Project Research Dossier: Fermah (pre-TGE ZK proof market) | 29 Sep 2026

Fermah, pre-TGE research dossier (primary sources only, checked 29 Sep 2026)

Eligibility: private seed only ($5.2M, Sep 2024, led by a16z CSX + Lemniscap). No public raise, no token, no ICO/TGE announced. A waitlist went up Sep 15, so this needs an update if that becomes a sale.

What it builds: Froben, a ZK proof marketplace. Whitelisted seekers send proof requests, the Matchmaker assigns them to prover nodes (EigenLayer operators on GPUs), the proof goes back to the seeker's callback. Live: Jolt, Groth16, RISC Zero, Valida, Stwo, SP1. "Very soon": Nexus 2.0, Stone, Aztec. Fermah Pay (prepaid USDC billing) already settles proof-market charges on an EVM chain; the Soroban port is grant-funded, not shipped.

Traction (explorer, 29 Sep): 3.68M tasks sealed / 25,200 workflows, 10 provers on 16,465 machines, 99.5% 24h success, 20,513 failed lifetime, utilization 2.4% with 362K queued.

Tokenomics / unlocks: nothing published (no supply, allocations, vesting, emissions), so no invented numbers. To model on announcement: FDV vs circulating at TGE, the seed unlock (cliff vs linear, first overhang), and prover emissions vs real paid demand.

Team signals: founder Vanishree Rao (PhD cryptography UCLA, ex-O(1) Labs). GitHub: 5 public repos (docs, zkSync fork, chain-oracle, AVS metadata); core matchmaker/prover code not public.

Risks: permissioned seekers + provers; single orchestrator; demand risk (2.4% utilization); crowded ZK proving market; token design unknown.

Disclosure: no position (no token exists), not affiliated. Written for a rewarded Republic quest, AI-assisted.

Sources: https://docs.fermah.xyz/network · https://docs.fermah.xyz/fermah-pay · https://explorer.fermah.xyz · https://github.com/fermah-xyz · https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fermah-closes-5-2m-seed-round-to-abstract-away-the-complexity-of-zk-proof-generation-302249050.html