Frequently Asked Questions
Everything a new trainer usually asks before their first hatch — wallets, the three currencies, how trading stays safe, how creatures grow, and where your Gold comes from while you sleep. Every number below is pulled from the live game as of the 1 Jul 2026 economy pass. Jump to a section:
- Wallets & connecting — do I need one, and when?
- $ZOLANA vs Gems vs Gold — the three currencies
- How do I get Gems? — they're deliberately scarce
- Is trading safe? — the non-custodial market
- Evolution & breeding — how creatures grow
- AFK income — earning while away
- Materials & dungeons — the new drop rules
- Is it really on mainnet?
Do I need a crypto wallet to play?
Yes — Zenko is a Solana game, so your wallet is your account. There is no email/password login: your progress, creatures and currencies all live under your wallet address. Connect once and you're in; the same wallet always brings you back to the same trainer.
Which wallets work?
Connection is handled through Reown AppKit (the connect modal), which supports Phantom, Solflare and other standard Solana wallets, on both desktop extensions and mobile. Tap Connect Wallet, pick your wallet, approve, and the onboarding guide takes it from there.
When do I actually have to connect — and does signing cost anything?
You connect right at the start, on the onboarding screen, before your first egg. Signing in is free and moves no funds — you sign one plain text message ("Signing once authorizes this device to act for 8h. No funds move.") and that single signature covers every in-game action for the next 8 hours. That's why you don't get a wallet pop-up on every click — only real on-chain spends (like buying full Stamina with $ZOLANA, or a marketplace purchase) ask you to approve a transaction.
One signature per 8-hour session. Zenko never asks for your seed phrase and never takes custody of your tokens — the sign-in message literally says no funds move.
What's the difference between the three currencies?
Zenko runs on three distinct currencies, each with its own job. Keeping them separate is the whole point — Gold is what you grind, Gems are the scarce premium currency, and $ZOLANA is the real on-chain token.
Gold
Gems
$ZOLANARule of thumb: Gold you earn, Gems you save, $ZOLANA you hold. A failed action never touches $ZOLANA, and nothing in the core game loop forces you to spend it.
How do I earn Gems if they're so rare?
Gems are the game's tightest faucet on purpose, so there are only a few honest sources. There's no "buy Gems" button — you earn them:
- Free weekly stipend — every trainer who reaches account level 5 claims 4 Gems free each week (the F2P floor; the level gate keeps bots out).
- Holder bonus — hold ≥ 10,000 $ZOLANA and that weekly stipend scales up on a concave curve instead: 9 Gems at 10k, ~20 at 50k, ~28 at 100k, capped at 40 Gems/week (holdings above 250k earn no extra).
- Crafting — build Gems from dungeon materials at the recipe below. Free players also draw from a shared, refilling daily pool; big $ZOLANA holders get an extra personal gem drip.
- Epoch community fund & events — periodic pooled Gem payouts, and Zothebyz where Gems change hands.
What does it cost to craft one Gem?
One Gem is forged from dungeon materials plus a Gold burn:
| Ingredient | Amount | Where it drops |
|---|---|---|
| Glimmer Dust | 50 | Every dungeon (tier-1 bulk) |
| Mana Shard | 25 | Every dungeon (tier-2 bulk) |
| Astral Core | 10 | Every dungeon (tier-3 bulk) |
| Gem Catalyst | 5 | Chance drop, scales with depth |
| Gold | 90,000 | The Gold burn leg |
The three bulk materials drop in every dungeon (see Materials & Dungeons), so anyone can gather a full recipe. The binding ingredient is the Gem Catalyst, a chance drop whose odds rise the deeper you raid (capped at 20% per run) — that catalyst, plus the daily craft caps, is what keeps Gems scarce.
Scarce Gems keep premium prices low and stable. If Gems poured in, everything priced in Gems would inflate. The tight faucet is a feature — it's what makes a Gem worth having.
Is the marketplace safe? Does Zenko hold my money?
No — the marketplace is non-custodial and atomic. Zenko never takes custody of your $ZOLANA. When you buy an item, you sign one transaction from your own wallet that pays the seller and the treasury fee in the same on-chain instruction. The server only verifies that on-chain payment landed and then flips the item's owner to you. There's no "deposit into the game" step that could strand your funds.
What are the fees, and who pays them?
The marketplace fee starts at 5% and is deducted from the seller's proceeds, but it scales down with the seller's $ZOLANA holdings tier — from 5% (Hatchling) to as low as 2% (Titan). So a base seller nets 95% (treasury takes 5%), while a top-tier holder nets up to 98%. As a buyer you simply pay the listed price. Prices are pinned in USD and quotes are locked for a short window so the $ZOLANA amount can't drift on you mid-purchase.
Can I get scammed by a listing that changes under me?
Listed items are locked while they're on the market — a listed creature, egg, relic or cosmetic can't be consumed, hatched, dismantled or placed until it sells or you cancel, so what you buy is exactly what was shown. Zothebyz (auctions & raffles) uses escrow with automatic refunds at close and a commit-reveal draw, so losing bids and unfilled raffles are refunded.
How does a creature evolve?
Every creature climbs four stages: Baby → Juvenile → Adult → Elder. Evolution is level-gated — a creature evolves once it reaches the required combat level (Baby → Lv 10, Juvenile → Lv 25, Adult → Lv 50), earned from dungeon XP, then you pay the Gold cost. (The old real-time maturation timers are retired.) Each step makes the creature bigger, stronger and worth more idle Gold. Only an Elder can battle. The evolve Gold below is the base (Common) cost — it's scaled up by the creature's rarity (×1 Common → ×8 Mythical):
| Stage | Evolve at level | Base cost (Gold) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baby | Lv 10 | 5,000 | 1 ability slot |
| Juvenile | Lv 25 | 25,000 | 2 ability slots |
| Adult | Lv 50 | 125,000 | 3 ability slots · can breed |
| Elder | — | — | Battle-ready · full stats |
Separately, an Elder creature also gains combat levels (1–100) from dungeon runs and sacrificing fodder — those levels raise power and idle income. See Combat for that ladder.
