In the intersection of blockchain and artificial intelligence, a technological breakthrough is transforming the entire landscape of privacy computing. As an innovator in open-source cryptography, Zama is advancing the commercialization of Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), a technology hailed as the "Holy Grail" of cryptography.

Traditional encryption faces a straightforward challenge: data must be decrypted before use. Once decrypted, privacy risks follow, especially when handling sensitive information. This is a headache in financial transactions, medical data, and even smart contract execution. Zama's approach is entirely different—they enable developers to perform computations directly on encrypted data without ever decrypting it. In other words, data remains encrypted throughout its entire lifecycle—during transmission, storage, and processing—and is completely invisible to external parties.

Such solutions are especially needed on blockchain. Zama's release of fhEVM (FHE Ethereum Virtual Machine) pioneered confidential smart contracts. This means developers can build DApps on Ethereum that retain the encrypted nature of on-chain data while maintaining composability. Simply put, Zama allows public blockchains to combine Ethereum-like programmability with privacy protection similar to privacy coins, fundamentally resolving the contradiction in the blockchain trilemma between transparency and privacy.

This technological innovation has also attracted capital attention. Zama's funding performance is among the top in the privacy computing sector, making it one of the highest-valued unicorns in the field. In March 2024, the company announced the completion of Series A funding, raising $73 million. Combined with previous seed funding, total financing has surpassed $80 million. These figures reflect investors' strong confidence in the commercialization prospects of FHE technology.

Currently, privacy computing is no longer just a theoretical concept but is evolving into a real market demand. Zama's progress indicates that cryptographic innovation is moving from academic ivory towers toward industrial applications, with the blockchain ecosystem becoming a key stage for this transformation.