Layer 2 blockchain · settles to Ethereum
Aztec ticker AZTEC
Summary
Validity rollup on Ethereum. Private functions run on the user's device, which sends a zero-knowledge proof instead of private inputs; sequencers execute public functions. Each slot a staked sequencer picked with Ethereum RANDAO builds blocks (about 6 seconds apart since v5) into checkpoints about 72 seconds apart. A sampled committee of 48 re-executes each checkpoint and 33 must attest before it goes to Ethereum with state diffs in blobs. Permissionless provers submit one proof per epoch (32 checkpoints) that an Ethereum contract verifies; checkpoints left unproven past the proof window are pruned. 6711212529
Design
- System
- Layer 2 blockchainAztec's Alpha network is a validity (zero-knowledge) rollup on Ethereum with private and public contracts, announced live on 31 March 2026 after the consensus-only Ignition Chain (November 2025). It is not EVM-compatible (contracts are written in Aztec.nr), so the settlement family is other. Fees are paid in Fee Juice, a non-transferable balance made by bridging the AZTEC ERC-20 from Ethereum. Aztec calls the software early and unaudited; a critical v5 proving flaw disclosed on 7 August 2026 awaits a v6 fix.
- Settles to
- EthereumState diffs go to Ethereum as blobs, epoch proofs are verified by a contract on Ethereum, and proposer selection uses Ethereum RANDAO. The AZTEC token, staking and governance all live on Ethereum. Messages from Ethereum arrive through an Inbox; messages to Ethereum (withdrawals) can be consumed from the Outbox only after a proof covering their checkpoint is verified on Ethereum (since v5 a partial-epoch proof can be enough). L2BEAT gives a maximum proof window of about 76 minutes, after which unproven checkpoints are pruned.
- Settlement family
- Its own design
- Scarce resource
- Stake (proof of stake)
- State model
- Mixed
- Finality
- Other
- Who makes blocks
- Anyone staking 200,000 AZTEC can join the sequencer set; Aztec reported 3,959 sequencers in March 2026 and L2BEAT lists 3,187 active. Proposers and committees are sampled from that set. If the committee fails or censors, a bonded escape hatch lets a separately bonded proposer (332 million AZTEC bond) propose roughly every three days.
- Fork choice
- No open weight-based fork choice. The rollup contract on Ethereum accepts a checkpoint that carries enough committee attestations, the proven chain advances only when an epoch proof verifies on Ethereum, and Ethereum's own fork choice and finality order that data. Unproven checkpoints are pruned rather than finalized.
Qualifications
- Scarce resource · Partial. Stake decides who proposes and attests, and misbehaviour or inactivity can be slashed, but whether a state change is valid is decided by zero-knowledge proofs checked on Ethereum, not by stake weight.
- Finality · Partial. Staged: blocks about every 6 seconds, committee-attested checkpoints about every 72 seconds, then an epoch proof on Ethereum within the proof window, then Ethereum finality. Only the proven and Ethereum-finalized state is settled; attested but unproven checkpoints can still be pruned.
- Privacy · Partial. Private functions hide inputs, amounts and parties, but public function arguments, the number of public calls and messages to Ethereum, Fee Juice balances (public unless fees go through a private fee-paying contract) and timing stay visible. Aztec's docs say privacy is not guaranteed without care and that privacy features are incomplete.
- Rollup maturity · Contested. L2BEAT rates Aztec Stage 2 because users can exit without trusting operators, while Aztec's own docs call Alpha early, unaudited software and Aztec says a critical v5 proving flaw puts v5 funds at risk, with the fix planned for v6. Stage ratings describe decentralization, not safety.
- Evm compatibility · Not applicable. Aztec is not EVM-compatible; contracts are written in Aztec.nr and public functions run on the Aztec virtual machine.
- State continuity · Partial. Each Alpha version is a new rollup deployment and state is not migrated; the v5 hard fork changed every account and contract address, so users had to move funds and create new accounts.
- Settlement family · Partial. Filed as other: Aztec is a validity rollup on Ethereum whose contracts are written in Aztec.nr; private functions are proven on the user's device and public functions run on the Aztec virtual machine. It is not EVM-compatible, so the ethereum-evm value does not fit.
