Aztec Connect
It stopped taking deposits eight months after launch
A privacy-focused zero-knowledge rollup on Ethereum, built by the startup Aztec, that let users reach DeFi protocols from shielded balances through front-ends such as zk.money.
- Capital raised (announced)
Recorded announced backing; this is separate from cash received, customer deposits and money recovered.
- Users, by the company's count
- Estimated
Users reported at March 2023 sunset; Aztec’s count, with no published active-user definition.
Funding
| Round | Date | Announced | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Series A (raised by Aztec) | 2021 |
Announced is what was said at the time. Cash actually received is rarely disclosed and is not assumed to match.
People
| Name | Role | Period | Now | Last checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zac Williamson | — | Co-founder, Aztec Foundation | Sep 2026 | |
| Joe Andrews | — | Founder and CEO of Aztec Labs, which describes itself as a privacy-product company created by the Aztec Network's original builders | Oct 2026 |
Timeline
16 December 2021
CoinDesk reported that Aztec Connect was due to launch the following month.
July 2022
March 2023
Aztec said front-ends such as zk.money and zkpay.finance would stop taking deposits, and that withdrawals would stay free for a year. Blockchain.News gave 17 March 2023 for the deposit cut-off; Aztec's documentation gives 21 March 2023.
31 March 2024
Ownership and governance roles on the rollup contract were irrevocably renounced.
How it ended
Pivoted away
Aztec kept processing withdrawals for a year after it closed deposits, then stopped running the rollup and irrevocably renounced control of its contract. Funds still inside can only be withdrawn by running the open-source rollup software by hand. The company open-sourced the code, said it would fund an independently operated version, and presented the shutdown as a step toward a general-purpose encrypted network.
Still alive
Open spot
Aztec Connect is gone. Is your privacy project still running?
Spotlight your project here.
Sources
6 sources behind this page.
- 1Aztec Network Raises $17 million Series A from Paradigm to Bring Programmable Privacy to Web3 · Aztec (company blog, retrieved after Aztec Connect was shut down)
- 2Aztec Connect Sunset · Aztec (documentation site, retrieved after the shutdown)
- 3Team — Aztec Labs · Aztec Labs
- 4Privacy blockchain platform Aztec to shut down Aztec Connect · Blockchain.News · Mar 2023
- 5Ethereum Privacy Startup Aztec Raises $17M in Paradigm-Led Series A · CoinDesk · Dec 2021
- 6Zk.Money v2 (Aztec Connect) · L2BEAT
Every figure above is clickable and opens the sources behind it. Copies were stored when each source was read, so a citation still resolves after the page it came from is gone.