TLDR: Aztec brings programmable privacy to crypto, a new primitive as foundational as the discovery of metalworking in ancient civilizations. When humans moved from stone to bronze, they didn't just get sharper axes. They unlocked civilizations, monumental architecture, sophisticated warfare, categories of innovation that were structurally impossible with stone. Programmable privacy is the same kind of shift: not an iteration on what exists but an entirely new design space. Because it’s never existed before, the market can’t price what will emerge. That asymmetry is why Aztec is my strongest bet in crypto.

I’ve faced hundreds of ideas across crypto over the years; from DeFi experiments to social finance, Hamster races and metaverse lands… I’ve seen teams appear and dissolve and hype cycles die and revive again.

Most of these projects are iterative, marginal improvements on known design spaces. But occasionally, you encounter something that forces you to recalibrate, something that doesn't fit existing categories because it's creating an entirely new one.

For me, that moment was Aztec.

Privacy is consensus now, I've written before about why privacy will define crypto's next era. What felt contrarian in 2022 is now consensus. The question has shifted.

Not if privacy matters, but how do you get exposure to it?

Which projects are building actual infrastructure? Which teams have the technical depth to execute through multiple cycles? Which architectures will still matter in five years?

This is my attempt to compress months of research, building, and technical discussions into one thesis: what Aztec is, where it's going, and why its blockspace will become some of the most valuable in crypto.

Aztec is a bet that blockchains without privacy will become obsolete.

It's the first complete architecture for that future: proven cryptography, decentralized from genesis, and a team that can execute. Everything aligns with what crypto should have been building from the start.

Aztec is a privacy-focused L2 that supports both public and private execution with corresponding state management. The architecture allows developers to compose privacy and transparency within the same application, something that's structurally impossible on existing chains. The developer experience centers on Noir, Aztec's domain-specific language for ZK circuits.

If you've built ZK circuits before, you know the pain. Circom? Halo2? You're writing cryptographic proofs by hand, like coding in assembly when everyone else has high-level languages.

Noir changed that. It abstracts the complexity without dumbing down the capabilities. It’s genuinely a great product, developers genuinely enjoy using it.

This matters because developer experience is the primary bottleneck for ecosystem adoption. Noir solved it early and keeps improving.

Here's the key advantage: Noir is becoming the standard for ZK development, and it works on any blockchain. Developers can use Noir to build ZK applications on Ethereum, L2s, Solana (soon), or any other chain. As they adopt it for privacy, scaling, or verification use cases across the ecosystem, they gain natural familiarity with Aztec's execution environment.

The language is a moat.

Let's address the confusion: Aztec isn't comparable to other L2s you know.

Optimism, Base, Arbitrum, zkSync… these are scaling solutions. Ethereum with better throughput and lower fees, trading some decentralization for performance. None of them address privacy.

This matters because we've developed immunity to "new L2" launches after being buried in governance tokens with no purpose. But Aztec isn't competing on transaction costs. It's solving a fundamentally different problem: programmable privacy.

Could Aztec have been an L1? Sure. Technically simpler but strategically wrong. By building on Ethereum, Aztec inherits key traits: the strongest security guarantees in crypto, minimal trust assumptions, and alignment with actual decentralization principles.

There's also a practical unlock: bootstrapping ecosystems from zero is brutal. As an L2, Aztec connects directly to Ethereum's liquidity and enables native cross-chain messaging from day one to solve the cold start problem. You don't need to rebuild DeFi infrastructure, you extend it with the privacy layer it's been missing.

When Aztec launches mainnet, I don't expect immediate fireworks. No explosive transaction volume or TVL races.

The initial goal is more fundamental: prove that privacy can scale, be composable, and actually work at the execution layer, unlocking a blue ocean of opportunities for builders.

I think of mainnet launch as seeding the infinite dark forest. The first months will feel quiet compared to what's coming.

It takes time for builders to internalize what programmable privacy unlocks. I've spent some time in this ecosystem, and that immersion moved me past the surface level "privacy is cool" reaction into understanding what changes when privacy becomes programmable.

Every builder will need that same immersion before they build something that matters. You don't discover new design spaces by reading documentation, you discover them by roaming in the dark forest until your eyes adjust. The breakthrough applications will come from builders who've spent months experimenting, failing, and gradually internalizing which patterns unlock value. That process can't be rushed.

The applications that will define this space haven't been built yet. They couldn't be because the rails didn't exist, and that's what's changing.

I see Aztec's evolution unfolding through two phases, each reinforcing the other.

Phase 1: Privacy for everything you use

The first phase brings privacy to existing crypto infrastructure. Interact with Uniswap, Aave, or any application on any chain, but privately, with access to the same liquidity. Everything you do in crypto today can be "Aztecified," shielded under one shared anonymity set.

Think Aztec Connect 2.0, but composable.

Phase 2: The unpredictable frontier

The second phase unlocks once developers internalize programmable privacy. Aztec evolves from a privacy shield into a design space for entirely new patterns: hiding information conditionally, revealing data selectively, native account abstraction, composing private and public state within the same application.

This is where entropy kicks in. No one can predict what emerges because this toolset has never existed.

If Phase 1 turns Aztec into a liquidity black hole, Phase 2 turns it into a creative frontier; new forms of coordination, governance, and computation that weren't previously possible.

Together, they could make Aztec one of the few networks that truly matters. Let's examine both paths in detail.

Aztec Connect was the precursor of Aztec network, a privacy bridge for DeFi. You could interact with protocols like Uniswap and Aave privately. But execution was limited... complex integrations and poor UX.

Then came Noir. It lowered the barrier for developers, making zk-apps something any motivated builder could create. With that foundation, Aztec was rebuilt entirely from scratch, this time as a fully programmable privacy layer where anyone can integrate and build.

