Tom Pocock & Zac Williamson: AZTEC Protocol – Bringing Zero-Knowledge Transactions to Ethereum

AZTEC Protocol is a protocol that enables private transactions on Ethereum. At its core, AZTEC is an Ethereum contract, otherwise known as the AZTEC Cryptography Engine. The protocol uses a zero-knowledge proof system, allowing users to effectively create shielded representations of tokens, which can then be sent and redeemed for the underlying token. CEO and CTO, Tom Pocock and Zac Williamson have plans to build AZTEC into a fully functional DeFi stack with which all kinds of trades, swaps, and financial operations will be possible, with privacy.

Topics covered in this episode:

• How Tom and Zac met and founded AZTEC Protocol
• What AZTEC is and what problem is solves
• How AZTEC enabled transactions work in practice from a user perspective
• The challenges of making DeFi systems like MakerDAO fully private
• How ERC-20 tokens could be issued as private tokens
• The AZTEC trusted setup ignition ceremony
• ZKPs for privacy vs scaling solutions
• Growing the privacy ecosystem and getting people excited about privacy
• The security guarantees of using AZTEC and other ZKP systems

Episode links:

• AZTEC Protocol
• AZTEC Protocol - SDK
• AZTEC Protocol - research papers
• AZTEC Protocol Twitter
• Tom Walton-Pocock Twitter
• Zac Williamson Twitter
• Reset Everything

Sponsors:

• Least Authority: Register for Security Sessions on April 30th to learn about security audits for your blockchain project - https://leastauthority.com/meetup
• Status: A multi-purpose communication tool that combines a peer-to-peer messenger, secure crypto wallet, and web3 browser - https://status.im/

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/335