SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 27, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ZetaChain today announced the beta launch and public waitlist for Anuma, a privacy-first AI interface built on ZetaChain 2.0. ZetaChain also introduced ZetaChain 2.0, a new AI interoperability layer designed to help developers build applications and agents that work across AI models, preserve private user context, and monetize globally without backend infrastructure.

ZetaChain Core Contributor Ankur Nandwani previously co-created Basic Attention Token (BAT), which powers the Brave browser ecosystem with over 100M monthly active users. Brave helped mainstream privacy-first browsing by blocking trackers and ads by default. Anuma applies that same “privacy and user control by default” approach to the next major consumer interface of AI where context and memory increasingly define user experience.

AI adoption is accelerating at internet scale: McKinsey notes that ChatGPT reached 100 million users in two months, and OpenAI has reported 800 million weekly active users by late 2025. Yet the ecosystem remains fragmented with only 9% of consumers paying for more than one AI subscription across major assistants. This combination creates lock-in at the model layer and forces developers to repeatedly rebuild the same integration, routing, state, and billing infrastructure, while privacy and data are routinely shared across applications, agents, and model providers.

ZetaChain was built to address fragmentation in Web3 by enabling universal apps — applications that can natively access assets like BTC and execute across multiple blockchains through a single platform. In 2025, the ZetaChain network scaled to more than 11.5 million users and processed more than 225 million transactions. With ZetaChain 2.0, ZetaChain is extending this unification thesis to AI so applications can operate across both chains and models, with permissions and private context built in.

ZetaChain 2.0 is composed of two core components:

• AI Portal: A unified routing and execution layer that allows applications to access multiple AI model providers without lock-in, with built-in support for availability, fallback, and cost-performance optimization.
• Private Memory Layer: A protocol-level memory system designed to keep user context encrypted and permissioned, enabling persistent experiences across sessions while maintaining user control over what applications and agents can access.
  
  

Developer SDK and Platform

ZetaChain 2.0 is designed to scale as a developer platform. Alongside the protocol components, ZetaChain is releasing a developer SDK that packages private persistent memory, cross-model interoperability, and monetization primitives into a single toolkit. The goal is to make it straightforward to build privacy-first apps and agents that can maintain continuity across sessions, connect to multiple model providers, and support global monetization rails from onchain settlement to traditional payment processors without requiring teams to build bespoke infrastructure.

Anuma: First Consumer Showcase

Anuma is the first consumer AI interface built on ZetaChain 2.0. The product provides access to multiple leading AI models through a single experience, supports switching between models without losing context, and is designed so memory remains private and user-controlled. Users can request early access through the public waitlist.

“Brave and BAT proved that privacy-first defaults can win at consumer scale,” said Ankur Nandwani, Core Contributor at ZetaChain. “We’ve already unified the blockchain experience at scale, powering more than 225 million transactions. ZetaChain 2.0 extends that same approach to AI, enabling the next generation of apps and agents that run across models and chains with private, permissioned memory and global monetization by default.”

In 2023, ZetaChain announced a $27 million funding round with participation from Blockchain.com, Human Capital, VY Capital, Sky9 Capital, Jane Street Capital, VistaLabs, CMT Digital, Foundation Capital, Lingfeng Capital, GSR, and others.

About ZetaChain

ZetaChain is the universal layer for AI and Web3, letting developers build apps that run across chains and models, keep memory private, and monetize without infrastructure. With native connectivity across major blockchains and an AI interoperability stack powered by a Private Memory Layer, ZetaChain is building the foundation for the next generation of apps, agents, and experiences.

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Media Contact

Jonathan Covey

CMO

jonathan@zetachain.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/f0fc874d-1ddd-4157-a797-229dffb8bc2a