Zama (ZAMA) is the native token of an open-source cryptography company building Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) technology for blockchains, issued as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum. The company operates the TFHE-rs cryptography library and the Zama Confidential Blockchain Protocol (FHEVM), which allows smart contracts to compute directly on encrypted data. Zama's mainnet went live on December 30, 2025, with the first confidential stablecoin (cUSDT) transfer on Ethereum. ZAMA trades at approximately $0.0502 with a market capitalization of roughly $110 million.
Zama differentiates itself through Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), which lets blockchains compute on encrypted data without exposing it, addressing a confidentiality gap in public smart-contract platforms. The ZAMA token captures this by securing the network: holders stake ZAMA to operators (Key Management Service nodes and FHE coprocessors) under a Delegated Proof of Stake model, earning rewards for backing protocol security.
Zama describes TFHE-rs as the first professionally audited FHE library. ZAMA was listed on Revolut on August 11, 2026, extending access to over 70 million European retail users.
Zama (ZAMA) functions as both a utility and governance token, used primarily for staking within the network's Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) model. Holders delegate ZAMA to operators - Key Management Service (KMS) nodes and FHE coprocessors - who run the network and vote on-chain on protocol proposals.
Delegators earn staking rewards for backing network operators and participate indirectly in protocol decisions through their delegated stake.
Zama (ZAMA) has a circulating supply of approximately 2.2 billion tokens against a total supply of approximately 11.2 billion, which is not fixed and continues to rise. Fully diluted valuation is approximately $563 million.
Net emission is inflationary: the protocol issues new tokens at approximately 5% annually to fund staking rewards for delegators and operators.
Zama's ZAMA token launched via a CoinList sealed-bid Dutch auction, with the token contract deployed on Ethereum on November 13, 2025, and trading opening February 2, 2026. The public sale comprised 12% of total supply, split into a 2% community sale to Zama NFT holders, an 8% sealed-bid Dutch auction (January 21-24, 2026) with a $55 million fully diluted valuation floor, and a final 2% post-auction sale.
Prior to launch, Zama raised $73 million in a Series A (March 2024) and $57 million in a Series B (June 2025), totaling over $150 million.
Zama (ZAMA) is issued as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum, inheriting Ethereum's proof-of-stake consensus for settlement. The Zama Confidential Blockchain Protocol operates its own network of operators - Key Management Service (KMS) nodes and FHE coprocessors - with 18 active operators (13 KMS nodes, 5 coprocessors) as of the most recent reporting.
These operators validate protocol decisions under a Delegated Proof of Stake model, to which ZAMA holders delegate stake.
Zama was founded by Dr. Rand Hindi (CEO) and Dr. Pascal Paillier (CTO), a Fully Homomorphic Encryption pioneer and cryptographer. The company describes its team as one of the largest concentrations of FHE researchers and engineers globally, spanning Paris and Zug with remote contributors from roughly two dozen countries.
Zama is a private, venture-capital-backed cryptography company - not a foundation or DAO at the corporate level - that develops and maintains the FHE technology underlying the protocol. It reached unicorn status (a valuation above $1 billion) following its Series B funding round.
Zama operates the open-source TFHE-rs library and the Zama Confidential Blockchain Protocol (FHEVM), with official channels at zama.org and github.com/zama-ai.
The Zama Confidential Blockchain Protocol is governed on-chain by an Aragon-based DAO where network operators - Key Management Service (KMS) nodes and FHE coprocessors - vote on protocol proposals. ZAMA holders participate indirectly by delegating (staking) tokens to operators under a Delegated Proof of Stake model.
This structure shapes decisions on inflation-rate adjustments, operator slashing, protocol upgrades, and fee changes. Protocol modifications generally require majority operator approval; a single operator can trigger emergency pausing, but un-pausing requires multi-signature approval across multiple coprocessors.
Zama released FHEVM v0.9 as its first mainnet release-candidate, reporting a tenfold improvement in decryption performance alongside architecture upgrades. The protocol also shipped a new TypeScript SDK, a "delegated decryption" mechanism, expanded developer tooling, and a "Zama Portfolio" application.
Staking went live on mainnet under a Delegated Proof of Stake model. Zama partnered with blockchain-intelligence firm Elliptic for compliance screening in confidential finance, and with Hypernative, announced August 6, 2026, for continuous on-chain compliance monitoring.
Zama states that all protocol components - including the TFHE-rs library, KMS software, coprocessor, gateway, and staking and governance contracts - underwent audits totaling nearly 70 audit-weeks. The company describes this as the largest audit effort for a first Web3 protocol release.
Structural risk factors include high holder concentration, with the top 10 wallets controlling 96% of supply, and thin decentralized-exchange liquidity relative to market capitalization, both flagged as elevated risk by independent on-chain analytics.