Aztec is the leading privacy-first Layer 2 on Ethereum. Alpha Network is live · Start building here: docs.aztec.network/developer…
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Aztec Alpha V5 is live, and so is Shield (by @humntech): a proof-of-humanity bridge for moving assets between Ethereum and Aztec.
Shield lets users bridge assets while proving the sender is legitimate and the funds are compliant, all without revealing their identities.
Bridge USDC to Aztec now at shield.human.tech/
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Aztec retweeted
Bitcoin researchers just proposed pivoting Bitcoin into... Aztec, amid all the privacy hype.
a new Shielded Bitcoin proposal wants to bring private $BTC transfers directly to Bitcoin L1, without changing Bitcoin consensus.
• encrypted notes
• nullifiers
• Merkle trees
• ZK proofs
Bitcoin itself mostly acts as the publication + ordering layer.
the shielded state gets reconstructed and verified above it.
sounds familiar?
private state → notes
spending private state → nullifiers
validity → ZK proofs
read access → viewing keys
the difference is where they stop.
Shielded Bitcoin uses this architecture for one narrow job: private $BTC transfers.
@aztecnetwork takes the same general model much further: programmable private state + private execution.
and the most interesting part?
the paper itself points to Aztec’s direction as extremely important, while acknowledging that general private execution is significantly more complex than private transfers.
not bad for project with token ethereum:0xa27ec0006e59f245217ff08cd52a7e8b169e62d2 sitting at a ~$49m market cap, roughly 535x smaller than Zcash, 120x smaller than NEAR, and ~5x smaller than Zama?
Bitcoin is slowly trying to make a machine built for transparent money do things it was never really designed for.
maybe instead of bolting wings onto a car, at some point you just use the plane that was built to fly?
Developers just figured out a way to hide who sent bitcoin, who received it, and how much moved, without changing Bitcoin itself.
This new proposed idea is not a fork around the protocol or new cryptocurrency. This is how Bitcoin was designed, a base layer people can innovate on without asking permission.
On Thursday, researcher Misha Komarov and colleagues published Shielded Bitcoin, a Zcash-style shielded pool for Bitcoin’s base layer.
Encrypted notes and zero-knowledge proofs ride along in ordinary Bitcoin transactions. Separate software checks that no coins are created from nothing and none are spent twice.
There is no company running the pool, no sidechain, and no soft fork. Funds go in and out through cryptographic vaults Komarov has been building, called PIPEs, so no federation has to hold the bitcoin.
Miners do not enforce the privacy rules. Invalid shielded data can still land in a block, indexers simply ignore it.
The trade is: Bitcoin stays conservative, and the experiment lives on top of it. If it works, private transfers arrive the way most of Bitcoin’s best ideas have, not by rewriting the constitution, but by building on the settlement layer everyone already trusts.
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Doubling down with you.
Private smart contracts, settled to Ethereum, live right now.
This is what Aztec was built for.
It's only dead if you give up
I'm not giving up on privacy. I'm doubling down.
firefly.social/post/x/210138…
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Fully decentralized ✅
Fully private ✅
Fully programmable public/private smart contracts ✅
If you care about privacy, you should care about Aztec.
Privacy szn always leads back to Aztec
Fully decentralized
Fully private
Fully programmable with public/private smart contracts
In alpha, but we've got some of the best teams in the space building and planning for upcoming stable releases
Couldn't be more excited for what's to come
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Programmable privacy allows for unprecedented levels of customization to ensure your data is seen exclusively by the people you choose.
What apps would you like to see built with programmable privacy on Aztec?
I want to borrow against private assets without publishing my finances. This requires advanced private composition of credit credentials, lending and payments. Aztec gives developers private smart contracts to build those connections.
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A viewing key hands over an address's entire history to whoever holds it.
Programmable disclosure proves one fact to one party, once, as part of the contract logic.
