Zama Adds 16 Confidential Vaults and Launches Private Swap Protocol on Ethereum

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Zama has expanded its confidential DeFi offering on Ethereum with 16 new vaults and a private-beta swap protocol. The vaults, available via the Zama App since September 15, cover USDC, USDT, TGBP and AUSD, with Steakhouse Financial, Armitage by Flowdesk, Wintermute, Bitwise and RockawayX serving as curators. Twelve vaults are hybrid structures mirroring existing Morpho strategies, while four are confidential-only. The expansion follows the June launch of the Steakhouse Confidential USDC Prime vault, which surpassed $40 million in deposits within seven weeks. The Confidential Swap Protocol, live in private beta since July 23, uses encrypted request-for-quote mechanics so whitelisted market makers can fill orders without seeing trade size, direction or price limits. Swap fees fund ZAMA buybacks and burns. Zama plans to add more curators, distribution partners and asset classes through 2027.

Key Elements

Zama is moving beyond confidential deposits and into a broader confidential finance stack on Ethereum, unveiling sixteen new vaults alongside a private-beta swap protocol that lets users trade while keeping order details hidden from public view.

The Paris-based cryptography firm announced the expansion on September 15, opening deposits for the new vaults through the Zama App. The offering spans four assets — USDC, USDT, TGBP and AUSD — and brings together five curators: Steakhouse Financial, Armitage by Flowdesk, Wintermute, Bitwise and RockawayX. Twelve of the vaults are hybrid structures that mirror existing Morpho strategies, while four are new confidential-only deployments with no public equivalent.

The launch builds on Zama’s first confidential yield product, the Steakhouse Confidential USDC Prime vault, which went live in June. That vault grew from zero to roughly $40 million in total value locked within seven weeks signaling strong appetite for privacy-preserving DeFi among institutional users

Data from Morpho showed the confidential vault had surpassed $40 million in aggregate deposits by September 2026, with individual positions remaining hidden onchain. Deposits are batched every 24 hours before being supplied to the underlying Morpho vault.

How the confidential architecture works

At the core of Zama’s offering is fully homomorphic encryption, which allows computations on encrypted data without revealing the underlying values. In practice, that means a user’s deposit size, position changes and timing stay private even as the funds interact with established DeFi infrastructure.

The hybrid vault model is central to the expansion. Rather than creating separate credit strategies for confidential users, Zama replicates existing curated vaults on Morpho — preserving the same collateral, markets, risk parameters and liquidity — and layers encryption on top. Users gain privacy around their activity without moving to a different chain or adopting unfamiliar strategies.

Steakhouse’s Prime USDT vault is a prominent example. The confidential version mirrors the public vault’s strategy and risk profile, while shielding wallet balances and position information from onchain observers.

“Today‘s expansion is proof of the model at scale,” said Dr. Rand Hindi, Zama’s CEO and co-founder. “Sixteen vaults, five curators, five asset classes, all built on the same DeFi infrastructure that sophisticated capital already uses.”

Morpho co-founder Merlin Egalite struck a similar tone. “It’ll scale confidential DeFi efficiently and open new possibilities for allocators onchain, without changing the strategy, the liquidity, or the risk profile,” he said.

Private swaps

Alongside the vault expansion, Zama’s Confidential Swap Protocol went live on Ethereum mainnet in private beta on July 23. The protocol uses an onchain request-for-quote mechanism that encrypts trade size, direction and the trader’s price limit. Whitelisted market makers compete to fill orders through a blind auction, quoting without access to the publicly visible order details that accompany conventional onchain swaps.

Current pairs include cUSDT/cUSDC, cZAMA/cUSDC and csteakUSDC/cUSDC. The last pair is notable because it links a token tied to the confidential vault with the base confidential stablecoin, extending Zama’s product set from private lending participation into encrypted exchange functionality.

Zama said all swap fees are allocated to buying back and burning ZAMA, tying the venue directly into the protocol’s token mechanism rather than operating as a standalone trading interface.

Access remains gated by the private-beta format, and market making is limited to designated whitelisted participants. That controlled approach is consistent with Zama’s broader strategy of onboarding institutional counterparties before opening wider access.

The rollout positions Zama to continue expanding its confidential DeFi network through 2026 and 2027, with plans to add more curators, distribution partners, institutional custody integrations and additional asset classes.

Note: Deposit batching occurs every 24 hours before funds are supplied to the underlying Morpho vault.

For institutional allocators, corporate treasuries and active market participants, the appeal is straightforward: onchain transparency can expose wallet balances, strategies and positions to competitors, and open the door to front-running. Zama’s encryption layer addresses that exposure while allowing users to keep working with DeFi infrastructure they already trust.

The September rollout marks a significant step in Zama’s evolution from a cryptography research project into a functional confidential finance platform, with both yield generation and exchange functionality now operating on Ethereum mainnet.

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Source: finance.biggo.com