Protocol Highlight: Aztec

Welcome to the protocol highlight of the month.

At Artemis, we aim to bring light to crypto and highlight real businesses in crypto.®

Today, we interview Lisa Cuesta Bunin, Chief Operating Officer at Aztec, a privacy-first Layer 2 on Ethereum.

Read more to learn about Aztec’s story, the rise of its developer ecosystem, and how programmable privacy is shaping the next wave of onchain applications.

Hi Lisa! What is your story in crypto? How did you come across the Aztec Team?

Before working in crypto full-time, I was an early-stage venture investor based in New York, where I covered fintech. In early 2017, I met a number of startups spinning out of ConsenSys, and started to learn more about Ethereum. The ethos of building systems that expand access, democratize participation, and reshape capital formation really resonated with me.

I started to spend my free time attending blockchain meetups and learning from crypto builders and investors, and I organized the NYCVC Blockchain Summit. That said, it felt like a lot of the infrastructure needed technical minds to build it. By 2020, as public companies were putting Bitcoin on their balance sheets and DeFi and NFTs were taking off, it felt like the technology had matured and the potential was becoming more of a reality. I wanted to move from investing in the ecosystem to helping build it directly.

I met the Aztec founders, Joe and Zac, through Min Teo of Ethereal Ventures, one of the company’s first investors, and was immediately drawn to the founders’ clarity of purpose and technical ambition. Aztec was boldly solving two of Ethereum’s most fundamental challenges – scalability and privacy – with real cryptographic innovation. Joining the team was an opportunity to help bring that vision to life and push the boundaries of what’s possible onchain.

What is the Aztec Story? Why did you Join?

Aztec’s story starts at Entrepreneur First, where the founders connected over their vision for decentralized finance on Ethereum. They had complementary backgrounds – from traditional finance to Physics PhD to building startups – and their original idea was to bring corporate debt onchain. As they engaged with potential users, they quickly realized that, while the prospective customers saw the potential, they would not transact onchain without privacy. That insight revealed a much larger opportunity. Instead of focusing solely on corporate debt, the founders committed to building privacy infrastructure that could support this use case – and countless others.

Since then, the founders have been building a decentralized, privacy-first network on Ethereum. Aztec is the feature-complete blockchain, where private and public smart contracts interoperate seamlessly. There have been many contributions and products that served as stepping stones along the way. Aztec co-founder Zac Williamson invented PLONK, a proving system that has been foundational to other zero-knowledge protocols along the way. After that, the team shipped Aztec v1, zk.money, and Aztec Connect – private payments on Ethereum, a private payments Layer 2 app, and private DeFi app, respectively. The team also built Noir, a universal zero-knowledge language that hundreds of developers use to build private apps both on and offchain. In November 2025, Aztec launched as the first decentralized L2 on Ethereum. Over 500 sequencers joined the set to run the chain, and are staking and coordinating block production.

I joined Aztec because I believe privacy is one of the most important and still-unsolved challenges in crypto. What are we really building if we don’t have onchain privacy? Without privacy, public blockchains expose more sensitive information than existing financial systems. Onchain privacy is a prerequisite for crypto to reach its full potential. Without robust privacy, the long-term utility of public blockchains is fundamentally limited.

I came on as the first non-technical hire in summer 2021 and have worn many hats over the years as the company evolved from a research project into a product-led company and now a growing ecosystem. I’m inspired by the team’s relentless ambition and by the caliber of people this vision draws in: deeply technical, mission-driven builders who are committed to realizing a private, programmable network on Ethereum

I remember when Aztec raised their Series A from Paradigm in 2021 and their Series B in 2022 - what was the thesis then? What is the thesis now?

The core vision has remained remarkably consistent — onchain privacy that is credibly neutral is essential for real-world adoption, but it’s also one of the hardest problems to solve.

In the earliest stages, Aztec invented the underlying cryptography to make privacy possible on Ethereum. The Series A followed the release of zk.money, which made private payments on Ethereum accessible. The Series B came after the launch of Aztec Connect and Noir.

Since then, Noir has become a much larger part of our go-to-market strategy. It was first launched at Devcon Bogotá and there was immediately strong pull from developers, even when the language was still in its infancy. Since that launch, the focus has been on improving the language, tooling, and libraries, and on fostering a vibrant developer community around it.

For the past two years, Aztec has ranked among the top five fastest growing ecosystems in the Electric Capital Developer Report. This was driven by adoption of Noir. To support this momentum, we launched NoirCon, a day-long conference that brings together teams working across the privacy stack. Over the past year, four NoirCons have been held, drawing in hundreds of developers for hands-on workshops and talks from leading builders. We’ve also published several case studies showcasing what’s possible with Noir, highlighting projects such as ZKPassport, Payy, and Stealthnote.

We regularly learn of new teams that are building with Noir or extending its capabilities with virtually no support from us. Noir’s organic growth is Aztec’s edge. By cultivating a community of developers who care about privacy and are fluent in Noir, there is a strong foundation for applications and builders that are naturally aligned and well positioned to deploy on Aztec.