How does breeding work — and what does it cost?
Pair two compatible parents (both at least Adult, happiness ≥ 50) and you get a Mystery Egg that hatches a tier-up offspring — same-element ladders or cross-element hybrids. Breeding now charges an on-chain $ZOLANA fee keyed to the offspring's rarity — Uncommon 200 · Rare 350 · Epic 600 · Legendary-chase 1,000 — paid to the treasury (the old Shard currency was removed entirely). Success rate and hatch time depend on the parents' tier:
| Result tier | Success | Hatch time |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 · Bred | 100% | 30 min |
| Tier 2 · Advanced | 85% | 1 h |
| Tier 3 · Elite | 60% | 2 h |
| Tier 4 · Legendary | 25% | 4 h |
Success is decided when you pay, not at hatch: a successful breed produces the Mystery Egg (hatching later only reveals which species and variant you rolled), while a failed breed produces no egg — the on-chain $ZOLANA fee is spent, you receive a small trainer-XP consolation (there is no Gold refund), and your breeding slot is returned. Parents share a 25-minute cooldown between breeds. Full odds (including hidden variant chances) live on the Breeding & Eggs page.
Why did my two "Rare" creatures breed into a Tier 1?
Because rarity isn't the same as breeding tier. Offspring tier = min(parent tiers) + 1, and a creature's tier depends on where it came from: everything hatched from a shop or Premium egg is Tier 0 no matter how rare, while the drop-only Mystery-pool species arrive "pre-climbed" at Tier 2/3/4. So pairing a Mystery Rare (e.g. Verdania, Tier 2) with an egg Rare (e.g. Florix, Tier 0) resolves on min(2, 0) + 1 = Tier 1 — the base-egg parent pulls it down. For a Tier 3 offspring, both parents must be Tier 2 or higher. There's a full "What Tier Is My Creature?" breakdown on the Breeding & Eggs page.
What is AFK / idle income?
Creatures placed on your island quietly produce Gold over time, whether you're playing or not — that's your idle income. It keeps accruing while you're offline, banked up to an 8-hour cap, and you collect it whenever you next log in. Rarer creatures, higher stages, higher combat levels, special variants and coin-aura abilities all raise the hourly rate.
What does the "AFK Zone" in town do?
Park your trainer at the campfire in the Town AFK Zone and you bank a boosted +150% of your hourly Gold rate while resting (also capped at 8 hours). Resting also recovers Stamina at double speed — see below.
How does Stamina work — and can I refill it?
Stamina throttles how many dungeon runs you can do. It regenerates +1 every 2 minutes passively (a full bar of 180 refills in about 6 hours), and +1 every minute while resting in the AFK Zone (~3 hours). In a hurry? Pay 150 $ZOLANA for an instant full refill, or top up from the Stamina HUD. You never need to buy Stamina — it's just a shortcut.
Leave a strong roster placed and rest in the AFK Zone before you log off: you bank boosted Gold and refill Stamina at 2× — so you come back with a full bar and a fat Gold claim.
Do I have to grind deep dungeons to get materials?
No — and this changed in the July pass. Every dungeon now drops all three base materials (Glimmer Dust, Mana Shard, Astral Core), so even Region 1 raids can gather a complete Gem recipe. You are no longer locked out of a material because you can't reach a deep dungeon.
Then why go deeper?
Depth still matters, just not as a gate on which materials you get — only on how many and how much premium payout:
- More materials — deeper dungeons drop larger stacks (quantity scales up to ~1.5× at the deepest floor).
- More Gold — Gold payout climbs steeply with depth, and after the ×2.5 pass it's the main dungeon reward.
- Gem Catalyst odds — the one rare, depth-gated drop. The chance to find a Catalyst rises with dungeon level (capped at 20% per run), which is what keeps Gems scarce.
- Better creature drops & XP — deeper raids give rarer wild creatures, relics and more combat XP.
Dungeons come in 5 regions of 5 (25 total), running from ~1 minute up to ~8 minutes and costing 6–18 Stamina. Full drop tables and power requirements are on the Dungeons & Raids page.
If you've read older guides: the old Shard currency has been removed from the game entirely. Breeding and everything else it touched is now paid in Gold. Only Gems remain as the scarce premium currency.
Is Zenko live on Solana mainnet?
Yes. Zenko runs on Solana mainnet, and $ZOLANA is a real on-chain token (a Token-2022 mint with its authorities revoked). Real spends — buying full Stamina, marketplace trades, Zothebyz — are genuine on-chain transactions you sign from your own wallet.
Are my creatures NFTs? What actually lives on-chain?
Your $ZOLANA lives on-chain in your wallet. Your creatures, eggs, relics, cosmetics, Gems and Gold are held in Zenko's game database, tied to your wallet address — they are not NFTs. This keeps gameplay fast and free of gas on every little action, while the money layer ($ZOLANA) stays fully non-custodial on Solana.
Is it safe to connect my main wallet?
Signing in moves no funds and never reveals your seed phrase — the only time value leaves your wallet is when you approve an explicit purchase transaction. As always with any Solana app, use a wallet you're comfortable with and double-check every transaction you sign.