- State model · Partial. Recorded as mixed: private state is held as notes, encrypted records spent under contract logic by publishing nullifiers, while public state is contract storage updated in place, and every account is a contract. Neither the account label nor the output label alone describes the ledger.
Tradeoffs
- Emphasizes
- Decentralization and Security Contested
- Gives up
- Throughput and convenience. The Alpha network targets a very low transaction rate (see throughput claims), private transactions must be proven on the user's own device, each transaction has hard caps on notes, nullifiers and calls, and full settlement waits for an epoch proof on Ethereum. Upgrades deploy a fresh rollup, and state is not carried over between versions.The decentralization emphasis rests on a permissionless staked sequencer set from launch, token-holder governance and immutable rollup contracts; L2BEAT rates it Stage 2. The security emphasis is the design intent only: Aztec's Alpha docs say no part of the stack has been fully audited and some circuits are under-constrained, and Aztec's August 2026 disclosure (which says internal and external human audits have completed) describes a v5 proving flaw that could let an invalid transaction pass verification. Privacy is Aztec's main goal and is not one of the three corners.
- Full node at home
- Demanding 891015Aztec lists 8 cores / 16 vCPU (Skylake or newer), 8 GB RAM, a 1 TB NVMe SSD with 50,000+ random IOPS and 25 Mbps for a full node or sequencer. The node also needs Ethereum execution, blob-serving beacon (supernode or semi-supernode) and trace endpoints keeping about 12 hours of history; Aztec says most operators self-host because hosted tiers rarely offer all three, and co-hosting Ethereum mainnet adds roughly 2.5 to 3.5 TB. Running your own node also matters for privacy, since queries to third-party nodes can leak which notes you read.
- Throughput claims
- Unclassified: 1 tx/s 221Unclassified; do not compare.Alpha-phase goal stated by Aztec in March 2026, before the v5 upgradeStated as an operating goal for the Alpha phase, not a measurement or a capacity ceiling. Aztec's own Beta criteria call for a sustained 10 tx/s, 12-second median latency and 99.9% uptime, which its docs say have not yet been met. Private transactions are proven on the user's device first; a network rate says nothing about that client-side proving time. No rate measured over a stated time window was found; the number ignores propagation, state growth and decoy load.
Scaling layers
No scaling layer recorded in this profile.
Capabilities
| Capability | How it is provided | Notes and sources |
|---|---|---|
| Account abstraction | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Atomic swaps | Unknown | TRAIN builds hash-time-locked cross-chain swap contracts, and Aztec's Alpha V5 post (21 July 2026) says users can bridge from Ethereum to Aztec with it, but TRAIN's own repository, re-read on 27 September 2026, still lists its Aztec contracts as in development on testnet and unaudited. No live mainnet atomic swap on Aztec was verified. 193132 |
| Authenticated data publication | Unknown | Not yet assessed under this row's current definition. |
| Light clients | Unknown | The wallet software (PXE) syncs notes from a node, and Aztec warns that querying third-party nodes leaks information; no light-client verification path was found in the reviewed docs. 15 |
| Native staking or delegation | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| On-chain governance | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Parallel execution | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Payment or state channels | Unknown | No payment or state channel layer anchored to Aztec was found in the reviewed sources. |
| Programmable spending | Native (protocol or core-team software) Earlier definition | Accounts are contracts with no externally owned accounts, supporting Schnorr, ECDSA and passkey-style signing, and private notes are spent under contract logic proven on the user's device. Spending rules are therefore contract code, not a fixed signature check. 1213 |
| Protocol-verified messaging | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Reversible transfers or recovery | Unknown | Not yet assessed under the current definitions; every Aztec account is a contract, and the docs say this allows social recovery or time-delayed recovery designs, but no shipping wallet offering recovery or a cancellable or delayed payment was verified. 13 |
| Rollups | Unknown | No rollups settling to Aztec were reviewed. Aztec itself is a rollup on Ethereum; see the mechanism and Ethereum dependency. |
| Shielded transfers | Structured assessment pending | Not yet assessed for any chain. |
| Signed partial offers | Unknown | Not yet assessed under this row's current definition. |
Reading these values
- How this feature is provided
- Built into the protocol, core-team software or independent software says where a feature lives and who can change it. These are implementation layers, not quality: core-team software is not closer to the protocol than independent software.
