Bankless · Nov 3, 2026 · 46m · 38m saved
With Zac Williamson, Co-Founder of Aztec Network
Most blockchains that advertise privacy still keep a viewing key, a centralized operator or a third-party auditor who can see or block users' transactions. Zac Williamson, co-founder of Aztec Network, told David Hoffman, co-owner of Bankless, on the Bankless podcast that only two networks avoid all three: Zcash and his own.
Zcash offers private money. Aztec is trying to offer private smart contracts, the programmable layer that Ethereum provides in public, and Zac says that race is now on.
"Outside of Zcash, we're the only privacy-preserving blockchain that doesn't have backdoors in them, that doesn't have centralized actors, doesn't have third-party auditors that can control you or censor you." — Zac Williamson
Zac co-founded Aztec, whose network has formally verified large parts of its protocol and just shipped an upgrade that roughly doubled its proving speed. He offered to debate anyone who disputes his claim in public.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 46 minutes of audio, 8 minutes of reading.
Here are the 9 takeaways that matter.
Key Takeaways
Aztec and Zcash are the only private blockchains with no backdoors, Zac says, and he will defend that in public
Rivals keep viewing keys partly because partners like Circle demand them
Users will not pay extra for privacy, so Zac says it wins only by making new products possible
Tokenized finance is moving off public chains into proprietary networks where compliance checks can run
ZK Passport proves a user is a real, verified person without the passport data ever leaving the phone
AI is making attacks cheap enough to break the internet's trust model, which favors hardened blockchains
Aztec's Tiara upgrade roughly doubled proving performance, helped by months of AI audits
1. Racing to a Private Ethereum
Zac sees an arms race for private smart contracts, the same way Zcash leads on private money. David Hoffman had asked whether one exists.
Zac Williamson says the contest now is to build the private version of Ethereum
"Just as Zcash really is that private Bitcoin, private digital gold, there is... a race to be the private Ethereum, where you have that smart contract capability... but you have strong privacy guarantees as well." — Zac Williamson
Most protocols use "privacy" as a deliberately vague term, Zac said, so that they can avoid real guarantees. He invited anyone who disagrees with his claim about Aztec to challenge him.
Zac offered to defend Aztec's privacy claim in a public debate
"I'm willing to make that claim. If anybody disagrees, you're welcome to come at me. I'm very happy to have a public debate over this." — Zac Williamson