The first phase of Aztec's growth will look like Aztec Connect 2.0, but without the limitations. Imagine using Uniswap, Aave, or Polymarket privately, paying a small fee for privacy while keeping access to the same liquidity you already trust. Everything you interact with today, but shielded.

Cross-chain bridges will be critical here. Aztec is already supporting top teams building these components.

The lesson from other chains is clear: liquidity fragmentation kills network effects. Privacy must be aggregated, not isolated, and that's why Aztec will be connected to the biggest liquidity silos in crypto from day zero.

My thesis is that on-chain privacy will be a "winner-takes-most" market. Anonymity sets compound reflexively, the more TVL that moves into the shielded pool, the stronger the gravitational pull becomes. As this happens, Aztec becomes a liquidity black hole.

Over time, we'll see vertical integrations emerge. At first, they'll be hyper-specific: "Uniswap Connect", "Aave Connect", "Polymarket Connect", "Hyperliquid Connect", each one a private wrapper around a single protocol.

But as the ecosystem matures, I expect these to consolidate into broader primitives: "DeFi Connect", "Memecoin Trenches Connect" (?), "Governance Connect." The granular apps will prove the concept and the aggregated layers will scale it.

The trajectory looks like: privacy legos get built → adoption compounds → blockspace demand rises.

Most builders initially struggle to grasp what "programmable privacy" means beyond "transactions are hidden".

The real unlock is “information asymetry”: you can hide information based on logic you define. Group membership. Time locks. Price thresholds. Proof of some external condition. Any logic you can encode.

Examples:

• A DEX where only the trader sees their own orders, but liquidity providers see aggregate flow

• A DAO treasury where transactions are private by default, visible only to members, public after a time delay

• An AI agent that monitors your wallet for tax optimization, your activity stays private year-round, selectively disclosed to the agent only when needed

• A lending protocol where your collateral position is private until liquidation threshold, then becomes public

I'm not claiming these are killer apps idea, I'm just trying to illustrate a design space that didn't exist before. On transparent chains, conditional visibility can't be built. With programmable privacy, it becomes a primitive anyone can experiment with.

This is why the market can't price Aztec yet. Because it's not iterating on known design patterns, it's unlocking an entirely new category. A blockchain with composable private state at the execution layer has never existed before, and the applications that emerge from that will be impossible to predict because the constraints that shaped every previous blockchain no longer apply.

Aztec shifts crypto from single-state (everything public) to dual-state (public and private). That additional dimension doesn't just enable new applications, it changes the fundamental design space.

When you zoom out, the thesis is simple: Aztec blockspace will be valuable.

Every L2's job is to sell blocks. Aztec's blocks will be in high demand because they enable something no other chain can: composable privacy at the execution layer.

But potential blockspace demand alone isn't enough for long-term conviction. If you accept the privacy thesis, Aztec is clearly asymmetric. But execution risk is real, and at this stage, you can't commit based on vision alone.

What makes Aztec worth betting on is how it's being built: relentless decentralization and an S-tier deep tech team.

Aztec launched as a Stage 2 rollup, fully decentralized from day one.

I've written before about the narrow window to build permissionless privacy that reaches escape velocity before regulatory capture becomes possible. To become crypto's privacy layer, Aztec must match at least Ethereum's level of decentralization, it must pass the Bahamas Test: if the entire team disappeared tomorrow, the network keeps running.

Satoshi achieved that from genesis. Ethereum evolved into it over years. Aztec launched with it.

The numbers validate this. Aztec testnet peaked at 22,000+ nodes. Conservatively assuming 95% are bots trying to farm non-existent airdrops (an extremely pessimistic estimate) that's still 1,100+ real nodes running without economic incentive.

UPDATE: As of today, Ignition Chain has 678 node stakers with real capital at stake. That number is climbing sharply during the token sale, which suggests the 1,100 estimate for genuine testnet participation wasn't far off.

Most L2s launch with sequencers controlled entirely by the founding team. Aztec is more decentralized at launch than all the existent rollups are today.

Aztec has been building for eight years with cryptographers and systems engineers who've advanced the state of the art in zero-knowledge cryptography. They pioneered PLONK, one of the most significant proving systems in modern cryptography. They invented Noir, the most developer-friendly language for zero-knowledge development.

Over the past year, I've met many of them: the wizards who built the VM from scratch, the co-founders, community leads, BD team, marketing. Each is genuinely obsessed with their domain and executing at a high level.

What's telling is the respect Aztec commands across the privacy space. Developers who study the landscape seriously converge on the same conclusion: Aztec represents the most credible path to production-grade privacy infrastructure.

That credibility comes from being a deep tech company. Aztec didn't “just” build a product, they advanced the underlying science to make their architecture possible. This is why the "8 years and nothing to show" completely misses the point.

Aztec shipped products with real users during that time. But they concluded that truly programmable on-chain privacy required rebuilding from the ground up, which is what Aztec network is today.

The eight-year timeline might seem long in crypto, but it's typical for deep tech companies. Unlike products built on existing infrastructure, advancing fundamental technology requires extended R&D cycles. Companies that push the underlying science forward operate on different timelines than those iterating on state of the art technology. When deep tech reaches its go-to-market moment, adoption accelerates rapidly and Aztec is reaching that inflection point now.

The entire thesis compresses to one claim: Aztec blockspace will be some of the most valuable in crypto.

Phase 1 turns it into a liquidity black hole and phase 2 turns it into a creative frontier. Together they position Aztec to become the privacy infrastructure the entire ecosystem depends on.

I've spent nearly a year building in this ecosystem without compensation because I believe this thesis will play out. You can join the boat with me or watch from the sidelines, either way, NFA.