- Structured assessment pending
- The shared review has not assessed this feature for any chain yet (Account abstraction, Native staking or delegation, On-chain governance, Parallel execution, Protocol-verified messaging and Shielded transfers). That does not mean it is absent, and a chain’s profile may already describe it.
- Unknown
- The review has not established this for this chain under the current definition; the note beside it says why. Unknown is not absent and not a low score. A feature reads “Not present” only when a source shows it is absent.
- Earlier definition
- Payment or state channels, Programmable spending and Rollups keep the earlier definition until the next fact-check. There, “Native” does not separate the protocol from core-team software, “Ecosystem software” does not say who publishes it, and “Partial” does not say which layer.
- Reading across rows
- The list of capabilities is incomplete. Do not read these rows as a chain leading or lagging overall.
Ecosystem & custody
| Product type | Status | Notes and sources |
|---|---|---|
| Automated market makers | Unknown | Absence was not verified, so the rule that absence needs a source makes this entry unknown. Earlier finding: no AMM live on the Aztec mainnet was verified. The ecosystem list names Nemi as an AMM, but its site said it was under renovation; the Quetzal dark-pool exchange reported running on testnet only; Aztec Swap is a demo app. 23283034 |
| Issuer-native stablecoins | None found | Circle's USDC address list does not include Aztec. An ecosystem project uses cUSDC from the Shield bridge, which is a bridged wrapper, not issuer-issued USDC. 2738 |
| Algorithmic stablecoins | Unknown | Algorithmic or hybrid stablecoins on Aztec were not found or reviewed. |
| Bridges | ThinFee Juice portal (AZTEC from Ethereum into fee balance, one way), Shield (Ethereum to Aztec), TRAIN (named by Aztec; its own repository lists Aztec as testnet) | The protocol provides Inbox and Outbox messaging with Ethereum; asset bridges are built as application portals on top. Aztec's docs send users to Shield to bridge AZTEC and get Fee Juice, and Aztec's app page lists Shield as the Ethereum-to-Aztec bridge. Aztec's Alpha V5 post also names TRAIN and RavenHouse as bridges; RavenHouse was not reviewed. Fee Juice cannot be withdrawn back to Ethereum. Risk: Aztec tells users to treat v5 funds as exposed to a protocol-level failure until incident response is complete, with the fix planned for v6, and its docs call the stack unaudited. Withdrawals wait for a proof verified on Ethereum. Each version is a new rollup with no state migration, TRAIN's contracts are unaudited by its own statement, and Aztec attributes Shield to human.tech but Shield's contracts and trust model were not reviewed. 316192022233133 |
| Block explorers | Established in the ecosystemAztecscan, Aztec Explorer (aztecexplorer.xyz) | Aztec's networks page links both explorers for mainnet and testnet; the ecosystem list shows Aztecscan's source hosted in Aztec's GitHub organisation. Both sites render in the browser and their operators were not confirmed. Explorer indexes are not canonical consensus. 1303637 |
| Hardware wallets | Unknown | See the custody rows: no Ledger or Trezor path for the Aztec network was found, and the Azguard wallet page does not mention hardware wallets. 3539 |
Hardware-wallet custody
| Device maker | Status | What users can and cannot do |
|---|---|---|
| Ledger | UnknownSame as native: Unknown | Ledger's supported-assets page, as served without a browser, does not mention Aztec (its full list is searchable only in the browser), Ledger coin pages tried for Aztec returned not found, and no Ledger signing path for Aztec account contracts was documented in the reviewed sources. Holding the AZTEC token on Ethereum through Ledger was not verified. 40 |
| Trezor | UnknownSame as native: Unknown | Trezor's coin list does not name Aztec or AZTEC, and the Trezor coin page tried for Aztec returned not found. 39 |
Public data
iKnow Blockchain has no public-data lookups for Aztec yet. This is a limit of the service, not a statement about the network.
| Lookup | Status | What it covers and its limits |
|---|---|---|
| Address or account | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| Tokens and assets | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| NFTs | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
| Transactions | Not available yet | Public-data lookups for this chain are not built yet. |
Sourced developments
Developments: Review overdue Reviewed Sep 27, 2026; next review was due Oct 7, 2026, 12:00 UTC.
