Paris, France - September 17, 2026
Zama, a protocol focused on confidentiality for onchain finance, has broadened its suite of private access products, unveiling 16 confidential vaults across five asset classes and announcing the public launch of the Zama Swap Protocol. The rollout is a coordinated effort with Morpho and five established DeFi curators - Steakhouse Financial, Armitage by Wintermute, Flowdesk, RockawayX, and Bitwise - and is available on Morpho today through the Zama App.
This release follows Zama’s inaugural confidential product that went live in June with Morpho and Steakhouse. That initial Steakhouse USDC Prime vault expanded from zero to $40 million in total value locked within seven weeks, a performance Zama and partners point to as evidence that confidentiality can be paired with institutional-grade DeFi strategies.
What the expansion delivers
The newly launched vault suite spans five deposit asset classes - USDC, USDT, WBTC, AUSD, and TGBP - and is split into two deployment types that will operate in parallel. Twelve of the vaults are classed as hybrid, enabling confidential entry into existing curated vaults while preserving the strategy, liquidity, and risk profile of the underlying public vaults. Four vaults are exclusive confidential-only deployments with no public counterpart, including a Wintermute Confidential WBTC vault branded armcWBTC.
All 16 vaults are deployed on Morpho and are accessible immediately through the Zama App. Additional access points are scheduled to roll out in the coming weeks, including integrations with Utila, Zerion Wallet, and Yield.xyz, according to Zama.
Zama Swap Protocol: closing the confidential loop
Alongside the vault suite, Zama launched the Zama Swap Protocol, which enables confidential swaps between encrypted assets and vault positions. The protocol supports confidential swaps for vault share positions and the set of confidential asset tokens cUSDC, cUSDT, cWBTC, cAUSD, and cTGBP. Zama described the integration as enabling depositors to move between confidential assets and vault positions without revealing intent or size, thereby keeping the full deposit-earn-swap cycle entirely inside an encrypted envelope.
Institutional adoption and the confidentiality constraint
Zama framed the expansion as addressing a structural barrier to institutional onchain participation: visibility of positions, balances, and strategies on public blockchains. The company and partners argue that such transparency discourages large allocators and corporate treasuries from deploying capital onchain at scale because it exposes positions to competitors and front-runners. By enabling confidential entry into curated vaults that institutions already use, Zama aims to let allocators earn onchain yield while keeping holdings and strategy details private.
"When we launched the first confidential USDC vault with Morpho and Steakhouse in June, we proved that confidentiality and DeFi are not mutually exclusive," said Dr. Rand Hindi, Co-founder and CEO of Zama. "Today’s expansion is proof of the model at scale. Sixteen vaults, five curators, five asset classes, all built on the same DeFi infrastructure that sophisticated capital already uses. Same vaults, same curators, same liquidity, now with confidential entry. This is how confidential DeFi becomes a category and not an experiment."
Partners and curated strategies
Morpho, the open credit network, is the deployment surface for the vault suite. Morpho describes itself as an open credit network with more than $14 billion in deposits, and as an infrastructure layer that connects lenders and borrowers worldwide. Partners characterized their participation as enabling confidential access without changing the underlying strategies.
"Institutions have increasingly been exploring how onchain capital allocation can be made more confidential to fit their requirements. Adding these confidential vaults on Morpho was an important step for us. It’ll scale confidential DeFi efficiently and open new possibilities for allocators onchain, without changing the strategy, the liquidity, or the risk profile," said Merlin Egalite, Co-founder of Morpho.
Flowdesk is contributing a confidential AUSD RWA Strategy Vault, and presented the integration as a compliant onchain path for institutional allocators.
"Confidentiality is the condition onchain capital markets have to satisfy before they can carry institutional-scale volume. Through our work with Zama, we’re opening up confidential access to our AUSD RWA Strategy Vault, giving institutional allocators a compliant path onchain," said Guilhem Chaumont, Co-founder and CEO of Flowdesk.
Steakhouse Financial, which led curation of the initial confidential USDC Prime vault, expanded its participation to multiple vaults across stablecoins and tGBP.
"We were happy to work with Zama on its first confidential vault, and the market response makes it clear that depositors value confidentiality," said Sébastien Derivaux, Co-founder of Steakhouse Financial. "The natural next step was to extend that access to a five-vault suite across USDC, USDT, and tGBP. Depositors now have more choice in how they use stablecoins across Morpho, while keeping their positions private."
Armitage, Wintermute’s onchain vault curation arm, is contributing confidential WBTC curation via the Wintermute Confidential WBTC vault, which was described as having no public equivalent and intended to allow WBTC holders to earn yield on the asset.
"BTC has mostly sat onchain as collateral because there has rarely been meaningful yield to earn on it. The Wintermute Confidential WBTC vault gives WBTC holders a way to actually put it to work, pairing Armitage’s active risk curation with a confidential-only design that has no public equivalent, so positions stay off the public record," said Igor Igamberdiev, Armitage Lead.
RockawayX, which runs RWA strategies and underwrites predictable returns and collateral, contributed an RWA vault to the offering. RockawayX highlighted a track record of underwriting CeFi and DeFi lending since 2022 with a zero-default record, and positioned Zama’s confidentiality layer as a complement to the onchain transparency of their RWA approach.
"Institutions can be hesitant to lend onchain for two reasons. They can’t tell exactly what they’re exposed to, and anyone with a block explorer can see what they hold. RockawayX’s RWA vault handles predictable returns and collateral you can check onchain, underwritten the same way we’ve run CeFi and DeFi lending since 2022 with zero defaults. Zama handles the second with its confidentiality platform," said Nassim Alexandre, Head of Onchain Asset Management and Curation at RockawayX.
