The current zk stack is cumbersome and hard to understand.
Circuit-building languages require knowledge of cryptographic concepts, creating a barrier to widespread developer adoption.
To build in zk right now, you need two brains:
1. a cryptography brain that understands proving systems, trusted setups, and some low-level cryptography; and
2. an app developer brain that can reason intuitively about public and private state to create novel applications
Put simply: not many people have two brains!
And that means number of zk app developers today is a small subset of the total number of blockchain devs.
The simplicity of Noir means that having one brain is enough.
By abstracting away cryptographic complexity while retaining the power and flexibility of other circuit-building languages, Noir allows any developer–not just those with cryptography knowledge–to build zk apps.
Noir is a leap forward for three reasons:
1) Simple, familiar syntax
Noir’s likeness to Rust makes it simple, familiar, and easy to understand.
Creating a conditional is as simple as writing “if.”
Using other zk circuit writing languages entails downloading circuit libraries, reading them to understand their underlying logic, and then calling library implementations of basic features.
2. Standard crypto library
Noir also possesses a standard library of highly optimized functions commonly used in circuit development.
The stdlib gives developers access to widely used, complex algorithms that are hand-written and tightly optimized by the Aztec team.
The standard library grants developers a high level of circuit efficiency while interacting with a simple, easy to use abstraction layer.
3. Proving system agnostic
Because Noir doesn’t compile directly to circuits but to an intermediary representation, it is compatible with multiple back-end proving systems.
We call this intermediate representation an ACIR (Abstract Circuit Intermediate Representation).
We’ve created some sample implementations of circuits in Noir to show you what they look like against common reference code:
Once you’ve gotten off the ground, show us what you’ve built.
If you’re interested in actively participating in Noir development as a paid early tester, check out our Grants page aztec.network/grants for more information.
We’ll be publishing more guides on development with Noir and adding to the tooling infrastructure behind it, with a singular goal :
Making Noir the universal language of zero knowledge.
Catch @maximvezenov at Devcon Bogota on Thursday October 13th at 1:30PM talking about our ZK circuit language, Noir!
Noir is a Rust-based domain specific language that is backend agnostic and built upon open-source technology to enable flexible ZK language development.
Maxim is a language engineer for Noir and he'll be providing an introduction into Noir's unique features, how to develop with Noir, and an example where we use Noir to prove Merkle membership.
Look out here for more details once the schedule is set.
We're thrilled to announce @eulerfinance as the first yield protocol supported on Aztec's 4626 bridge.
What is Euler?
How do you earn yield?
How do we achieve private lending at 7.5x lower gas fees than mainnet Ethereum?
↓
Euler is a non-custodial permissionless lending protocol that helps users earn interest on their crypto assets without relying on trusted third-parties.
The Ethereum merge is happening tonight at approximately 4am UTC.
Users of Aztec don’t need to take any action, though transactions submitted around the time of the merge may be delayed.
Here’s what we are doing to prepare:
Prior to the merge, Aztec will cease publishing rollups to Ethereum in case of unanticipated issues with the merge.
After running tests, Aztec’s rollup provider will resume publishing rollups around 9am UTC.
Transaction settlement times will be delayed during this period.
Users may use the system as usual and transactions will accrue to be settled on Ethereum mainnet once the network is stable and block production resumes.
Aztec is excited to announce the launch of our integration with @iearnfinance, the leading yield aggregation platform on Ethereum.
Integrating Yearn allows Aztec users to earn yield in vaults managed by some of the best strategists in crypto:
How does Yearn work?
Users deposit into a vault contract, which then routes funds to various investment strategies developed, managed, and audited by Yearn's community of professional strategists.
Think of it like an on-chain hedge fund or asset manager.
Vaults allow users to "set and forget" assets for yield, trusting that the underlying yield sources are highly diversified and secured by Yearn's own opportunity auditing system.