Seeing Aztec preparing to launch its mainnet for a public sale feels like a lifetime ago. I still remember when I first entered the space and was looking at ZK, then the PLONK protocol, and later the Noir language. Time has flown by, and it's already been a few years. Aztec has always given me the impression of being very legit; it is basically the most aggressively chosen technology, the only one designed from the ground up with "end-to-end programmable privacy" as its first principle in ZK L2. But from another perspective, I also feel they can be a bit clumsy. If they had launched the public sale when Naval was shouting about Zcash, everyone would have definitely been FOMO-ing over the public sale. Overall, this round of public sale shows a lot of sincerity. They have collaborated with @Uniswap on a mechanism that resembles an on-chain TWAP model, so there won't be a situation like yesterday's Humidfi being sniped. They have already raised 18,000 ETH, and the auction's FDV is at 400M. Considering that a16z invested 100M in that round with a valuation close to 1.5B, if retail investors have their TGE fully unlocked, it would also be a discounted entry.