Publication date · newest first
-
Aztec disclosed a critical flaw in the v5 proving system; fix planned for v6
Core contributors found on 27 July 2026, through internal AI-assisted auditing, that an attacker might build a proof that passes verification for a transaction the network should reject. Aztec said v5 funds, apps and contract state are at risk, that it cannot tell whether the flaw was exploited, and that the fix will come in v6 with circuit changes that reject proofs from the affected system. Apps were told to prepare safeguards and pause v5 deployments.
- Implementation:fix planned for v6
- Release:disclosure published; v6.0.0 release-candidate tag dated 23 September 2026, no v6 release published
- Activation:not yet activated
Sources: Aztec — Alpha V5 Proving System Vulnerability (external site) · AztecProtocol on GitHub — aztec-packages releases (external site) · AztecProtocol on GitHub — v6.0.0-rc.1 tag (external site) · Aztec Documentation — Networks (external site) · L2BEAT — Aztec Network (external site)
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Aztec Labs reported about 370,000 AZTEC slashed for inactivity after the v5 upgrade
The v5 node software shipped with a 24-hour slashing grace period instead of the intended 7 days, because an earlier fix was never carried into the v5 branch. From 15 July, nodes voted to slash sequencers that were offline, mostly operators who had not yet upgraded. About 370,000 AZTEC was slashed; the slash veto council then paused further rounds, and Aztec Labs restored the defaults and added monitoring.
- Implementation:patched defaults released; QA process and monitors added
- Release:incident report published
- Activation:slash round 159 executed; rounds 160 to 180 paused by the veto council
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Aztec's v5 upgrade went live after a token-holder vote, as a hard fork with new addresses
The v5 upgrade (AZUP-2) passed sequencer signalling and a token-holder vote and became the canonical rollup. Aztec reported private transfers proving about twice as fast, transaction costs roughly halved, and average block time cut from about 14 to 6 seconds. It was a hard fork with no state migration: every account and contract address changed, and users had to move funds and create new accounts. The first wave of apps launched with it.
- Proposal:AZUP-2 approved by sequencer signalling and token-holder vote
- Implementation:v5.0.0 released 13 July 2026
- Release:stable release; latest maintenance release v5.2.0 on 17 August 2026
- Activation:canonical on mainnet from 14 July 2026 per Aztec Labs' incident report; Aztec's blog post gives 21 July
Sources: Aztec — Introducing Alpha V5 (external site) · Aztec Forum (Aztec Labs) — AZUP-2 is Ready for Proposal (external site) · AztecProtocol on GitHub — v5.0.0 release notes (external site) · Aztec Forum (Aztec Labs) — Incident report: inactivity slashes following the v5 upgrade (external site) · AztecProtocol on GitHub — v5.2.0 maintenance release notes (external site)
-
Aztec announced its Alpha network with private smart contracts live on Ethereum
Aztec said the Alpha network, its first deployment with a full environment for private smart contracts and user transactions, was live after a community governance vote. It builds on the consensus-only Ignition Chain that started in November 2025. Aztec described Alpha as experimental software with known vulnerabilities and a Layer 1 escape hatch.
- Proposal:approved by community vote
- Implementation:Deployed
- Release:Alpha network announced
- Activation:live on Ethereum mainnet
Sources: Aztec — Announcing the Alpha Network (external site) · Aztec — Critical Vulnerability in Alpha v4 (external site) · Aztec — Aztec Ignition Chain Update (external site) · Aztec Documentation — Alpha Network (external site)
Topics your AI can explain
Your AI can explain these topics for Aztec through the connection, with sources.
Known gaps
What this profile's review did not establish:
- The exact date user transactions were first enabled on the Alpha network is not stated; the Alpha announcement is dated 31 March 2026.
