ZAMA
Zama · FHE confidentiality protocol
Key facts
- Circulating 2.55B, 23%
- Locked or unvested 8.78B, 77%
- No cap: supply can keep growing, see Supply discipline
Market data: CoinGecko, Oct 24, 2026. Scores reviewed Oct 23, 2026.
Assessment
Zama's fee sink is real plumbing: protocol fees are priced in USD, paid in ZAMA and 100% burned, but the unpublished burn is small beside issuance. Operators are paid from 5% a year inflation with no cap, and MINTER_ROLE is administered by an Aragon DAO run by 3-of-6 and 9-of-17 multisig plugins, so new minters need no holder vote. Insiders hold 80%, float is 22%, and a ~550M cliff on Feb 2, 2027 (~22% of float) precedes ~417M a month of VC and angel unlocks through Feb 2028. The protocol runs on Zama-chosen coprocessors and KMS nodes, which mirrored a court-ordered cUSDC freeze on May 29, 2026.
How value reaches holders
Plumbing: protocol fees are priced in USD, paid in ZAMA and 100% burned (ProtocolFeesBurner); operators are paid from a 5% inflation schedule (60% KMS, 40% coprocessors); slashing not implemented. Unlimited supply, ~22% float (TGE Feb 2, 2026 at $0.05). Cliff Feb 2, 2027 (~550M), then ~417M/month of VC/angel unlocks through Feb 2028. Burn to date unpublished; 5% inflation (~565M/yr) dwarfs plausible fee burn at current volume
Score anatomy
Demand
15 / 45: the stronger of two routes, plus adoptionWhy would anyone hold it: does value reach the token, and is the network or product used today?
Plumbing at 50%+, or 100% via contract but governance-revocable
$0.5-5M/yr, or undisclosed
Protocol fees are paid in ZAMA and burned, a fee role only.
Pays its own network's fees (gas never counts higher, whatever the size of the economy)medium confidenceHow this is scored
Zama is the most-used FHE protocol ($0.13B TVL, Morpho confidential vault, institutional pilots), in a small, early category
Established: a meaningful, steady share of its categorylow confidenceHow this is scored
Two routes, the stronger counts
Soundness
3 / 40Can a long-term holder trust the rules: supply, float, distribution and control?
5%/yr inflation with no cap, and MINTER_ROLE is administered by an Aragon DAO run by 3-of-6 and 9-of-17 multisig plugins, so new minters need no holder vote (read Oct 23, 2026).
Over 15%/yr, or a key, company, committee or multisig can mint without limit or redirect issuancemedium confidenceHow this is scored
Float 22% (2.55B of 11.33B); Feb 2, 2027 cliff ~550M (~22% of float), then ~417M a month of VC and angel unlocks (~16% of float) through Feb 2028.
Over 3% of float unlocking per month, or under 30% float with ongoing linear unlockshigh confidenceHow this is scored
VCs 20% + angels 10%, team 20%, Foundation treasury 20% + growth 10%: 80%; public sealed-bid auction 12% at $0.05 ($550M FDV, Jan 2026)
Insiders received over 50%, or one organization directs over 30% todayhigh confidenceHow this is scored
The ZAMA ERC-20 is not upgradeable, but the protocol runs on 5 permissioned coprocessors and 13 KMS nodes chosen by Zama, and it mirrored a court-ordered freeze of the cUSDC contract on May 29, 2026
A halt, rollback or exploited consensus bug in the last 24 months, attack cost under $10M, or a foundation-selected validator set or small multisig can halt or upgrade with no meaningful exit windowmedium confidenceHow this is scored
Durability
3 / 15Is it big, proven and reachable by institutions?
$192.5M market cap (band 2), $12.2M/day median volume (band 3), no flags.
Small: $50-250M market cap and $1M/day+How this is scored
TGE Feb 2, 2026: 0.7 years old.
Under 1 yearhigh confidenceHow this is scored
Spot on Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, OKX, Bybit and Upbit; no ETP found.
