Open-source cryptography firm Zama has announced a public sealed-bid Dutch auction for its native ZAMA token, scheduled to run from January 12th to January 15th on the Ethereum blockchain. The auction will distribute 10% of the token's total supply, with 8% available through the primary auction and the remaining 2% offered at a fixed price later, capped at $10,000 per participant.
The auction employs Zama's proprietary Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) technology to keep all bids private, a design intended to prevent front-running bots, gas wars, and last-minute bid sniping. This method aims to ensure fair price discovery and equitable token distribution. Participants must first shield stablecoins like USDC, USDT, or DAI into encrypted ERC-7984 tokens to place bids.
All ZAMA tokens purchased in the auction will be fully unlocked and claimable starting January 20th. They will be immediately usable for staking, delegation, or paying encryption and decryption fees within the Zama ecosystem. The protocol acts as a confidentiality layer for existing blockchains, allowing users to convert assets into private versions without leaving their native chain.
