the Freedom Dollar project on top of Zano, using Zano's asset protocol, with open-source code and public reserve wallets that anyone can check on the Zano blockchain. That design is meant to give it censorship resistance: there is no central party that can block a transfer or freeze a balance. It also means there is no company to stand behind the peg if the reserve falls short.
Risks to know
fUSD can trade away from $1, and nothing guarantees it will return. Its backing is ZANO, so a sharp fall in ZANO's price shrinks the reserve, and in early October 2026 the reserve was already worth slightly less than the fUSD in circulation. It is a small stablecoin with limited liquidity, and it depends on Zano's base chain, which was rolled back in September 2026. Privacy assets face growing regulatory pressure: from July 2027 EU anti-money-laundering rules will stop regulated crypto service providers from handling them, and some exchanges limit them in certain countries. Every fUSD transfer also needs ZANO for the fee. Install wallets only from official sources and never share your recovery phrase. This page explains how Freedom Dollar works and is not financial advice.
Hold and swap fUSD with Bitcoin.com
The self-custody Bitcoin.com Wallet supports the Zano network: you can hold, send and receive fUSD and ZANO, and swap into fUSD from coins you already hold. fUSD can't be bought directly in the app, so if you're new to crypto, buy BTC first and swap it, and keep a little ZANO for network fees. To see what your fUSD is worth in dollars, use the fUSD to USD converter. You keep your own keys, so always store your recovery phrase safely.