- The v5 upgrade dates differ by source: Aztec Labs' forum incident report says the network upgraded on 14 July 2026, while the Alpha V5 blog post, dated 21 July 2026, says the network activated v5 that day.
- Aztec says it cannot tell whether the v5 proving flaw was exploited. No v6 release appeared in the aztec-packages releases list by 27 September 2026 (latest stable v5.2.0 on 17 August 2026; Aztec's networks page lists mainnet on 5.1.0). A v6.0.0 release-candidate tag dated 23 September 2026 exists in the repository, but no governance proposal to activate v6 was found, so the fix is not live as far as this review could see.
- Slot, epoch, committee size, sequencer count and proof-window figures come from L2BEAT and a March 2026 Aztec blog post; the operator and basics docs pages reviewed do not state them (only the circuit-constants notes mention 72-second checkpoints and 32 checkpoints per epoch), and they may change with upgrades.
- No measured time from transaction to proven or Ethereum-finalized state was found; only the maximum proof window is known.
- Ledger and Trezor support for the Aztec network was not found, and holding the AZTEC ERC-20 on Ethereum with either device was not verified.
- No AMM was verified live on mainnet; Nemi was offline and Quetzal reported testnet only. Liquidity and other trading venues were not reviewed.
- No issuer-native stablecoin was found; the trust model of Shield's bridged cUSDC and any algorithmic stablecoins were not reviewed.
- Aztec attributes Shield to human.tech, but Shield's contracts and trust model could not be read from its browser-rendered page. Aztec's July 2026 Alpha V5 post names TRAIN and RavenHouse as bridges, while TRAIN's repository lists its Aztec contracts as testnet only; RavenHouse was not reviewed.
- Operators of Aztecscan and Aztec Explorer were not confirmed; both pages render only in the browser.
- Light clients, channels and rollups settling to Aztec were not found or reviewed.
- Chain size, disk growth and sync time for an Aztec node are not published in the reviewed docs.
- Distribution of AZTEC stake and voting power, and the membership of the 5-of-9 slash veto council named by L2BEAT, were not reviewed.
- Whether TRAIN's hash-time-locked swap contracts are live on the Aztec mainnet is unresolved: Aztec's July 2026 post names TRAIN as a bridge, while TRAIN's repository still lists its Aztec contracts as testnet only.
Sources
Oldest dated source check: Source checked Sep 27, 2026 Next check due Oct 27, 2026.
- Networks (external site)
- Alpha Network (external site)
- Fees (participate basics) (external site)
- Fees (foundational topics) (external site)
- AZTEC token (external site)
- Blocks (external site)
- Transactions (participate basics) (external site)
- Hardware requirements (external site)
- L1 RPC requirements (external site)
- Full node overview (external site)
- Node operators (external site)
- State Management (external site)
- Understanding Accounts in Aztec (external site)
- Limitations (external site)
- Privacy Considerations (external site)
- L1-L2 Communication (Portals) (external site)
- Upgrades (external site)
- Announcing the Alpha Network (external site)
- Introducing Alpha V5 (external site)
- Alpha V5 Proving System Vulnerability (external site)
- Alpha Network Security: What to Expect (external site)
- How Gas Works on Aztec (external site)
- Alpha V5 (external site)
- aztec-packages releases (external site)
- v5.0.0 release notes (external site)
- Incident report: inactivity slashes following the v5 upgrade (external site)
- Introducing the Aztec Market System (external site)
- Migrating a private DEX from 4.3.1 to 5.0.0: four things that cost us time (external site)
- Aztec Network (external site)
- awesome-aztec (external site)
- TrainProtocol/contracts (external site)
- TRAIN (external site)
- Shield (external site)
- Nemi (external site)
- Azguard Wallet (external site)
- Aztecscan (external site)
- Aztec Explorer (external site)
- USDC Contract Addresses (external site)
- Supported coins (external site)
- Supported crypto assets (external site)
Report an error
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Funding disclosure
Funding disclosures appear here when an upkeep arrangement exists, in the form “Upkeep funded by [name]; verdicts unaffected.” The funder ledger has not been published yet. Neutrality & funding