<p>Fresh off the launch of the Ignition Chain and a successful community-led $61M token sale, Aztec Network co-founder Zac Williamson joins Friederike Ernst to unpack the &quot;existential&quot; journey of building programmable privacy. Zac opens up about the &quot;sacrificial altar&quot; moment where the team decided to kill their live product, Aztec Connect which had 60k users because they realized true decentralized privacy required rebuilding from scratch rather than iterative upgrades.</p><p><br></p><p><br>They dive deep into the architecture of the new network, which utilizes a hybrid state model (encrypted UTXOs for privacy, public accounts for transparency) to enable composable applications. Zac challenges the cryptographic dogma of &quot;don&#39;t roll your own crypto,&quot; arguing that for pioneers, relying on &quot;battle-tested&quot; libraries is impossible. He explains why decentralized sequencers are not just a moral choice but a security necessity to prevent government-mandated backdoors. </p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p>Finally, Zac contrasts the chaotic but decentralized resistance to surveillance in the US with the increasing top-down control in the UK and Europe, framing Aztec as essential &quot;defense in depth&quot; for the digital age.</p><p><br></p><p><br>Topics</p><ul><li>00:00 Intro </li><li>03:45 The &quot;Sacrificial Altar&quot;: Killing Aztec Connect</li><li>10:15 Hybrid Architecture: UTXOs vs. Accounts</li><li>16:30 Why You Must &quot;Roll Your Own Crypto&quot;</li><li>22:00 Decentralization as a Defense Against Backdoors</li><li>28:15 Performance: Throughput &amp; Latency Trade-offs</li><li>34:40 Private Smart Contracts: Gaming &amp; Identity</li><li>41:00 The Macro View: US vs. EU Surveillance</li></ul><p><br>Links</p><ul><li>Gnosis: https://gnosis.io/</li><li>Zac Williamson on X: https://twitter.com/Zac_Aztec</li><li>Aztec Network: https://aztec.network</li><li>Noir Language: https://noir-lang.org<br></li></ul><p><br></p><p>Sponsors: Gnosis: Gnosis has been building core decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem since 2015. With the launch of Gnosis Pay last year, we introduced the world&#39;s first Decentralized Payment Network. Start leveraging its power today at http://gnosis.io</p>