On June 17, ZAMA, in partnership with Morpho and Steakhouse Financial, initiated the launch of Steakhouse Confidential USDC Prime, marking the debut of a DeFi yield pool on 以太坊 specifically engineered for confidential USDC (cUSDC). This development represents a critical inflection point for institutional participation, allowing entities to secure yields comparable to traditional flagship pools while maintaining strict confidentiality regarding deposit volumes and transaction timing. The pool is scheduled to accept deposits starting June 23, bridging the gap between high-yield opportunities and the privacy requirements of large-scale capital.

The collaboration leverages the substantial market presence of its partners, with Morpho managing a total value locked (TVL) of approximately $7 billion and Steakhouse Financial overseeing nearly $2 billion in related yield products across exchanges including Bitget, Coinbase, and Crypto.com. Merlin Egalite, co-founder of Morpho, emphasized that institutions have long demanded on-chain confidentiality, noting that ZAMA's technology stack allows them to allocate funds without exposing operational details. Data compiled by Woofun AI highlights how this integration enables institutions to treat confidential assets with the same fluidity as standard on-chain holdings, effectively removing a primary barrier to entry.

Public chain transparency, while a foundational principle of decentralized finance, has historically acted as a deterrent for institutional investors due to the exposure of liquidity strategies. Existing lending protocols on public chains render every deposit visible, allowing arbitrage bots, competitors, and analytics tools to track position sizes, trade timing, and collateral risk preferences. This visibility enables market participants to infer strategic intentions, replicate strategies, or front-run trades, leading to increased execution costs and diminished returns for the original actors. The lack of privacy has been a primary factor limiting extensive institutional engagement in DeFi or the construction of private networks.

Sébastien Derivaux, co-founder of Steakhouse Financial, noted that the rapid monetization of the economy through digital currencies necessitates solutions that address these transparency issues. The design of Steakhouse USDC Prime, the longest-established yield pool on Morpho, prioritizes liquidity and risk management while now incorporating privacy features. Woofun AI observes that the product architecture adheres to a principle of minimal change, utilizing the existing Steakhouse Prime v2 layer to maintain unchanged credit strategies, risk parameters, and collateral portfolios consisting of cbBTC, WBTC, and wstETH.

The technical implementation requires users to encrypt standard USDC into cUSDC using ZAMA's Shield technology before depositing into the yield pool, a process that eliminates the need for cross-chain transactions or new wallet creation. While the scale, direction, and timing of individual deposits remain confidential on-chain, the aggregate supply and audit data of the yield pool remain accessible to regulatory authorities, ensuring compliance. This approach allows earnings to be generated directly from Morpho's lending market infrastructure while preserving the privacy of the underlying asset movements.

ZAMA, a deep-tech firm specializing in cryptography and privacy computing, was co-founded by CEO Dr. Rand Hindi and CTO Dr. Pascal Paillier, a renowned expert whose Paillier encryption scheme remains a global standard. The company, which employs over 90 individuals with nearly half holding doctoral degrees, has secured more than $150 million in funding, including a $73 million Round A led by Multicoin Capital and Protocol Labs, and a $57 million Round B led by Pantera Capital and Blockchange. With a current valuation of $1 billion, ZAMA stands as the world's first unicorn in the Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) sector, backed by investors such as Gavin Wood, Anatoly Yakovenko, and Juan Benet.

FHE technology, often termed the 'Holy Grail of cryptography,' enables computations on encrypted data without revealing plaintext, allowing smart contracts to process balances while maintaining public verifiability. As of the latest reporting, the total value of assets shielded by ZAMA's protocol has reached $191 million, demonstrating significant adoption on 以太坊. In February 2026, ZAMA executed the first ICO on Ethereum to utilize FHE technology, conducting a fully encrypted public auction for ZAMA tokens to prevent premature trading, with on-chain commitments totaling approximately $121 million and actual funds raised around $44 million.

Further expanding its ecosystem, ZAMA acquired TokenOps in May 2026, an enterprise-grade platform for token lifecycle management, thereby extending confidentiality to token issuance, ownership, and airdrop distributions. Steakhouse Confidential USDC Prime represents the third phase of this evolution, integrating FHE into established DeFi yield structures to deliver real-world efficiency for confidential assets. Woofun AI analysis suggests that by validating technical feasibility, establishing a token economy, and creating pathways for institutional returns, ZAMA is solidifying the transition of FHE from theoretical cryptography to a practical utility for institutional funds on the mainnet.