Bitwise is listed among the curators contributing to the expanded suite. Additional technical and distribution partners named in the announcement include Yield.xyz, Utila, Zerion, Merkl, and BCP Technologies, the issuer of tGBP.
Distribution, custody, and integration paths
Zama said the vaults are accessible through its app immediately, and that platform and wallet integrations will follow. The company highlighted several distribution and custody pathways that will bring confidential Morpho vault access to institutional infrastructure and retail-facing wallet providers.
"Zama’s confidentiality layer plugs into vaults people already use rather than asking them to move to a new chain. A wallet can support this natively with minimum friction, and why these vaults are coming to Zerion in the weeks ahead," said Evgeny Yurtaev, Co-founder and CEO at Zerion.
"Confidentiality should not require institutions to abandon the platforms they already use. Yield.xyz makes Zama’s confidential Morpho Vaults accessible through the same integration layer that wallets and financial platforms use to offer onchain yield. That gives platforms a practical path to support confidential positions while preserving the underlying strategy, liquidity, and risk profile," said Serafin Lion Engel, Co-Founder and CEO at Yield.xyz.
"Institutions need to protect their investment strategies while maintaining clear control over how capital is deployed," said Bentzi Rabi, Co-founder and CEO of Utila. "Through our work with Zama, we’re bringing confidential access to Morpho vaults into Utila’s MPC wallet infrastructure, so treasury and investment teams can access onchain yield with the policy controls and approval workflows they rely on across their digital asset operations."
For token issuers and distribution infrastructure, Zama and partners described technical work to extend incentive mechanisms to encrypted balances. Merkl said it adapted its distribution engine to support encrypted balances via ERC7984 so reward campaigns can run on confidential positions without exposing individual balances, leaderboard entries, or reward allocations.
"Incentives were the one thing confidential assets could not have, because rewarding a balance meant reading it. It was a real pleasure working with the Zama team to change that, extending Merkl’s engine to ERC7984 so campaigns run on encrypted balances. Depositors see an APR and earn, while no position, reward, or leaderboard entry ever becomes public," said Pablo Veyrat, CEO of Merkl.
BCP Technologies, issuer of tGBP, described the offering as providing a confidential entry point for institutional adoption of stablecoins in specific jurisdictions.
"Zama’s confidential product suite is unlocking institutional adoption opportunities globally including in the UK where stablecoin adoption with large institutions is a greenfield opportunity," said Benoit Marzouk, CEO of BCP Technologies. "The combination of confidentiality with bluechip protocols like Morpho provide a clear entry point for any institutional player integrating stablecoins into their business."
Operational implications and future roadmap
Zama positioned the expansion as an operational blueprint for additional confidential DeFi infrastructure in 2026 and 2027. The roadmap referenced additional curators, asset classes, distribution surfaces, and native institutional custody integrations as future additions to the confidential ecosystem.
The announcement specifies that the 16 confidential vaults officially opened for deposits on September 15, 2026 on the Zama App. Zama also provided a path for developers and institutional integrators to review technical documentation and architecture on zama.org and follow @Zama on X for updates.
Company descriptions and partner profiles
The release included descriptive summaries for a number of participating firms. Zama was described as a confidentiality protocol that leverages Fully Homomorphic Encryption to enable private issuance, management, and trading of digital assets on public blockchains. The founders named in the release were Dr. Pascal Paillier and Dr. Rand Hindi, and the protocol was described as maintaining a large team of FHE researchers and engineers supporting a global developer ecosystem.
Morpho was described as an open credit network with more than $14 billion in deposits, providing modular infrastructure to embed configurable credit products, with a list of platforms that build on Morpho. Steakhouse Financial was presented as a stablecoin-focused product builder with over $4.5 billion in TVL and as a market leader in risk curation for noncustodial DeFi vaults. Armitage was identified as Wintermute’s onchain vault curation arm that executes liquidations itself and accepts broader collateral ranges. Flowdesk was presented as a digital asset trading and technology firm specializing in liquidity solutions and OTC trading for institutional clients. RockawayX was described as a digital asset investment firm with over $2 billion in collective assets under management and a zero-default record across CeFi and DeFi lending since 2022. Bitwise was described as a global crypto-focused asset manager with $9 billion in client assets and a suite of investment products.
Token issuers included Tether, described as the issuer of USDT and pioneer of the stablecoin category; Agora, described as issuer of AUSD; and BCP Technologies, issuer of tGBP with $27 million of tGBP in circulation across multiple chains. Other ecosystem participants described included Pendle, Yield.xyz, Merkl, Zerion, and Utila, each accompanied by a one-paragraph description detailing their product focus and scale.
What this means for markets and participants
The expansion aims to make confidential DeFi accessible through existing institutional-grade infrastructure and custodial pathways. By enabling confidential entry into established curated vaults, Zama and partners argue that institutions can take part in onchain yield strategies without exposing holdings or strategic intent on public blockchains. The launch of a confidential swap protocol adds an in-protocol mechanism to move capital privately across assets and vault shares.
Beyond the immediate deployments, the announcement stated this expansion will serve as a template for further confidential integrations in 2026 and 2027, encompassing more curators, asset classes, distribution surfaces, and native custody integrations.
For developers and institutional integrators seeking technical details, Zama directed readers to its website for documentation and to its X account for updates.
Contact
Kirsty Jarvis
Luminous PR
[email protected]
About the author
Avery Klein is a senior equity analyst specializing in semiconductors and AI infrastructure with a background covering GPU supply chains and foundry economics. Klein focuses on durable competitive moats, cycle timing, and valuation under multiple demand regimes.