Namada
A proof-of-stake chain connected to Cosmos over IBC, built around one multi-asset shielded pool in which NAM and bridged assets share a single anonymity set, live since December 2024.
No reliable dataShielded pool
Namada's mainnet has run since 3 December 2024 and completed its five-phase launch in June 2025; the site lists its shielded pool as having no reliable data because DefiLlama counts only the non-native tokens in it, which came to $678 on 22 October 2026.
- TVL
- $712DefiLlama, 28 Oct 2026
- Launched
- 3 Dec 2024
- Token
- NAM
- Chains
- Namada
How it works
Namada is a proof-of-stake layer 1 blockchain, built with CometBFT and connected to other chains over IBC, the Cosmos Inter-Blockchain Communication protocol, whose central feature is a multi-asset shielded pool (MASP). The pool extends the Sapling design from Zcash so that every asset in it, whether NAM, the native token, or assets brought in from other chains, shares one shielded set instead of a separate pool per asset, and Namada says this holds for fungible and non-fungible assets alike. A user shields assets by moving them from a transparent address into the pool, where they are held as encrypted notes; transfers inside the pool are checked by zero-knowledge proofs, which rely on parameters from a trusted setup ceremony that finished on 21 December 2022 with 2,510 contributions. A viewing key, derived from the spending key, shows the balances and the incoming and outgoing transfers of a shielded account without allowing spending, so a holder can disclose their own history by sharing it.
The chain is secured by cubic proof of stake: the validators with the most NAM staked form the consensus set, and slashing penalties rise steeply when several validators misbehave in the same or adjacent epochs, to punish coordinated faults hardest. Inflation set by governance pays staking rewards, funds public goods through stewards elected on chain and can pay shielded set rewards in NAM to holders of eligible assets in the pool, to make the shielded set larger. Mainnet began at 15:00 UTC on 3 December 2024 with only staking and governance switched on, and governance then enabled the further phases of a five-phase launch, ending with transferable NAM in June 2025, when Namada said it supported shielding of 10 IBC assets and held nearly $6 million in its shielded pool.
Some things stay visible. Transparent addresses work as on most chains, so their balances and transfers are public, and moving assets into or out of the shielded pool reveals the amount and the asset at that boundary, as do IBC transfers to and from other chains, which are public on both sides. A deposit followed by a withdrawal of a similar amount can therefore be matched. DefiLlama tracks the pool but counts only the non-native tokens in it, not NAM, and its figure fell from a high of about $2.6 million on 14 September 2025 to $678 on 22 October 2026, according to the site's history.
TVL over time
- $2.6M highest daily TVL, 14 Sep 2025
Daily total value locked (TVL) from DefiLlama since 10 Jun 2025, with the current value refreshed every hour. DefiLlama counts only non-native tokens in the pool, so the figure badly understates it. The series is in protocol-namada.json, listed on the Data page.
What it hides and what it does not
What it hides
- Inside the shielded pool, the sender, the receiver, the amount and the asset of each transfer.
- Which notes a transaction spends, among all assets in the one shared shielded set.
What it does not hide
- Balances and transfers of transparent addresses.
- The amount and asset whenever assets move into or out of the shielded pool.
- IBC transfers to and from other chains, which are public on both sides.
- A holder's own shielded history, to anyone the holder gives a viewing key.
Drawn from how it works, above; the sources are listed at the end of the page. Where privacy still leaks explains the patterns, such as timing and amounts, that can give users of any design away.
Audits
Ten security reviews, oldest first, with what each covered and found. Dates are when each report was issued, unless the entry says otherwise.
| Date | Firm | Scope and findings |
|---|---|---|
| Inference (JP Aumasson) | Review of the multi-asset shielded pool (MASP) circuits and code. Sources: MASP audit report ; Security |
|
| Informal Systems | Formal work on Namada's cubic proof of stake: a TLA+ specification and a model-based testing framework. Sources: Namada Cubic Proof of Stake, TLA+ specification ; Namada Cubic Proof of Stake, model-based testing framework |
|
| Oak Security | The Namada Ethereum bridge, version 1.0. |
|
| Least Authority | The Namada interface and browser extension, with their dependencies, excluding the masp-web component, for Heliax. Sources: Heliax: Namada ; Namada interface audit report |
|
| Informal Systems | A Quint specification of cubic proof of stake. |
|
| Informal Systems | The Namada ABCI application, replay protection, and fee and gas metering. Source: Namada ABCI, Replay Protection, Fee and Gas Metering: final report |
|
| Informal Systems | Namada's IBC and MASP integrations. |
|
| Informal Systems | Namada governance and public goods funding. Source: Namada Governance and PGF |
|
| Informal Systems | End-to-end review of shielded transactions and balance consistency. Sources: Namada Q2 2025: E2E Shielded Transaction and Balance Consistency audit report ; Security |
|
| Not dated | Antithesis | Continuous simulation, testing and quality assurance of the Namada protocol, listed as ongoing on Namada's security page, with no report published. Source: Security |
Incidents
One incident that affected the project or its users.