With the rise of Zcash, how does Aztec view the privacy opportunity? How does Aztec think of other privacy chain competitors like Aleo?

Zcash pioneered transactional privacy with a single shielded asset, but it stopped short of programmability. Aztec extends that concept to private smart contracts – much like how Ethereum expanded on Bitcoin by introducing programmability.

As an Ethereum L2, Aztec gains strength precisely because it’s deeply integrated with Ethereum, not isolated as a standalone chain. Aztec inherits Ethereum’s security, assets, and users, while enabling privacy for existing applications and liquidity. That means developers can build private versions of familiar DeFi primitives, onchain identity tools, or consumer apps – all that plug into Ethereum’s ecosystem. Aztec’s opportunity lies in bringing privacy to the world’s most active onchain ecosystem, not creating an alternative to it.

What is Aztec’s business and token model? Why should liquid funds or token buyers buy Aztec?

Much like Ethereum or Solana before it, Aztec is the first mover in enabling something new for developers, dramatically improving blockchain functionality through the enablement of programmable, composable privacy. The $AZTEC token offers significant utility as it is central to securing and governing the network. It underpins block production, governance, network fees, and block rewards. This is complemented with the network’s fee market, which has a burn model similar to Ethereum’s EIP-1559. This is designed to ensure consistent rewards during periods of low activity for stakers and regulate the fee market during busy periods.

The $AZTEC token will accrue value through its role in securing and allocating Aztec’s differentiated block space. Demand for the apps that are uniquely enabled by Aztec translates into demand for the token. Sequencers must stake $AZTEC to participate in block production and earn network fees. Token holders can participate in governance to manage upgrades and adjust network parameters. It must also be used for transaction inclusion – creating a closed economic loop between usage, staking, and rewards. Importantly, although the network enables private applications, the $AZTEC token itself is a standard ERC-20 token on Ethereum and is fully transparent.

Aztec launched the Ignition chain on Ethereum mainnet with over 500 sequencers including institutional infrastructure providers like Nethermind and Nansen, as well as many independent operators and solo stakers. Sequencers participate in decentralizing the network by staking, earning block rewards, and coordinating block production. At launch, Aztec is entirely community-operated. For the first year, neither Aztec Labs nor the Foundation will stake, and only independent participants will run the network. This will result in outsized rewards for the community node operators. Any node operator with the required amount of tokens can participate as a sequencer, and earn block rewards. Fractional staking is not supported yet, but two teams are working on enabling it in time for transferrability.

Aztec is decentralizing ownership and governance of the network through a fair-launch token sale that distributes 15% of total supply. The sale, conducted by the Foundation, will fund its operations for several years – eliminating the need to liquidate its treasury to cover expenses. Notably, all circulating supply at launch will consist of tokens purchased in the sale or earned by the community through staking rewards. Insider allocations will unlock gradually, by each Ethereum block, starting one year after Ignition, with no cliffs or large monthly unlocks. This reduces the risk of supply overhang and promotes long-term alignment.

What are the demand side reasons for developers to build on Aztec?

Aztec uniquely addresses one of the most significant barriers to blockchain adoption: enforced transparency. The public-by-default nature of existing blockchains limits the kinds of applications that can be built, especially those that require handling sensitive user information or transactions.

Aztec gives developers control over what data and code are visible. Builders can create smart contracts that are supercharged with programmable privacy, enabling complex logic while keeping sensitive information completely private. Because proving happens client-side, user data never leaves the device and the network itself has no access to it. Instead, zero-knowledge proofs attest to facts about that data, allowing applications to verify truth without revealing underlying details. This unlocks an entirely new class of onchain applications that combine credential-based identity and compliance with a fully private digital economy.

The network fundamentally changes what’s possible for developers. It removes the need to ever handle or store sensitive user data, eliminating one of the biggest security and compliance burdens for developers. At the same time, it provides powerful tooling that lets developers build applications with the exact regulatory and compliance controls they need – without sacrificing user privacy.

Finally, the network is designed to serve a broad range of participants and is therefore built to be maximally neutral and transparent at the protocol level, while preserving strong user privacy and control. From day one, Aztec is a decentralized network supported by a diverse operator set including institutional, professional, and individual participants. This ensures that no single entity can gain privileged access to user information or influence over the system.

In short, Aztec gives developers the tools and privacy guarantees needed to build real-world, trust-minimized applications that were previously impossible.

Why will users use Aztec?

Users will adopt Aztec because it enables capabilities no other platform offers: onchain experiences that are interoperable with onchain and offchain systems, and brand-new use cases that were previously out of reach.

Blockchain adoption has always progressed in waves. It begins with grassroots builders experimenting with new primitives. Over time, companies emerge and infrastructure matures, paving the way for institutional participation. But one critical limitation has persisted: the radical transparency of public blockchains. That transparency strengthens trust, but it also blocks builders and institutions from safely connecting real-world, sensitive data to on-chain activity. And in practice, almost all real-world data is sensitive. Companies need discretion around their balance sheets and vendor payments, and everyday users don’t want their Uber driver – or anyone – to see their financial lives. Put simply, nearly everything that matters is “sensitive data.”

