The Privacy Coin track has exploded! a16z has heavily invested 17 million in Seismic, and Zcash is experiencing a big pump that ignites the market.

With the recent price pump of privacy coins like Zcash, the privacy zone has once again become the focus of market attention. The privacy blockchain project Seismic announced the completion of a new round of $10 million financing, marking the second time a16z crypto has led the investment in this project this year, bringing the total financing amount to $17 million.

a16z leads two consecutive rounds, betting 17 million dollars on the Privacy Coin track

Seismic has completed two rounds of financing, totaling 17 million USD. In March 2025, it announced that it had secured 7 million USD in seed round financing, led by a16z crypto, with participation from Polychain, 1kx, and others. On November 12, it successfully completed another 10 million USD financing, with a16z crypto continuing to lead the round, and new investors including Amber Group, with the funds primarily used for technology research and development and ecosystem expansion.

a16z crypto leading two consecutive funding rounds is extremely rare, which shows its high confidence in the long-term value of Seismic. a16z (Andreessen Horowitz) is one of the most prestigious venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, with a portfolio that includes tech giants like Facebook and Airbnb. In the crypto space, a16z crypto focuses on investing in early projects with disruptive technologies, and its investment decisions often lead industry trends.

The continuous lead investment means that a16z crypto not only sees potential in Seismic during the seed round stage but has also continuously validated its technological feasibility and market potential throughout the project's development process. Generally, venture capitalists choose to wait and see after the seed round, only continuing to invest when the project reaches expected milestones. The additional investment of 10 million USD by a16z crypto just 8 months later shows that Seismic has made significant progress in technological R&D and ecosystem construction.

The addition of new investor Amber Group is also worth following. Amber Group is one of the largest crypto financial service providers in Asia, and its participation signifies important support for Seismic's expansion in the Asian market. Polychain and 1kx are well-known funds in the crypto space, and their continued support further validates Seismic's investment value.

Seismic Financing Timeline

Seed Round in March 2025: $7 million, led by a16z crypto, with participation from Polychain and 1kx.

New Round in November 2025: 10 million USD, a16z crypto continues to lead the investment, Amber Group added.

Total Financing Amount: 17 million USD

Use of Funds: Technology R&D and Ecosystem Expansion

The financing scale of 17 million USD ranks among the top in Privacy Coin projects. In contrast, many emerging privacy projects only have financing amounts in the millions of USD. Ample funding reserves enable Seismic to invest more resources in technology research and development, attract top engineers to join the team, and establish partnerships with financial institutions. This funding advantage is crucial in the fiercely competitive privacy race.

Seismic Technical Innovation: EVM Compatible Privacy Protection

Seismic is a privacy-preserving blockchain designed specifically for financial technology scenarios. The project is built on EVM, allowing developers to use the familiar Solidity language for development, only needing to control privacy settings through additional syntax. This design reduces the learning curve for developers while providing the necessary privacy protection capabilities.

The core technological features of the project are reflected in three aspects. Through protocol layer encryption and secure hardware support, Seismic achieves default privacy protection settings. The project adopts Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) technology instead of zero-knowledge proof schemes, and all nodes must operate within the TEE to ensure data security. The system introduces shielded data types, including shielded integers, booleans, and addresses, allowing developers to conveniently handle privacy data.

TEE (Trusted Execution Environment) technology is the key for Seismic to differentiate itself from traditional Privacy Coins. Traditional Privacy Coins like Zcash and Monero mainly use Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZK-SNARK) technology, which, while having strong privacy protection capabilities, comes with high computational costs and slower transaction speeds. Seismic employs TEE technology, utilizing hardware-level security isolation to protect data. This method significantly reduces computational overhead while ensuring privacy, thereby improving transaction speed.

In addition, Seismic Reth, as its native execution client, further enhances privacy capabilities. This client supports private storage, encrypted transactions, and integrates 6 new pre-compiled contracts (such as AES-GCM encryption, ECDH key exchange), making it easy for developers to quickly access privacy features. Seismic Reth was open-sourced in October 2024 to lower the access threshold for developers. The open-source strategy allows global developers to audit the code, discover vulnerabilities, and contribute improvements, which is particularly important for privacy projects.

EVM compatibility is another major advantage of Seismic. Ethereum has the largest developer community and the richest ecosystem of development tools. Through EVM compatibility, Seismic can directly leverage the existing Ethereum development tools, wallets, and infrastructure, significantly reducing the difficulty of ecosystem building. Developers do not need to learn a new programming language or development framework; they only need to add privacy-related syntax to the existing Solidity code to achieve privacy protection functionality.

The First Application of Brookwell Financial Privacy Protection Practice

In September this year, the first application built on Seismic, Brookwell, was officially launched. This fintech product developed by entrepreneurs Ravi and Rohan aims to allow users to earn DeFi yields while using traditional payment channels. Brookwell chose to build on Seismic primarily due to its privacy protection capabilities.

The application handles deep personal financial transactions including rent payments and salary disbursement, and these sensitive data are not suitable for public visibility on a public blockchain. Through Seismic's privacy protection technology, Brookwell is able to connect cryptocurrency with traditional financial systems while protecting user privacy. The project’s official website has currently opened the Waitlist application, indicating a real market demand for privacy-protecting financial applications.

The successful launch of Brookwell validates the feasibility of the Seismic technology solution. For privacy blockchains, mere technological innovation is insufficient; there must be practical application scenarios to validate its value. Brookwell's ability to handle high-frequency financial transactions such as rent and salaries demonstrates that Seismic can not only provide privacy protection but also meet the performance and reliability requirements of financial-grade applications.

Privacy Coin race reignites, ZEC leads the pump and attracts follow

As privacy coins like ZEC have recently experienced a price pump, the privacy zone has once again become the market's focus. a16z crypto recently posted on social media emphasizing, “As cryptocurrencies reach more mainstream users, the demand for privacy is more urgent than ever.” This statement is not coincidental, but is based on a profound insight into the trends of industry development.

Zcash (ZEC), as an established Privacy Coin, often indicates a revival in the Privacy zone when its price pumps. Historical data shows that when the mainstream cryptocurrency market enters the later stages of a bull market, funds tend to rotate into niche zones like Privacy Coins to seek new growth points. The leading performance of ZEC may signal a revaluation of the entire Privacy zone.

The urgency of privacy demands is becoming increasingly prominent. With the popularity of cryptocurrencies, regulatory bodies are intensifying their scrutiny of on-chain data. The U.S. IRS requires exchanges to report user transaction records, and the EU's MiCA regulations also include strict KYC requirements. In this regulatory environment, users' need for privacy protection is stronger than ever before. The protocol-level privacy protection provided by Seismic perfectly meets this market demand.

Seismic was founded by Lyron Co Ting Keh, who holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from Stanford University. He has previously founded an educational technology company, developed a Ruby on Rails training platform, and participated in tool development for privacy projects such as Zcash and Aztec. This deep background in privacy technology ensures the reliability of Seismic's technology.

Core engineer Peter He previously led the development of the Ethereum application-specific Blockchain framework, specializing in distributed systems and privacy technology, and is currently responsible for the technical implementation of Seismic. Business development leader Terence focuses on promoting fintech collaborations, aiming to extend Seismic's privacy capabilities to more financial scenarios. Although the team has not disclosed all members, from the public resumes, many come from institutions such as Wintermute, Google X, and Apple R&D.