Zac Williamson I Privacy is Sooner Than You Think | Pragma Paris 2023

Mon, Oct 2, 2023, 12:00 AM

Join Zac Williamson, CEO of Aztec, for a deep dive into the future of privacy, scalability, and cryptographic innovation on Ethereum. In this compelling fireside chat at Pragma Paris 2023, Zac reflects on Aztec’s journey from its early days as a privacy-lacking TradFi protocol to pioneering fully private smart contract infrastructure. He unpacks the origins of Aztec 1.0 and 2.0, the challenges of recursive SNARKs, and why privacy is essential for identity, composability, and mainstream blockchain adoption. Learn how breakthroughs like Plonk, Noir, and client-side proving have enabled the development of Aztec’s upcoming private programmable L2. This conversation covers privacy-first rollups, ZK-EVM tradeoffs, decentralized sequencer architecture, and the roadmap to a 2025 mainnet launch. If you're interested in zk-SNARKs, private smart contracts, zero-knowledge cryptography, or the next chapter of Ethereum’s scalability, this talk is not to be missed. 00:00 Intro to Zac Williamson and Aztec 00:46 Origins of Aztec and early goals 01:42 Realizing the need for privacy on-chain 03:20 The problem with trusted setups and early limitations 05:01 Sonic paper and the path to universal SNARKs 06:05 What is Plonk and how does it work 08:56 From Aztec 1.0 to Aztec 2.0 10:27 Why Aztec focused on private rollups 11:30 Recursion challenges in private rollups 13:05 Why recursive proofs are hard to verify 14:06 Building composability through recursion 15:35 Why Aztec didn’t choose ZK-EVM 16:42 How private state changes break EVM assumptions 18:03 What private smart contracts look like 19:04 Account abstraction with privacy and Web2 logins 21:03 Using Noir to build private smart contracts 22:39 Lessons learned and what surprised Zac 24:26 What is Aztec 3.0 and what it enables 25:39 Timeline to Aztec sandbox and mainnet 26:45 Predicting Ethereum scalability in two years 27:44 Sequencer decentralization trade-offs 28:47 Closing thanks and Aztec’s future _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇫🇷 *Pragma Paris* Pragma Paris took place at the Pavillion Vendome in Paris on July 20, 2023, and was an in-person summit for builders and leaders in the web3 ecosystem. Watch the full Pragma Paris 2023 playlist here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXzKMXK2aHh42f0yI-hyeOCbNZpvV2fIT&si=Ez6ych6OAdn_sq1D ETHGlobal's Pragma series takes place in cities around the world, and is designed to be a different kind of event. Pragma is a one-stage conference with founders-only on stage, bringing together a small group of curated attendees and speakers to discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. Ever since we first introduced our new event series Pragma in Tokyo of the spring of 2023, we have been fostering a curated, global community of individuals who deeply care about web3. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow Aztec* X: https://x.com/aztecnetwork ✅ *Follow ETHGlobal* X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.com/ethglobal Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETHGlobal _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship?_ 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _