AZTEC

Aztec · Privacy L2

25 /100

T4Speculative · #50 of 77

No engine yetStableReviewed Oct 23, 2026

DemandSoundnessDurability

9 of 4513 of 403 of 15

Key facts

SupplyFloat 29% of issued supply

Circulating 3.00B, 29%
Locked or unvested 7.35B, 71%
Max 10.35B

FDV / market cap

3.5x

$171.7M / $49.7M

Market cap

$49.7M

Price $0.017, 7d −18.6%

Market data: CoinGecko, Oct 24, 2026. Scores reviewed Oct 23, 2026.

Assessment

Aztec has no material engine yet: AZTEC bridged one-way into Fee Juice pays L2 fees, but activity is ~300 transactions a day, and rewards come from a pre-minted 250M pool that runs out ~Q1-Q2 2027, after which staker governance may mint up to 20%/yr. Only 29% of supply floats, and an investor and team cliff of ~913M AZTEC, ~30% of float, lands Nov 13-20, 2026 or Feb 12, 2027, followed by ~208M a month for 24 months. Insiders hold over 70%, against 14.95% sold in the Nov 2025 open auction. The network is Stage 2 with ~3,200 sequencers, but critical proving-system bugs were disclosed in Mar and Jul 2026.

How value reaches holders

70/30 sequencer/prover fee split is native and the one-way Fee Juice bridge is a real AZTEC sink, but rewards are emissions-funded (400 AZTEC/slot, up to ~175M/yr; the 250M year-1 pool runs out ~Q1-Q2 2027, after which governance may mint up to 20%/yr). Investor and team tokens unlock after a 12-month lock ending Nov 13-20, 2026 (from Ignition) or Feb 12, 2027 (from TGE), then ~208M/month for 24 months

Score anatomy

Demand

9 / 45: the stronger of two routes, plus adoption

Why would anyone hold it: does value reach the token, and is the network or product used today?

Holder routing engine input

Approved or designed but inert, indirect sinks only, or flows into a treasury or endowment

How this is scored

Revenue reality engine input

Under $0.5M/yr, or emissions-subsidized only

How this is scored

Monetary usage engine input

AZTEC bridged one-way into Fee Juice pays Aztec L2 fees; activity is ~300 tx/day (Sep 2026).

Pays its own network's fees (gas never counts higher, whatever the size of the economy)medium confidenceHow this is scored

Adoption ×3

Aztec runs ~300 tx/day with ~$954 of value secured a year after launch: negligible use

Marginal or fading: negligible use for its size, usage down 60%+ year on year, or a lost forkmedium confidenceHow this is scored

Two routes, the stronger counts

Revenue 0, minus 4 for routing 1 = cash flow 0. Money use 1. The engine is the stronger route: 1.

Soundness

13 / 40

Can a long-term holder trust the rules: supply, float, distribution and control?

Supply discipline ×3

Rewards come from a pre-minted 250M pool until ~Q1-Q2 2027; then on-chain staker governance may mint up to 20%/yr (~1.7% expected), a consensus-set vote that caps this at 3.

1-3%/yr on a published curve, or 3-7%/yr under a hard cap with halvingslow confidenceHow this is scored

Float and unlocks ×1

Float 29% (3.0B of 10.35B); the investor and team cliff (~913M, ~30% of float) lands Nov 13-20, 2026 or Feb 12, 2027, then ~208M a month for 24 months.

Under 15% float, or a cliff of 25%+ of float within 12 monthshigh confidenceHow this is scored

Distribution ×2

Investors 27.25%, team 21.06%, Foundation 11.71%, ecosystem grants 10.73%: insiders over 70%; the Nov 2025 open auction sold 14.95%

Insiders received over 50%, or one organization directs over 30% todayhigh confidenceHow this is scored

Decentralization and security ×2

L2BEAT Stage 2 with ~3,200 sequencers, but critical proving-system bugs were disclosed in Mar 2026 (Alpha v4) and Jul 2026 (v5), unexploited, inside the 24-month window

Attack cost $10-100M, an unexploited soundness bug in the last 24 months, or upgrades by a security council or governance with under a 7-day exit windowmedium confidenceHow this is scored

Durability

3 / 15

Is it big, proven and reachable by institutions?

Scale ×1

$51.1M market cap (band 2), $3.4M/day median volume (band 2), no flags.

Small: $50-250M market cap and $1M/day+How this is scored

Track record ×1

TGE Feb 12, 2026: 0.7 years old.