Top-tier exchanges only, or delisting pressuremedium confidenceHow this is scored
What would move it up
To reach T4 Speculative, one gate is still open:
- Supply 0needs 1(open)
Tier outlook · next trigger Feb 2, 2027
Could move up ↑low likelihood
- Supply rises to 2 if MINTER_ROLE moves behind a binding holder vote, leaving the coded 5%/yr schedule
- Revenue and routing: a published burn total measured against ~565M ZAMA/yr of inflation
- Overhang: the ~550M cliff on Feb 2, 2027, then ~417M a month of VC and angel unlocks through Feb 2028
- Security rises if slashing ships and the coprocessor and KMS set opens beyond the permissioned 5 and 13
Research report
Sep 17, 2026 · source confidence 65%The most production-real FHE deployment in crypto as of September 2026: confidential USDT payroll, an OTC desk trading confidentially on mainnet, a Morpho confidential USDC vault that passed $40M in seven weeks, and a confidentiality layer for the ERC-3643 tokenized-asset standard. Token mechanics are mechanical rather than discretionary: protocol fees are priced in dollars, paid in ZAMA and fully burned, while operators are paid from a 5% inflation schedule, so the token is net inflationary until burn approaches mint, and burn figures are not yet published. Supply is the dominant variable: about 22% circulates, the team, investor and angel cliff falls on February 2 2027, and investor tranches then unlock monthly for twelve months. A May 2026 court-ordered freeze of the confidential USDC contract showed that confidentiality remains bounded by the underlying stablecoin issuer.
Structure (14 facts)
- Chain
- ethereum (also BSC and Solana representations)
- What it is
- fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) confidentiality protocol: fhEVM coprocessors + KMS, live on Ethereum, Polygon, BSC, HyperEVM, Solana; confidential tokens (ERC-7984), OTC, vaults
- TGE
- 2026-02-02; CoinList sale Jan 24 2026 at $0.05 ($44M, $550M pre-valuation, 100% unlocked) + Binance Wallet Jan 29 ($11M)
- Max supply
- unlimited (5% initial inflation)
- Circulating supply (approx)
- 2,537,000,000
- Market cap (approx)
- $130,000,000
- Allocation
- Public sale: 12%
- Tge campaigns: 6%
- Liquidity: 2%
- Treasury: 20%
- Growth: 10%
- Team: 20%
- Vcs: 20%
- Angels: 10%
- Unlocks
- Treasury 2-yr linear from TGE (no cliff); Growth 4-yr linear; Team 1-yr cliff (10% at cliff, then 36-month linear); VCs and angels 1-yr cliff (10% at cliff, then 12-month linear). Cliff 2027-02-02: ~550M (~5% of supply, ~22% of current mcap), then ~417M/month (~16% of current mcap) through Feb 2028; ~70% circulating by Feb 2028
- Value accrual
- plumbing: fees priced in USD, paid in ZAMA via Gateway oracle, 100% burned (ProtocolFeesBurner). Operators paid from 5% inflation (60% KMS / 40% coprocessors). Slashing not implemented. Burn to date unpublished; 5% inflation (~565M/yr) vastly exceeds plausible fee burn at current volumes, so net inflationary ~5%/yr
- Usage
- Dune: cumulative volume ~$819M (shielded ~$448M), shielded TVL ~$78M, vaults TVL ~$52M, ~9,620 depositors, 26 confidential tokens. Live users: Bron (confidential USDT payroll), GSR (first confidential OTC trade), Morpho/Steakhouse Confidential USDC Prime vault (>$40M in 7 weeks from Jun 23 2026), T-REX/ERC-3643 confidentiality layer (Apex Group pledged $100B tokenized assets by Jun 2027)
- Risks
- May 29 2026 US court order froze the cUSDC contract (~$12.6M, 99% of shielded cUSDC) for about a week; Zama now mirrors issuer freezes and added a compliance council. 5 permissioned coprocessors, 13 KMS nodes, patent license required for production fhevm use. ~10 tps per coprocessor
- Backers
- Series A $73M (Multicoin, Mar 2024); Series B $57M (Pantera, Jun 2025, $1B valuation); ~119 staff, 37 PhDs
- Liquidity
- ~$14-35M/day; Binance, OKX, Coinbase, Revolut (Aug 2026)
- Competition
- Fhenix testnet-only; Inco confidential token live on Base (Sept 2 2026); Arcium (MPC) ~$36M mcap; Aztec (ZK) ~$40M; Nillion ~$21M; Oasis/Phala (TEE) $26-57M
Market figures at report date (Sep 17, 2026)
- Price (approx)
- $0.051
- FDV (approx)
- $577,000,000
- All-time high / low
- 0.066 (2026-07-27); ATL 0.0167 (2026-02-12)
Compare with
How the ranking works and how ZAMA compares: see the full ranking. This entry as JSON:
GET https://tokens.10102.io/api/v1/tokenomics?symbol=ZAMA