The Private World Computer | Aztec Co-Founders Zac Williamson & Joe Andrews

Bankless

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Tech News, News, Technology

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2025

⏱️ 95 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If crypto wins without privacy, did we actually win? In this episode, Ryan sits down with Aztec co-founders Zac Williamson and Joe Andrews to unpack their eight-year quest to build a private world computer for Ethereum, covering the Aztec ignition chain, zero-knowledge-powered “private intents,” and how you can route trades across L1 and L2s without exposing your strategies or balances. They dive into ZK Passport (turning your NFC e-passport into a proof of personhood), the coming breakdown of selfie KYC in an AI world, holistic on-chain identity, Aztec’s one-shot move to a fully decentralized L2. Along the way, Zac and Joe get candid about the regulatory risk of building privacy rails, echoes of the early SSL wars, and what keeps them grinding after nearly a decade of R&D to ship Aztec Alpha --- 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium --- BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🔵 COINBASE | ETH & BTC BACKED LOANS https://bankless.cc/coinbase-borrow 🪙 FRAXNET | MINT, REDEEM, & EARN https://bankless.cc/fraxnet 🦄 UNISWAP | SWAP ON UNICHAIN https://bankless.cc/unichain 🛞 MANTLE | MODULAR L2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle 💤 EIGHT SLEEP | IMPROVE YOUR SLEEP https://bankless.cc/eight-sleep --- TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 6:00 The State of Privacy on Ethereum in 2025 9:47 Identity as the Missing Piece of Privacy 11:52 AI Deepfakes Just Broke Web2 KYC 20:19 How ZK Passport Plugs Into Aztec (and the Token Sale) 23:04 Holistic On-Chain Identity: Bottom-Up, Not Top-Down 30:54 From Private Bitcoin to a Private World Computer 36:36 Private Intents: Using Aztec as Ethereum’s Privacy Router 43:15 Compliant DeFi with ZK Identity in the Loop 48:37 Does This Actually Solve Privacy on Ethereum? 50:38 Ignition Chain Launch: Stage-2 Rollup with Decentralized Sequencers 56:19 One-Shot Decentralization, Alpha/Beta, and Security Model 1:05:37 Scaling a Private Rollup: TPS, Fees, and the Aztec Stack 1:11:40 Noir, No VM for Private State, and New DeFi Primitives 1:17:08 Selective Disclosure and ZK Receipts for Regulators 1:21:29 Privacy vs Nation States: The Second Crypto Privacy War 1:29:45 Why Keep Building Privacy After 8 Years? 1:33:37 Token Sale, Fair Auctions, and Running an Aztec Node 1:37:33 Closing Thoughts: The Most Cypherpunk L2 Since 2016? --- RESOURCES Zac Williamson https://x.com/Zac_Aztec Joe Andrews https://x.com/jaosef Aztec https://x.com/aztecnetwork --- Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to bankless, where we explore the frontier of private internet money and internet finance.
0:08.0	This is Ryan Sean Adams, just me today, so I'm here to help you become more bankless.
0:13.1	There's been this recent refrain in crypto. It almost rings out like a complaint.
0:17.6	Where have all the cypherpunks gone? I'm pleased to say I have two of them on today's
0:22.3	episode and honestly talking to them was like a breath of fresh air. The promise of their project,
0:28.3	Aztec, is to bring privacy to Ethereum without cutting any corners. They're trying to ship a
0:33.7	private layer two that truly extends Ethereum-grade decentralization with privacy on top,
0:41.0	private transactions for all of defy. Now, I know it's still early, but honestly, I think they
0:47.3	may have done it. Zach and Joe have been working on Aztec for so long that I think a lot of
0:52.9	people in crypto half expected this thing
0:55.1	would never ship. Yet, it's here. The Aztec network is live. It's producing blocks. These are
1:01.3	private Ethereum secured blocks, and they're just months away from an alpha mainnet. To me,
1:08.2	this is probably the most cypherpunk project to launch in crypto since maybe 2016.
1:13.2	And maybe it won't be successful.
1:15.7	After all, the critics keep telling us that the world doesn't care about decentralization,
1:19.7	that crypto is now just a whole bunch of ETFs and corporate chains and BlackRock and compliant stable coins.
1:26.2	I think they might be wrong about this.
1:28.3	The world may not care about privacy and decentralization,
1:31.3	but the world definitely needs it, now more than ever.
1:34.8	And crypto needs more cyphur punks, like Zach and Joe.
1:39.0	We'll get right to the episode, but before we do,
1:41.1	I want to thank the sponsors that made this possible.
	...

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