What You Need to Know About Aztec's AZTEC Token Launch: The Markets Are Watching

Aztec, a prominent zero-knowledge privacy protocol, just kicked off its highly anticipated token sale on November 13th, and here’s what’s going down in the aztec markets.

The Sale Numbers Break Down Like This

The project is releasing 1.547 billion AZTEC tokens—that’s 14.95% of the total 10.35 billion token supply—priced at a starting FDV of $350 million in ETH. This valuation sits roughly 75% below what earlier equity rounds implied, creating what some traders view as an entry opportunity.

Early participants (those with soul-bound NFT confirmations) got a one-day head start beginning November 13th at 3 PM CET. The public auction then runs from December 2-6, 2025, with tokens distributed December 1st and trading/staking enabled from December 2nd onward. Over 300,000 whitelisted addresses are eligible to bid, and the sale accepts participants globally—including U.S. citizens. No airdrops or special allocations, just pure auction mechanics.

Who Can Actually Participate

Qualification covers a fairly wide net: Aztec testnet participants, ETH stakers from specific operators (Rocketpool, Lido, Obol, etc.), zk.money users, active community members, and even 3,000 randomly selected Uniswap traders from the past 30 days. The top 200 Genesis Sequencing Node operators from testnet also qualify. It’s designed to reward builders and early supporters rather than speculative buyers.

The Auction Mechanics: Continuous Clearing Protocol

Aztec partnered with Uniswap to deploy the Continuous Clearing Auction (CCA) protocol on Uniswap V4. Here’s how it works: bidders place orders throughout the auction window, these orders split and liquidate at market-discovered prices within each block, and when the auction concludes, a Uniswap V4 liquidity pool launches at the final discovered price. The foundation plans to inject 273 million additional tokens into this pool post-launch, while the sale contract auto-injects tokens proportional to ETH received. The liquidity pool locks in an immutable smart contract for at least 90 days.

Token Economics and Use Cases

Total AZTEC supply breaks down as: 27.26% to investors/early backers, 21.06% to core team, 11.71% foundation, 10.73% ecosystem grants, 14.95% public auction, 1.93% Phase 1 Genesis sales, 2.44% bilateral sales, 2.64% Uniswap V4 liquidity, 4.89% future incentives, and 2.41% Y1 network rewards. The sale itself represents 21.96% of total supply (2.27 billion tokens).

Token utility includes:

Sequencer Staking – Validators (Sequencers) stake AZTEC to secure the network and generate blocks. Non-operators can delegate to Sequencers.

Governance – Token holders vote on Aztec network decisions and protocol upgrades.

Transaction Fees – If Aztec governance enables a smart contract execution environment, tokens pay for on-chain transactions (potentially via an EIP-1559 style mechanism).

Starting 12 months post-sale, governance can adjust total supply within capped annual issuance limits, giving the protocol flexibility for long-term sustainability.

The 7-Year Journey

Aztec’s path here was anything but smooth. The team raised $2.1M seed funding in late 2018, launched mainnet in January 2020, and rode the zero-knowledge and L2 wave. December 2021 brought a $17M Series A from Paradigm (with Vitalik Buterin backing it), followed by a $100M Series B from a16z in December 2022. Despite that elite funding roster, growth stalled—the project sunset its Aztec Connect DeFi privacy bridge in March 2023 due to “business considerations.” The testnet relaunch in May 2025 attracted numerous airdrop-hunting users, but the whitepaper revealed zero airdrop allocation, shocking many observers.

What’s at Stake for Aztec Markets

With BTC dipping below $100K and market sentiment shifting, participation in this auction will be the real test. Aztec’s pricing at 75% discount to previous valuations signals serious dilution, but the token mechanics (staking, governance, fee utility) provide fundamental use cases. Whether the protocol can execute on its roadmap and whether the community finds enough value to justify entry prices remains the open question for aztec markets moving forward.