ConsenSys Labs has led a $2.1 million seed round for AZTEC, an Ethereum protocol developer based in London. AZTEC builds tools for private transactions on the Ethereum blockchain while keeping user ac
ConsenSys Labs has led a $2.1 million seed round for AZTEC, an Ethereum protocol developer based in London. AZTEC builds tools for private transactions on the Ethereum blockchain while keeping user activity confidential at a bank-grade level. The protocol, founded by Dr. Zachary Williamson and Tom Pocock, lets users execute contracts without exposing transaction details. In doing so, AZTEC maintains privacy while reducing counterparty risk.
Other investors in the round were Entrepreneur First, Samos Investments, Jeffrey Tarrant (Mov37), and Charlie Songhurst.
Joe Lubin, Ethereum co-creator and ConsenSys founder, said in a statement: "ConsenSys is proud to support this breakthrough from AZTEC and CreditMint, bringing zk-SNARKs-based privacy, confidentiality, and scalability to a wide variety of asset transactions on public Ethereum." He praised Ethereum's flexibility in handling a broad range of digital assets, adding that AZTEC "takes this to the next level with an important new protocol that Ethereum developers can configure for a variety of use cases."
The technology appeals to financial institutions seeking to move transactions on-chain without sacrificing privacy. One of AZTEC's first customers, CreditMint, operates a blockchain platform for trading and settling debt instruments. Banks and asset managers have adopted it for the lack of counterparty credit risk, transaction privacy, and faster settlement compared to traditional methods.
AZTEC's protocol works with ERC-20 tokens and can extend to traditional financial assets. Tom Pocock, AZTEC's founder, described the funding as a "breakthrough." He told MiningPool: "This breakthrough zero knowledge technology represents the first general-purpose transaction to have been fully implemented and released on Ethereum's public blockchain. It is not theoretical – it is running on mainnet today. This, at last, gives the capital markets access to Ethereum's public blockchain, without giving up privacy. Strong consensus and strong privacy guarantees will no longer be mutually exclusive."
AZTEC has released the smart contracts underpinning its private transactions at AztecProtocol.com under a copyright license. The team plans to open-source the protocol and develop it into a decentralized exchange platform.
