August 2026 Summaries

Zama is a blockchain confidentiality project that uses Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), a cryptographic technique allowing computations on encrypted data without revealing the underlying information, to enable private balances and transactions on public blockchains while preserving verifiability and interoperability. FHE was proposed in 1978 and first practically demonstrated in 2009 by Craig Gentry, though early implementations were extremely slow; Zama, founded in 2020 by cryptographer Pascal Paillier and entrepreneur Rand Hindi, aims to turn the technology into usable infrastructure. The company has raised a $73 million Series A in 2024 and a $57 million Series B in 2025, and its protocol initially supports confidential applications on Ethereum rather than operating as a separate private chain. Zama positions confidentiality as necessary for broader onchain financial adoption by institutions and individuals, comparing its intended role to HTTPS for the internet. Its $ZAMA token is used by network operators to stake and secure the protocol, while protocol fees paid in the token are burned, and the token is available through Revolut, which plans a related Learn & Earn campaign.

Builder Stories profiles Chris Wilder, a Ghana-based self-taught Solidity developer and repeat Zama Developer Program winner who has built more than 12 confidential applications on the Zama Protocol after previously working as a community manager and shipping over 30 EVM applications. Drawn to fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) for its ability to compute on encrypted data while limiting decryption to authorized users, he rebuilt his personal project, Legacy Vault, as a confidential digital inheritance system after rejecting trusted execution environments over security concerns. Legacy Vault uses encrypted, time-locked access controls to help crypto holders pass wallets, keys, documents, and assets to beneficiaries without exposing them prematurely or relying on custodians. Wilder has also developed encrypted voting, non-custodial payments through zPayy, wallet integrations and extensions, a protocol analytics dashboard, and developer education resources, emphasizing that builders should focus on practical user problems and integrate confidentiality into familiar tools. He advises developers to begin with small projects, rely on documentation, seek help when blocked, and persist through slow early progress, while noting that listed community projects remain unaudited and may carry risks.

Zama has partnered with Hypernative to add continuous onchain monitoring and automated response capabilities to its compliance-by-design framework for confidential finance on public blockchains. Hypernative’s platform will monitor Zama’s confidential wrappers, host contracts, and DeFi protocols in real time, while its Transaction Guard will support confidential tokens by simulating transactions before execution. The integration complements Zama’s existing controls, including selective disclosure through its Access Control List and wallet-level KYT and sanctions screening provided by Elliptic, aiming to give institutions confidentiality alongside governance, risk, and compliance visibility. Hypernative, which monitors more than $100 billion in assets across over 75 chains and serves organizations including Circle, Chainlink, and Morpho, was selected partly for its established presence in the institutional DeFi ecosystem. Zama plans to continue expanding its combined controls for confidential financial applications and institutional adoption.

In July, the Zama Protocol achieved significant progress in addressing the challenges of trading visibility, compliance, and transaction speed that have kept institutions offchain. The launch of the Zama Confidential RFQ, a protocol allowing fully onchain confidential swaps on Ethereum, enables traders to conduct encrypted transactions without revealing trade size or direction, thus preventing exposure to market manipulation. The protocol's private beta includes pairs like cUSDT/cUSDC, with a public launch planned for September. The recent update to TFHE-rs v1.7 has increased transaction throughput to 1,040 transfers per second, surpassing Ethereum's mainnet capacity and significantly reducing costs. Zama has also collaborated with Elliptic for wallet risk screening, enhancing compliance by keeping balances private while monitoring wallet addresses. Additional developments include the launch of CMTAT Confidential for security tokens and a successful Season 3 building challenge, with Season 4 focusing on creating a confidential PoolTogether application. As the protocol continues to evolve, the barriers to onchain institutional finance are diminishing, suggesting a future shift toward blockchain-based financial systems.