Guide · checked against its sources on 2026-10-24
Namada is a proof-of-stake blockchain built for data protection: it uses zero-knowledge proofs so that assets from Namada and from other chains can be held and moved privately in one shared shielded pool.[1][2][3]
NAM is Namada's own coin. It is staked to secure the network, it carries the votes in governance, it pays transaction fees, and newly minted NAM rewards stakers and people who keep assets in the shielded pool.[4][5][6][7][8][9]
Namada is its own layer-one chain secured by proof of stake: validators agree on blocks with the CometBFT consensus algorithm, any account can stake NAM with a validator, and a validator in the consensus set uses the NAM staked to it as its voting power over new blocks.[2][7]
Its mainnet started on 3 December 2024 at 15:00 UTC and opened in five phases; on 20 June 2025 Namada announced that the launch was complete, with full transferability of NAM enabled.[10][11][12]
The Anoma Foundation owns and operates namada.net and stewarded the code for the mainnet, and said at launch that it operated no validators; the launch was coordinated by many community teams, and the chain is governed by the people who stake NAM.[13][11][5]
NAM is the staking coin: staked NAM gives validators their voting power over new blocks, and stakers earn a share of the NAM minted as rewards once per epoch.[4][7]
NAM is the voting coin too: accounts with staked NAM vote on governance proposals, with voting power in proportion to the NAM they have staked.[14][5]
Fees can be paid in NAM, which namada.net says gives the lowest fees, or in other tokens on a list that governance controls; every fee goes to the validator that proposed the block.[6][15]
New NAM also pays for public goods, minted into an on-chain fund whose payments are approved by governance or by stewards that governance elects, and rewards people who keep eligible assets in the shielded pool.[16][8][9]
Namada has two kinds of address you send to: a transparent address, starting with tnam, whose balance and transactions are public, and a shielded payment address, starting with znam, which receives into the shielded pool.[17]
Every asset shares the one shielded pool, so each shielded transaction strengthens the protection for everyone in it; the pool is a zero-knowledge circuit that extends the Sapling circuit of Zcash to many assets.[3][18]
Namada connects to other chains through Inter-Blockchain Communication, the protocol Cosmos chains speak to move assets between them, so assets from those chains can be brought to Namada once a connection between the two chains is open.[19][1][20]
At the time of writing, namada.net lists support for other ecosystems, such as Ethereum and Solana, as coming soon.[20]
Namada Keychain is the browser extension for Namada keys and accounts: namada.net offers it for Chrome and Firefox, it signs what you do in Namada web apps, and it can be used with a Ledger hardware wallet.[21][22][6]
Namadillo is a web app for using Namada with the Keychain: staking, voting, and moving assets between Namada and other chains. Namada's docs say Heliax develops it, and community members host copies of it too.[23][24][25][26][27]
Keplr, the Cosmos wallet, works alongside Namadillo: it signs the other chain's side of a transfer into Namada, while the Namada side is signed with Namada Keychain.[26]
A Ledger works through Namada Keychain or the command line. Shielded actions need a Ledger Nano S Plus or newer; Namada's docs say older devices can still make transparent ones such as staking, while namada.net says the original Nano S is not supported. For the command line, the namadaw wallet keeps encrypted keys on disk.[28][6][29]
Namada's mainnet started on 3 December 2024 at 15:00 UTC, and on 20 June 2025 Namada announced that its five-phase launch was complete, with full transferability of NAM enabled.[10][11][12]
Validators run the chain and NAM stakers govern it. The Anoma Foundation operates namada.net and stewarded the mainnet code, and said at launch that it operated no validators; Namada's docs list Heliax as the developer of Namadillo and the operator of public endpoints such as the block explorer.[4][5][11][13][23][30]
Yes. Namada accepts fees in any token on a list that governance controls, and namada.net says paying in NAM gives the lowest fees.[15][6]
No. NamadaTrade is an independent site that reads public data from Namada and Osmosis. It is not run by or affiliated with the Anoma Foundation, Heliax or any other team that builds Namada.
NamadaTrade is an independent site. It is not run by or affiliated with the Anoma Foundation, Heliax or any other team that builds Namada, and this guide is not advice. Each paragraph about Namada links the Namada pages it comes from.
NamadaTrade reports public on-chain and exchange data. It is not investment advice and is not affiliated with Namada or the Anoma Foundation.