What is Zama (ZAMA) crypto coin?

Zama is a crypto infrastructure project focused on making privacy usable on public blockchains. It relies on Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), which allows smart contracts to compute on encrypted data without ever revealing it. That sounds academic, but the outcome is practical: private DeFi, confidential payments, and sealed auctions that still settle on chains like Ethereum. It’s less about hiding activity and more about hiding sensitive details by default.

Where does the ZAMA token actually fit?

ZAMA acts as the protocol’s coordination token. Protocol fees are paid in ZAMA and burned, while operators earn newly minted rewards for running the infrastructure. It’s intentionally simple. Usage drives burns, security drives emissions. Fees are defined in usd terms via oracle logic, which quietly keeps costs predictable even when the token price moves.

What’s the real story with vesting and unlocks?

Some pieces are still missing — mainly full team and investor schedules. What is clear is the public side. Ten percent of total supply was allocated to the community sale and sealed-bid auction, and that entire portion unlocked at claim. No cliffs, no slow release. Public buyers received liquid tokens immediately, which is increasingly rare.

How is ZAMA allocated overall?

Broadly, supply is split across Series A and Series B investors, the core team, ecosystem incentives, and the 10% public allocation. Exact percentages outside the public slice haven’t been released yet. Since fundraising is already complete, future emissions are expected to focus on operator rewards and ecosystem growth rather than new capital raises.

Who backed Zama, and how much usd is behind it?

Zama raised a total of $130M usd. Series A ($73M in March 2024) was led by Multicoin Capital and Protocol Labs, while Series B ($57M in June 2025) was led by Pantera Capital. Other backers include Blockchange Ventures, Stake Capital, and angel investors like Anatoly Yakovenko, Juan Benet, and Gavin Wood. It’s a very infrastructure-heavy investor mix.

What actually happened with the public sale?

The distribution wrapped up in January 2026 through a mix of community sale, CoinList participation, and a sealed-bid Dutch auction. Up to 10% of total supply was offered. Winning participants received standard ERC-20 ZAMA at claim, and unfilled bids were refunded onchain. The key detail: there were no post-sale lockups for the public tranche.

Is ZAMA trading anywhere right now?

Yes — just not on spot markets yet. ZAMA is already live on derivatives platforms, with futures pairs on Binance Futures, OKX Futures, and Gate.io Futures, mostly against usdt. Spot listings are expected later, but current activity is concentrated in perpetuals.

How does this tie into usdt or usd-based payments?

One of the cleaner use cases is confidential stablecoins. With Zama’s FHE setup, a usdt-style token can move onchain while balances and amounts stay encrypted. The network still verifies correctness; it just doesn’t broadcast the numbers. That kind of “quiet privacy” is exactly what banks and fintechs tend to want.

What are the main risks worth watching?

FHE is still computationally heavy, so scaling depends on continued software optimization and, eventually, hardware acceleration. Early infrastructure is permissioned, meaning decentralization ramps up gradually. And privacy-focused protocols tend to attract regulatory scrutiny, especially when usd-linked assets are involved. Big upside, but not a frictionless path.