Aztec Privacy Provider Raised $17 Million, Adds Bridges For Developers

The Ethereum Aztec privacy provider raised $17 million to expand its privacy options on a wide variety of applications as we can see more today in our latest Ethereum news.

Aztec uses zero-knowledge proofs to allow people to conduct private transactions on Ethereum with the project planning to use the money raised to integrate the broader world of DeFi. Ethereum is the world’s most popular blockchain but it is not very private and like with other distributed ledgers such as Ethereum transactions are attributed to the wallet address that can be easily traced to a specific company or an individual.

The project called Aztec was working to change that and announced it raised $17 million to expand what it described as programmable privacy for Ethereum. When launched in 2019, Aztec introduced a new layer on Ethereum’s blockchain that is capable of recording transactions In an anonymous manner using zero-knowledge proofs which describe cryptography as capable of providing something that is true without the need to reveal the entirety of the personal details. For example, Zero-knowledge proofs can be used to show someone is actually 21 without showing their name or birthdate.

Aztec offered its privacy features via a product called zk-money that provides anonymous transactions on ethereum but operates as a siloed network and it also announced it is unrolling new tools such as Aztec Connect to allow developers to add more privacy features to a wide variety of protocols by using a software bridge:

“It allows users to confidentially access world-class DeFi services on Ethereum with up to 100x cost savings, all while strengthening Aztec’s existing privacy guarantees. At launch, Aztec Connect extends the capabilities of zk.money, adding whitelisted functionality from select blue-chip DeFi partners.”

In an interview, Aztec co-founder Joe Andrews said that this means all developers will be able to plug the privacy tools into any ETH-based protocol and added that the service is designed to be permissionless and could be found in different decentralized finance platforms such as Uniswap, Metamask, and Rainbow. It already partnered with Defi lending service Element and there are more works underway. The project is launching a grant program that will fund the privacy-focused developers that use Ethereum’s Solidity programming language.

Aztec privacy provider is not only touting the privacy advantages of the protocol but also its ability to reduce gas fees for transactions on the network compared to those settled on the Ethereum mainnet. Andrews said he is not concerned about regulation because zero-knowledge proofs can serve to attest that someone is not a malicious actor.