Aztec is Growing 🚀

The First Developer Dispatch of 2024

Welcome to our first newsletter of the year. We hope your 2024 is off to a great start worthy of the bull market.

As a refresher, the Aztec Labs Developer Dispatch serves as a technical brief for the latest on Aztec and Noir. Whether you’re a Solidity dev, ZK researcher, Noir dev, or just a fan of Aztec—we’re glad you’re here.

Thanks for growing and buidling with us.

- The Aztec Labs Team

In this issue:

  • Aztec Labs News

    • Our team is growing, join us!

    • Developer community growth report (hint: Aztec’s #1)

  • Tech Brief - Aztec: the privacy-first L2 on Ethereum

    • Aztec Sandbox v0.21.0 is live!

    • Request for Comments: Aztec block production

    • Built with Aztec

  • Tech Brief - Noir: the universal language of zero-knowledge

    • Noir v0.22.0 is live!

    • Github Codespace

    • VSCode 0.0.9

    • Built with Noir

Aztec Labs News

Aztec Labs is growing…

At Aztec, our goal is to add privacy to Ethereum.

In service of this goal, we’ve raised $125 million from industry-leading investors including a16z crypto, Paradigm, Variant, Consensys, and a_capital, and we’re growing quickly. Learn more and apply.

  • Proving Systems Security Engineer: We’re looking for an applied cryptographer (or a cybersecurity pro with a love for applied cryptography) to explore and secure our proving systems stack.

  • Community/Growth Lead: We’re seeking a Community Manager energized to activate the Aztec community of privacy-first developers, and the users who will benefit from what they build.

  • Institutional Partnerships Manager: You’ll spearhead collaborations with key infrastructure entities, including node operators, proving marketplaces, exchanges, and wallet software providers, among many others.

Behold, the Aztec Labs Team.

…and so is our developer community

Aztec has once again topped the list of projects with the fastest growing dev community, this time for full-time devs. Read the Electric Capital report.

Aztec: The Privacy-First L2 on Ethereum

Aztec Sandbox v0.21.0 is live!

Each week, the Sandbox improves. And writing privacy-first smart contracts becomes that much easier.

v0.21.0 is now live, boasting quality-of-life improvements like simply using the aztec start command to run components of the Aztec network stack separately. Learn more in the Sandbox documentation. 

aztec start

If you’re Sandbox curious and ready to become a Sandbox dev, our best-in-class DevRel team and community are ready to support you on your journey.

Quickstart | Privacy-first zkRollup | Aztec Documentation

In this guide, you will

docs.aztec.network/developers/getting_started/quickstart

Request for Comments: Aztec Block Production

Aztec Labs has announced a formal request for comments period covering the Aztec Network’s Sequencer Selection and Prover Coordination Protocols, key components of Aztec's block production. We invite you to leave comments by February 16 on the Aztec forum.

Read the latest key network decisions made in collaboration with industry-leading experts, and the full RFC announcement, on our blog.

Built with Aztec

Traveler, walk with us into a future where you can prove your passport as authentic while only selectively revealing your personal info.

(Github repo coming soon).

Nerd-sniped yet?

Once you start building, get top-tier support from our DevRel team starting with office hours, held every Thursday at 10am ET/3pm UTC. Register here.

Noir: The Universal Language of Zero-Knowledge

Noir v0.22.0 is live!

The Noir zero-knowledge language is increasingly zero-stress. Latest features include:

  • Running nargo compile, execute, and prove 4x to 50x faster

  • Popular functions from the standard library are now imported by default. Devs don’t have to explicitly import preluded features like print statements, vectors, option types, etc.

Noir with Github Codespace

With two simple file copy-pastes, you can start building both existing and new Noir projects in-browser in no time:

  • No IDE installation

  • No plugin installation

  • No CLI tool installation

Noir x Visual Studio Code

Noir supports Visual Studio Code, and v0.0.9 is now live:

  • Automatically format your code upon saving

  • Easily identify bottlenecks in your Noir program with performance profiling

Noir Language Support - Visual Studio Marketplace

Extension for Visual Studio Code - Noir support for Visual Studio Code

marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=noir-lang.vscode-noir&ssr=false#overview

Built with Noir

Our rapidly growing dev community is building with the Noir programming language (top), as well as in support of the language itself (bottom).

Build cool stuff with Noir or the Sandbox and we’ll fund it. Learn more about Aztec Labs Grants.

We’re grateful to you for joining Aztec Labs for another exciting year. More from us soon.

-The Aztec Labs Team

We appreciate your feedback 💜.

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