USDT goes confidential on Zama as shielded stablecoin volume crosses $131M

Tether’s USDT is now live on Zama, the onchain confidentiality protocol that uses fully homomorphic encryption to shield transaction amounts and balances from prying eyes on public blockchains. The integration converts standard USDT into a confidential version called cUSDT, letting users transact on Ethereum without broadcasting their financial details to the entire network. What Zama actually does Zama’s protocol uses the ERC-7984 standard to wrap public ERC-20 tokens into confidential versions through a two-transaction process. The wrapped tokens, cUSDT in this case, keep transfer amounts and balances encrypted while preserving the composability and verifiability that make DeFi functional. As of mid-September 2026, cUSDT has recorded a cumulative shielded volume of $131.3 million. The current shielded total value locked sits at $7.7 million. For a protocol that only executed its first confidential USDT transfer in January 2026, that adoption curve is steep. Since then, Zama has rolled out a swap protocol that lets users exchange cUSDT with other confidential tokens. On September 15, Zama added 16 confidential Morpho vaults to its roster, including products denominated in cUSDT. S...