Today, we give Aztec over to the community. It will be launched and run not by insiders, but by all of you. A handover like this is never easy. Decentralisation can too easily lead to stagnation and paralysis. That's the challenge taken on by the Aztec Foundation. ↓

Aztec needs to be permissionless, highly reliable, and offer real censorship resistance. This cannot be achieved without true decentralisation. Running lots of nodes is not enough. You need a wide, independent set of people who feel responsible for what the network becomes.

But "decentralised ownership" can quickly devolve into a life destroying force. A molasses of structurlessness. This maladaptive form of "decentralised ownership" is the default, easy path. For Aztec to work, we can't let this be our path.

@Zac_Aztec and I believe too strongly in the promise of Aztec to let that happen. We know that we cannot simply be passive stewards. Aztec needs to be aggressively forward looking, and driven. But you all also need to know that Aztec will go on with or without us.

Our goal is to help this ecosystem grow, and to help Aztec become ever more performant and ever easier to use. We will pursue these goals actively. We will help solve cold-start problems and coordination problems. We will do research, and build and fund public goods.

To do the above effectively, we must be legitimate stewards, not unaccountable dictators. In part, that means that you must, as stakeholders in this network, be able to stop listening to us without being forced off of Aztec.

That is why the Aztec Foundation has no control over the network from here on out, and why the majority of our treasury is locked (onchain) for a minimum of 12 months, and why we will not run any infrastructure the network depends on. We will actively steward, with your consent.

@amesiahofsorts ping me if no luck