The old tree is blooming again. Privacy blockchain @aztecnetwork has officially announced the token ticker AZTEC and the TGE date—just 1 day left until TGE. It’s been a full 8 years since the inception of the Aztec project. Some hot facts about Aztec: A legendary fundraising project deeply involved and invested in by Vitalik (V神); despite its strong resource halo, Aztec has been selectively overlooked for its massive contributions to the blockchain privacy sector. Here’s a thread to share some lesser-known facts I’ve learned. Aztec can be considered the pioneer of the programmable privacy sector. It’s not just a programmable privacy Ethereum L2 chain but a privacy infrastructure that has developed a comprehensive tech stack for mainstream privacy computation. Back in 2019, the Aztec core founding team members @rel_zeta_tech, @Zac_Aztec, and others first proposed the universal zero-knowledge proof system PLONK, which has since been adopted and applied by many renowned zk projects like @zksync, @LineaBuild, @miranetwork, and more. PLONK has now become the industry standard in the zk ecosystem. Aztec’s self-developed zero-knowledge proof language Noir can be understood as the Rust language of the zk sector, significantly lowering the development threshold for zk circuits and privacy applications. Projects like @Starknet, @worldcoinfnd, and others support building privacy protocols on-chain using Noir. Archaeology complete. Dyor.