Just as the Internet’s commercialization required the adoption of SSL and HTTPS to make it safe for consumers and businesses to transact online, blockchains need programmable privacy to become viable for real-world use. Privacy is the missing piece to make blockchains indispensable – unlocking trillions of dollars in economic value.

We expect adoption will start bottom-up with crypto-native developers and early users who care about privacy, experimenting with private DeFi, governance, payments, and identity – followed by the crypto-native institutions that need confidentiality for operations like trading, payroll, or treasury management. Over time, traditional finance and enterprise players will join – using Aztec for private stablecoins, tokenized assets, onchain credit, and identity.

The true inflection point will come from the wave of new applications Aztec enables. The most impactful products won’t need to advertise that they run on Aztec – they’ll win because they deliver fundamentally better experiences. In the long run, people will adopt Aztec not for privacy as a feature, but because the real-world-ready apps built on it unlock mainstream utility and adoption at scale.

What will Aztec Labs build to generate demand for Aztec?

Aztec Labs previously built zk.money, a privacy-focused application that enabled cheap private transfers and private DeFi. With hundreds of thousands of users and hundreds of millions in transaction volume, zk.money demonstrated clear, sustained demand for on-chain privacy.

Aztec Labs will likely build a significantly upgraded version of zk.money as one of the first applications on Aztec. This new iteration would be simpler, more composable, and connected to the broader Ethereum ecosystem including L2s. Given the company’s history and the proven market appetite, this is the most obvious application to build.

We’re also exploring new primitives that are only possible on a private network. A dedicated Labs team is already prototyping these concepts directly on Aztec, building in public and attracting significant inbound interest from users, partners, and developers alike. Early experiments include bridging ZEC to Aztec and enabling private over-the-counter swaps onchain. Ultimately, Labs will validate which ideas show the strongest market pull and prioritize those for deployment to the network. The team may even revisit the original idea that first brought the founders together: bringing private credit onchain.

How do you think about the roadmap moving forward for Aztec?

Aztec’s roadmap pushes the boundaries of zero-knowledge technology and enables an entire ecosystem of private applications that are only possible with its purpose-built tech stack.

We’re still in the early innings when it comes to the performance and usability of ZK systems. It’s already come a long way - and our team has pushed forward the timeline of what’s possible with advances in cryptography and proving systems. This will continue, making proving dramatically faster and cheaper. These performance improvements will improve the user experience and unlock new categories of applications.

In parallel, infrastructure and tooling will improve to reduce barriers for developers building private apps. Noir, the universal ZK language, is a core part of that vision. The Noir community has grown significantly over recent years, and the goal is to make it the default language for developers building private apps, even if they’re not deploying on Aztec. A few breakout applications on Aztec will catalyze the flywheel of user adoption, driving growth across DeFi, payments, and identity.

Finally, the network will continue to decentralize by expanding the sequencer set to improve network health and by building out governance to support coordination and upgrades. The goal is for Aztec to become the foundation for a new generation of private, composable applications – where users and developers can transact freely without sacrificing control or privacy.

What can go right for Aztec as we think long term to 2030 and beyond?

If Aztec succeeds, it becomes the default privacy and coordination layer for the onchain economy – essential digital infrastructure that powers economic and social activity across Ethereum and beyond. Aztec will be a public good, enabling anyone to engage freely onchain without sacrificing security or sovereignty.

Just as HTTPS became the default for the internet, programmable privacy will be the baseline expectation by 2030. The cryptography will be abstracted away so developers can build with intuitive infrastructure that has privacy baked in. Every major protocol and application will integrate privacy natively through Aztec, which is seamlessly embedded in the background.

The network’s privacy-preserving architecture will foster creative experimentation and unlock entirely new business models. A wave of novel primitives will emerge - enabling individuals, institutions, and autonomous agents to coordinate and transact privately. As this happens, a rich ecosystem will flourish, with thousands of developers building on Aztec and millions of users engaging daily with the network’s application ecosystem. With regulatory clarity and built out compliance frameworks, institutions will bring more core operations onchain. Banks, asset managers, and enterprises will depend on Aztec for privacy-preserving infrastructure, just as they rely on AWS or SWIFT today.

As adoption scales, tokenholders directly capture a portion of this value creation through increased network usage and growing demand for $AZTEC to access staking and governance. The $AZTEC token serves as the economic backbone of the network. Access to the unique blockspace will be priced in $AZTEC and as adoption grows, a portion of network fees will be burned like Ethereum’s EIP-1559. This mirrors and extends proven models of other high-value networks and reinforces a self-sustaining economic flywheel: network demand drives token utility, staking secures the system, and block rewards fund continuous innovation. The Aztec Foundation will coordinate a diverse and decentralized community of participants who are all committed to stewarding the network for decades to come.

Thanks for reading! Want to connect with Lisa at Aztec? Feel free to email us at [email protected], and we'd be happy to introduce you.

Artemis Disclaimer: The authors, affiliates, or stakeholders of Artemis may hold interests in the tokens or protocols mentioned in this content. This disclosure highlights potential conflicts of interest and is not an endorsement to buy or invest in any specific token or protocol. The content is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice in any form.

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