Aztec launches private L2 alpha
Aztec Network launched its Alpha Network — pitched as Ethereum’s first Layer‑2 enabling full private smart‑contract execution — marking a tangible step on privacy-enabled scaling. The reveal positions private execution as a differentiator for L2s focused on confidentiality and sophisticated DeFi primitives. (x.com)
Aztec published its "Announcing the Alpha Network" post on March 31, 2026 and confirmed the Ignition Chain launched in November 2025 as the coordination layer that the Alpha execution layer sits on top of, with the Alpha entry authorized by a unanimous community governance vote. (aztec.network) The team disclosed a critical vulnerability discovered on March 17, 2026 that affects the proving system and can enable protocol disruption or theft, and stated that fixes will be bundled in a v5 release currently planned for July 2026. (aztec.network) Aztec asked nodes to upgrade to barretenberg v4.1.2 or later after identifying a separate barretenberg issue, and publicly thanked Consensys Diligence, researchers at TU Vienna, and Plainshift AI for discovering and reporting recent vulnerabilities. (aztec.network) The stack uses the Noir language for contracts and implements privacy across three defined pillars—Data, Identity, and Compute—with privacy logic executed client-side to generate zero-knowledge proofs, while final settlements are posted to Ethereum roughly every 12 seconds. (aztec.network) AZTEC’s token sale in December 2025 raised about 19,476 ETH (≈$61.3M) via Uniswap’s Continuous Clearing Auction, the token launched in February 2026, and Aztec has disclosed roughly $178M in total funding including a $100M Series B led by a16z. (coinmarketcap.com) Market feeds show AZTEC trading with a circulating supply in the low billions and a market-cap in the tens of millions (CoinMarketCap reports about $58.3M), while exchange aggregators list AZTEC on over 100 markets with 24‑hour volumes in the low millions. (coinmarketcap.com) Aztec said it will publish a public bug tracker for v4 issues, will update trackers per alpha release, and will use tracker status as a primary determinant for when the network can be relabeled "Beta," while also warning integrators to alert users and avoid depositing funds they are not prepared to lose. (aztec.network)
