Recently, BSC News dropped an exciting update on X (formerly Twitter) about the upcoming $ZAMA token from Zama, a leading player in blockchain privacy tech. The tweet highlights everything we know so far about this native coin, linking to a detailed analysis on their site. For those in the meme token space and broader blockchain world, this could signal new opportunities for secure, private transactions—something that might even spice up meme ecosystems with enhanced confidentiality.

Zama, founded in 2020 in Paris, is an open-source cryptography firm that's all about fully homomorphic encryption (FHE). In simple terms, FHE lets you perform computations on encrypted data without ever decrypting it, keeping everything private even on public blockchains. This is a game-changer for privacy in crypto, where transparency often clashes with the need for secrecy in transactions or smart contracts.

The company's Confidential Blockchain Protocol acts as an overlay on existing EVM-compatible chains like Ethereum. Developers can write regular Solidity code but add encrypted data types using Zama's fhEVM library—think euint for encrypted integers or ebool for booleans. Transactions stay encrypted on-chain, and only authorized parties can decrypt the results based on the contract's rules. It combines FHE for computations, multi-party computation (MPC) for secure decryption, and zero-knowledge proofs for verification.

Under the hood, the host chain handles encrypted data storage, while off-chain components like GPU-equipped coprocessors crunch the heavy math, and key management nodes in secure environments like AWS Nitro Enclaves manage decryptions. Right now, the public testnet runs at about 20 transactions per second (TPS), but Zama aims for 1,000 TPS by 2026 and over 100,000 TPS by 2027-2028 with custom hardware like ASICs. Security is top-notch too, with 128-bit post-quantum protection and extensive audits.

Zama has some serious backing. They've raised around $130 million, including a $73 million Series A in March 2024 and a $57 million Series B in June 2025, pushing their valuation over $1 billion—making them the first FHE unicorn. Investors include heavy hitters like Pantera Capital, a16z Crypto, and CoinFund. The team, led by CEO Rand Hindi (PhD in bioinformatics) and CTO Pascal Paillier (a cryptography expert), boasts over 90 employees, many with PhDs.

Now, onto the star of the show: the $ZAMA token. It's set to power the protocol as both a payment method for fees and a staking asset. The economic model is a burn-and-mint equilibrium—fees paid in $ZAMA get burned, while new tokens are minted to reward stakers based on a square-root weighted formula. This keeps the supply in check: if fees outpace rewards, supply shrinks; if not, it grows modestly. Initial annual minting is capped at 10%, adjustable via governance.

Fees are pegged to USD through an oracle for predictability. For example, encrypting data might cost $0.005 to $0.50, while a decryption or balance read is $0.001 to $0.10. A typical confidential ERC-20 transfer? Around $0.008 to $0.80 at base rates, with discounts up to 100x for high-volume users. The network starts with 18 delegated proof-of-stake operators, including names like Ledger and Fireblocks, each staking at least 0.5% of the circulating supply. Delegators get about 80% of rewards after operators take up to 20% commission.

Full tokenomics details—like total supply and allocation—are still under wraps, but expect them before the token generation event (TGE) in Q4 2025, alongside the Ethereum mainnet launch. Recent moves include acquiring KakarotZK Labs on November 5, 2025, for zero-knowledge boosts (backed by Vitalik Buterin, no less), aiming for over 10,000 TPS. Plus, a €2 million joint venture with PyratzLabs for Zaiffer, a confidential DeFi platform with fast encrypted trades.

Why does this matter for meme token enthusiasts? Privacy tech like Zama's could enable more secure, anonymous meme launches and trades, reducing front-running and enhancing community-driven projects. It's not just for serious DeFi; imagine meme coins with built-in confidentiality to protect holders' strategies.

For more depth, check out the original BSC News piece here or Zama's litepaper here. Stay tuned as we at Meme Insider keep tracking how innovations like this intersect with the wild world of memes.