Under 1 yearhigh confidenceHow this is scored

Institutional access ×1

Spot on Coinbase, Kraken, Bybit and Upbit; no ETP or US filing found.

Top-tier exchanges only, or delisting pressuremedium confidenceHow this is scored

What would move it up

To reach T3 Mixed, 3 gates are still open:

Score 25needs 40(open)
Value engine 1needs 2(open)
Adoption 1needs 2(open)
Supply 3gate 1(met)

Tier outlook · next trigger Nov 13, 2026

Stable

Float: the ~913M investor and team cliff lands Nov 13-20, 2026 or Feb 12, 2027, then ~208M a month for 24 months
Supply: the year-2 emission vote once the 250M pool runs out (~Q1-Q2 2027), with up to 20%/yr allowed
Revenue rises off 0 only if real fee volume replaces emissions (~300 tx/day in Sep 2026)
Scale falls to 1 if market cap drops below $50M ($51.1M on Oct 23, 2026)
Security falls to 1 if a proving-system bug is exploited; critical ones were disclosed in Mar and Jul 2026

Research report

Sep 17, 2026 · source confidence 80%

The most decentralized of the three Ethereum L2s studied (Stage 2 on L2BEAT with thousands of sequencers) and the least used: under one thousand dollars of value secured and roughly 300 transactions a day one year after Ignition. Two critical proving-system vulnerabilities in four months (Alpha v4 in March, v5 in July, fix scheduled for v6 around October 7) and an emissions-funded validator set are the structural facts to watch. The supply event that matters is the investor and team unlock, dated either November 2026 or February 2027 depending on how the lock-up is anchored, followed by roughly 2% of supply per month for two years. Privacy as a sector attracted real capital in 2026, but it flowed to Zcash, Railgun and the Ethereum Foundation privacy stack rather than to Aztec.

Structure (14 facts)

Chain: ethereum
What it is: privacy-focused Ethereum L2 zk-rollup (vertical); L2BEAT Stage 2, decentralized sequencer set (~3,200 sequencers, 200k AZTEC to join)
TGE: 2026-02-12 (governance-triggered 2026-01-26); Dec 2025 CCA auction raised ~19,476 ETH (~$61M) at ~$0.040 avg, $350M FDV floor
Max supply: 10,350,000,000
Circulating supply (approx): 2,930,000,000
Market cap (approx): $39,600,000
Allocation: Investors: 27.3%
Team: 21.1%
Foundation: 11.7%
Ecosystem grants: 10.7%
Open auction: 15%
Future incentives: 4.9%
Other: 9.4%
Unlocks: investor/team 12-month lock then 24-month linear. Whitepaper anchors the lock to Ignition launch (Nov 13-20 2026); trackers anchor to TGE (Feb 12 2027). Cliff tranche ~913M (8.8%), then ~208M/month (~7% of current float) for 24 months; ~90% circulating by Sept 2028
Value accrual: 70/30 sequencer/prover fee split is native and the one-way Fee Juice bridge is a real sink, but rewards are emissions-funded (400 AZTEC/slot, up to ~175M/yr). Year-1 pool (250M) exhausts ~Q1-Q2 2027; governance may then mint up to 20%/yr
Usage: L2BEAT TVS ~$954, ~300 tx/day, fees ~$15/day (inferred). No stablecoin issuer or institutional pilot on-chain. Alpha V5 live Jul 21 2026; V6 payload targeted Oct 7 2026; Beta later in 2026
Security: Critical proving-system bugs in Alpha v4 (Mar 27 2026) and v5 (found Jul 27, disclosed Aug 7, fix in v6). No L1 forced inclusion; escape hatch needs 332M AZTEC bond
Liquidity: ~$1.4-2.3M/day; Coinbase, Bybit, KuCoin, Gate spot; Binance perps only
Backers: a16z-led $100M Series B (2022), Paradigm; Aztec Labs (~90 staff) split from Aztec Foundation Mar 2026
Sector context: Privacy is the one sector with verified 2026 inflows (ZEC ~$25B mcap, Grayscale ZCSH ETF >$500M AUM), but flows route to ZEC, Railgun and the EF Kohaku stack, not to Aztec

Market figures at report date (Sep 17, 2026)

Price (approx): $0.0135
FDV (approx): $140,000,000
All-time high / low: 0.0399 (2026-02-20); ATL 0.0113 (2026-08-18)

Sources (8)

Compare with

How the ranking works and how AZTEC compares: see the full ranking. This entry as JSON:

GET https://tokens.10102.io/api/v1/tokenomics?symbol=AZTEC