Zama opens 16 confidential Morpho vaults, adds private swaps on Ethereum

Zama, an onchain confidentiality protocol, opened 16 confidential lending vaults built on Morpho for deposits on September 15 and launched a companion swap protocol for trading privacy-shielded assets on Ethereum, according to The Block, which cited a statement Zama shared with it exclusively.

Of the 16 vaults, 12 are confidential wrappers around existing Morpho vaults on Ethereum that already have public equivalents; the other four were built as confidential-only products. Zama named the curators as Steakhouse Financial, Armitage by Wintermute, Flowdesk, RockawayX and Bitwise. The pitch, in Zama's words, is that public-chain visibility of "positions, balances, and strategies" is "a structural blocker to institutional deployment at scale" — so the vaults let allocators "access diversified onchain yield without disclosing their holdings or strategies."

The expansion follows a first vault that went live in June with Morpho and Steakhouse Financial, using Steakhouse's USDC Prime strategy. Zama said that vault went from zero to $40 million in total value locked within seven weeks — a figure that comes from Zama and was not independently confirmed.

Alongside the vaults, Zama launched the Zama Swap Protocol, letting depositors swap confidential assets — cUSDC, cUSDT, cAUSD and cTGBP, plus shares in the confidential vaults — "without disclosing the size of the transaction or their intent." The vaults go live first through Zama's own app; Utila, Zerion Wallet and Yield.xyz are due to add them "in the coming weeks."

Key facts

• 16 confidential Morpho vaults opened for deposits on Sept. 15 — 12 confidential versions of existing vaults, 4 confidential-only (The Block, citing Zama).
• Curators: Steakhouse Financial, Armitage by Wintermute, Flowdesk, RockawayX, Bitwise (Zama statement to The Block).
• First vault (June, Morpho + Steakhouse USDC Prime strategy) reported $40M TVL in seven weeks (Zama's own figure).
• Zama Swap Protocol covers cUSDC, cUSDT, cAUSD, cTGBP and vault shares (The Block, citing Zama).
• Rollout via Zama's app first; Utila, Zerion Wallet, Yield.xyz "in the coming weeks" (Zama).
• Zama's ZAMA token was down about 5.9% on the day (The Block price data).

The real-world read

Nearly everything here traces to a single interested source: a statement Zama gave The Block "exclusively," making this a product announcement more than independently reported news. The headline $40 million TVL is Zama's own number, from its own vault — treat it as a marketing claim until on-chain data or a third party confirms it. The "structural blocker to institutional deployment" line is the company's sales framing for its own privacy tech; the supporting quote from Morpho co-founder Merlin Egalite is likewise from a partner with a direct stake in the launch. What's conspicuously absent: any current aggregate TVL across the 16 new vaults, named institutional depositors, or fee and audit details. Confidential-by-design vaults also cut both ways — the same opacity Zama sells to institutions makes independent verification of deposits and risk harder for everyone else.

This is news coverage, not financial advice.

Sources

• The Block (Tier 2, secondary) — reported the launch, vault count and curator list, the $40M first-vault figure, the swap protocol assets, the rollout partners, and the Egalite quote; based on a statement Zama shared with it exclusively, so the underlying claims and figures originate with Zama (an interested party) and were not independently verified.