ZAMA has recently become a focus of attention for many, but many discussions have overlooked a key issue—what exactly does this project aim to do?

**The core is actually not complicated**

ZAMA's technical foundation is FHE (Fully Homomorphic Encryption), which is an open-source cryptographic computation paradigm developed by the academic community over many years. ZAMA is working to engineer and make this technology usable, then aims to build development tools and runtime environments around it. In other words, ZAMA is not the inventor of FHE but a commercial implementation of it. This raises a question: while there are technical barriers, there is no monopoly.

**What if we pursue privacy L1/L2?**

Relying on privacy as a key selling point to compete in the red ocean of L1/L2? Frankly, that's largely unrealistic. Privacy as the sole differentiator cannot support the entire flywheel logic of a public chain. Using it to attract developers, build ecosystems, generate real TVL, and earn transaction fees—this is too difficult.

**A more reliable direction: privacy-preserving computation via Chainlink**

Instead of building a chain ourselves, it’s better to position as an infrastructure layer—similar to "privacy computation as a service" or "privacy execution co-processors." The problem is, this path may not be easy either. Because the awkward question remains: why would other L1/L2 chains outsource privacy computation to you? They are developing their own solutions, using ZK or TEE schemes, or even avoiding this requirement at the application layer—these options all exist.

**The real risk lies here**

ZAMA's current situation can be described as "always optional, never mandatory." FHE is important, no doubt, but it can be achieved through other means; privacy needs are real but do not necessarily have to be outsourced. Mainstream chains have many options, and in the short term, ZAMA is unlikely to become the "must-have" layer. If it cannot find a breakthrough application scenario, its remaining value is mainly in narrative and hype.