-
A weekly recap by the validator Chainflow reported that Heliax's Adrian Brink said he had held back the v0.201.x upgrade for about eight weeks because of market concerns about the launch of XAN, the token of the related Anoma project, and stood by that choice, while saying Heliax still maintains Namada and proposing a smaller validator set paid in USDC. This rests on one secondary source.
Milestones
Eight milestones, oldest first.
-
Namada was introduced as a proof-of-stake chain for multichain, asset-agnostic data protection.
Source: Introducing Namada: Multichain Asset-Agnostic Data Protection
-
The Namada trusted setup ceremony for the MASP circuits finished with 2,510 contributions.
Sources: Completion of the Namada Trusted Setup ; Namada Mainnet Launch is Complete!
-
Version 0.40.0 was published as the mainnet release candidate, with the Namada Mainnet Security Program to reward reports of security-critical bugs.
Source: Announcing the Namada Mainnet Release Candidate and the Namada Mainnet Security Program
-
The proposed genesis allocations set a total supply of 1 billion NAM at genesis with no lockups, in a balances file that anyone could use to propose the genesis block.
Source: Namada Community Genesis Process, Cryptoeconomic Mechanisms, and the Genesis Allocations
-
Mainnet started producing blocks after a rollout that began at 15:00 UTC, opening phase 1 of five, with staking and governance only; the launch was coordinated by community teams including Knowable, Luminara, Informal Systems, Heliax and TuDudes.
Sources: Namada Mainnet is Live! ; Privacy-focused Cosmos Layer 1 Namada initiates mainnet launch and token airdrop
-
DefiLlama's daily series for the Namada shielded pool, which counts only non-native tokens, begins.
-
Namada said its five-phase mainnet launch was complete, with NAM fully transferable after governance proposal 26, 10 IBC assets supported for shielding and nearly $6 million shielded.
Sources: Namada Mainnet Launch is Complete! ; Namada blockchain completes mainnet rollout for composable privacy layer as native token set to begin trading
-
The non-native tokens in the shielded pool reached their highest value in DefiLlama's series, about $2.6 million; by 22 October 2026 the figure was $678.
Funding
Three sources of funding, oldest first. Amounts are in US dollars; a dash means the sources give no US dollar figure.
| Date | Round | Amount | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Not dated | First round of the Anoma Foundation, which funds the related Anoma project and maintained Namada's mainnet code, completed in 2020 and led by Polychain Capital; the foundation gives no amount or month Source: The Anoma Foundation Announces the 3rd Fundraise for Anoma |
– | Polychain Capital, Electric Capital |
Second round of the Anoma Foundation, reported as $26 million raised through a SAFT (simple agreement for future tokens) and led by Polychain Capital Sources: The Anoma protocol raises $26M for its work to undefine money ; The Anoma Foundation Announces the 3rd Fundraise for Anoma |
$26M | Polychain Capital, Maven 11 Capital, Electric Capital | |
Third round of the Anoma Foundation, co-led by CMCC Global; The Block described the money as funding the Anoma ecosystem, which includes Namada, and in June 2025 put the foundation's total raised at $60 million Sources: The Anoma Foundation Announces the 3rd Fundraise for Anoma ; Crypto Infrastructure Firm Anoma Foundation Raises $25M ; Namada blockchain completes mainnet rollout for composable privacy layer as native token set to begin trading |
$25M | CMCC Global, Electric Capital, Delphi Digital, Dialectic, KR1 |
Risks
Namada's privacy depends on how much stays shielded, and the visible part is small: DefiLlama's count of non-native tokens in the pool fell from about $2.6 million in September 2025 to $678 on 22 October 2026, and NAM itself is not counted, so the real size of the shielded set cannot be read from that figure. Moving assets into or out of the pool reveals amounts, and IBC transfers are public on the other chain. The MASP proofs rely on a trusted setup that stays sound only if at least one of its 2,510 contributions was honest. Development rests on Heliax and the Anoma Foundation, and in January 2026 a validator's newsletter reported that Heliax's Adrian Brink had held back an upgrade for about eight weeks over market concerns about another token, which shows how much the network's maintenance depends on a few people; the blog had no posts after June 2025 when this profile was checked.
Sources
The documents this profile rests on. Each audit, incident, milestone and funding round above also links its own sources.
- Namada home page
- Namada documentation
- The MASP
- An Introduction to Namada addresses and keys
- Shielded Rewards
- Namada blog
- Security
- Shielding the Multichain: How Namada's Data Protection Works
- Understanding the MASP/CC
- The Namada Cubic Proof-of-Stake
- Understanding Namada Governance
- Namada Community Genesis Process, Cryptoeconomic Mechanisms, and the Genesis Allocations
- Namada Mainnet is Live!
- Namada Mainnet Launch is Complete!
- Expanding the Shield: Namada's Post-Launch Roadmap
- Completion of the Namada Trusted Setup
- namada-net/namada
- Namada Shielded Pools protocol TVL data
- Namada blockchain completes mainnet rollout for composable privacy layer as native token set to begin trading
- NamadaFlow Weekly Update, 21 to 28 January 2026
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