Loader
logologo
Alpha Zone
Analysts
My Reading List
Log in
DeFiGaming & MetaverseInfrastructureMarketsNFTs
Aztec: a Hybrid Public-Private ZK-Rollup
main
Key Takeaways
10 min read
  • Aztec is focused on extending Ethereum's capabilities by introducing private smart contracts through zero-knowledge proofs as an L2 solution, offering a new level of privacy while maintaining the security benefits of Ethereum.
  • Aztec's composability enables seamless interaction between public and private environments, including private-to-public function calls, allowing for novel applications with varying degrees of privacy. Examples include private trades on public AMMs and anonymized voting on public DAOs.
  • The Noir smart contract language developed by Aztec Labs simplifies the development of dApps that utilize zero-knowledge proofs by abstracting away the complexities of ZK cryptography and making it accessible to developers without extensive cryptographic expertise.
  • A total of $100m was raised in Dec, 2022 and it is set to launch in 2024 with various testnet iterations planned throughout this year. The ambition is to fully decentralize all of its core components (sequencer, prover, nodes) by mainnet.

Introduction

Ethereum is a public state machine, it starts from a specific state and updates its state in a deterministic way according to the transactions that take place. Ethereum was not designed with privacy in mind due to the challenge of coming to consensus while achieving privacy. However, thanks to the advancements in the field of Zero-Knowledge Proofs over the last decade it has become possible to still reach consensus while preserving privacy.

Aztec is building a public-private hybrid ZK-Rollup (L2) that allows both public and private execution of smart contract logic while still inheriting the security benefit of Ethereum. On Aztec, privacy is an optionality rather than being required by default. Its goal is to extend...