One is a compliance feature bolted on after the fact. The other is Aztec, with compliance designed into the protocol.
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If you're building anything that touches user data onchain, this is the @EFDevcon talk to sit in.
@Zac_Aztec will present what programmable privacy entails at the system level, from the perspective of the network that already shipped it.
Private state. Public network. Hard tradeoffs.
@Zac_Aztec, Co-founder of Aztec Network, is joining Devcon 8 to unpack what programmable privacy actually demands from the systems we build & where the toughest design choices show up.
Catch his talk in the Privacy & Consent track.
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Private transactions, proven in seconds.
@alejoamiras built Presto, a free application that runs the proving natively on your device, allowing Aztec or @NoirLang apps to prove up to 9x faster locally instead of running it through the browser.
Presto is out ✦ (previously known as Aztec Accelerator)
It sits in your menu bar, and any Aztec or Noir app you open just… gets faster. Native proving, nothing to configure.
For devs it's 3 lines of code. For users, one install.
presto.build 🧵
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Get more info and download Presto here:
If you use Aztec apps: get Presto. macOS, Linux, Windows. Free.
Then open the playground and watch the same proof twice.
presto.build
playground.presto.build
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Aztec retweeted
We have the technology to solve this. Zero knowledge proofs and private networks like @aztecnetwork enable non-custodial data where products keep sensitive data with the *user* and zk proofs do all the checks
Woke up to all my data leaked by @Revolut.
Sharp reminder that KYC hasn’t produced meaningful upside and has put many in harm’s way.
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642M ethereum:0xa27ec0006e59f245217ff08cd52a7e8b169e62d2 is locked by people who decided a privacy L2 should not have a single operator.
24% APR is what they earn to run the network.
Learn more at stake.aztec.network/
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Aztec built technology that currently empowers individuals to privately manage the information they share and send fully private transactions all from their own devices.
If that's not incredible, than what is? Your privacy should belong to YOU, not a server operator.
Your privacy shouldn't depend on the indiscretions of a server operator.
with Aztec your laptop is your fortress, proving private transactions without giving that operator your secrets. This isn't scifi tech it's working right now on our main-net.
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Aztec retweeted
Amen to that. Aztec has these features from day 1 of our launch. If you want to explore further look up our docs, or check out what others have built at @nyxmoney @humntech @ZKPassport @DFArchon @azguardwallet
It’s cool. I’d be missing a trick if I didn’t say:
We already built Aztec to provide these features to Ethereum at the start of the year.
- Native account abstraction;
- Native fee abstraction (pay via any kind of function);
- Nullifiers as nonces;
- Recent roots;
- Inclusion of all private txs;
(Plus extras: function privacy; private composition of private functions; composition with external snarks; fast client-side recursive proofs in a phone browser; tailor-made private smart contract syntax; cheaper than L1, more things)
Unstoppable, unconditional, trustless privacy is already achieved on Ethereum with Aztec.
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Aztec retweeted
Zcash gives you private bitcoin.
Aztec gives you private ethereum.
It's that simple. And nobody else comes close.
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Aztec retweeted
Also a big shout out to @aztecnetwork and the @NoirLang team! They have persevered for over 8 years doing extremely laborious uphill R&D work and we are happy to use their tools in ProveKit and contribute to Noir development
We have been working very hard over the last two years to build ProveKit! A new zero knowledge proving toolkit built on top of Noir. It already powers the World ID protocol and makes it perform well on low end devices, is post quantum secure and fast! world.org/blog/engineering/p…
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Escrow, payroll, credit checks: the data behind them is private, so the logic never reaches Ethereum.
Aztec keeps that data encrypted onchain and uses it as a precondition for settlement. No permissioned party in the middle.
Start building on Aztec today.
Many transactions depend on data that should not be public. Aztec lets encrypted data become a precondition for settling value onchain. That creates a permissionless backend for applications that still depend on financial or web2 intermediaries.
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