At Aztec, our goal is to add privacy to Ethereum.
In the current public blockchain paradigm, users and entities unknowingly broadcast data in the public, compromising privacy and security to get trustlessness.
Not only are unencrypted blockchains inherently privacy-exposing, they require significant redundancy to compute and verify the legitimacy of transactions.
Implementing scalable encryption in a public blockchain paradigm requires cutting-edge math and engineering. Thankfully, our team of scientists and engineers invented Plonk, the industry-standard zkSNARK, and Noir, the universal language of zero knowledge.
Now, weβre building a first of its kind Layer 2 with private smart contracts. This requires new cryptographic primitives, a zero-knowledge DSL for writing contracts, a privacy-friendly execution environment, a carefully designed set of circuits that prove the validity of the chain to L1, a decentralized block-building and proving mechanism, and a top-tier user and developer experience. And itβs now time to bring it to market.
Weβve raised $125 million from industry-leading investors including a16z crypto, Paradigm, Variant, Consensys, and a_capital, and weβre growing quickly.
