Aztec Town Hall Recap - August 14th 2025: Major Governance Updates & Community Spotlight
Just attended another packed Aztec Town Hall on August 14th with nearly 2,000 other people. This one was special - we got deep technical insights from Amin about the upcoming governance changes, plus some amazing community spotlights that honestly stole the show. Huge shoutouts to the hosts Medsea and Amin, plus special guest Arnaud from the Aztec Foundation who joined for the governance deep dive.
The numbers that keep climbing
1,970 attendees - So close to that 2K milestone! The energy was building throughout the call. Everyone was hoping we'd hit that magic number, and while we came up just short, the momentum is clearly there.
158,000 Discord members - Up 7K from last week alone. That's some serious growth happening in just seven days.
17,000+ full nodes running - Still growing strong. This consistent participation on a testnet is pretty remarkable.
13,500+ explorers in the validator set and queue - That's up 5K from last week. The demand to participate keeps increasing.
Still in the top 5 fastest growing dev ecosystems for two years running. As they put it: "Big pat on the back for everyone on the Aztec team. Big pat on the back for everyone in the community who supporting us."
Amin's governance deep dive - the technical stuff that actually matters
Amin came on to explain some major changes coming to how the network operates. He was refreshingly honest about the problems they've been solving.
The validator migration headache (finally getting fixed)
The biggest pain point has been what happens when there's a governance upgrade. As Amin explained: "No one here has been a stranger to the number of times that we've had to move over validators. It's such a mess."
Previously, every time they deployed a new rollup contract, validators had to:
- Exit the old contract (with a delay period)
- Wait for the new contract to be deployed
- Manually re-enter the validator set
This meant "sometimes months, only to be surprised by a governance upgrade that completely removes you from the set." And on mainnet, this could leave the network completely offline if the validator set became empty.
The governance staking escrow solution
The new system introduces something called the Governance Staking Escrow (GSE). Think of it as a bank that holds deposits for all Aztec rollups.
Now validators have two options:
Option 1: Stick to a specific rollup - Your stake stays with rollup A even after governance upgrades Option 2: Follow governance - Tell the GSE "I want to always be staked to the most recent version of the most canonical version of the rollup contract"
Amin showed a visual example: "Validator C that was the actually governance following is now automatically staked with rollup B. So in a more practical kind of like in an easier way to think about this, if we were to deploy this new rollup B today and have governance approve it, validators A and B would need to exit first and then be re-added to the validator set of rollup B, whereas validator C, that was governance following would just be removed."
What this means for the September 3rd deployment
Here's the catch - for the upcoming network deployment (dropping some alpha: "around September 3rd"), they still need to deploy a new GSE with updated features. So there's one more validator migration coming.
But Amin promised: "We won't unfortunately be moving validators, but in future upgrades, all validators at this one does not, are defaulted to being moved along with governance. And so just one more time of moving around people we promise we'll do a better time this time. But after that, you will never have to worry about this if you're staked and following governance."
Other governance changes worth knowing
Voting changes: They've switched to sequencer-only voting for now, though this is configurable. "We think that only sequences and those operators, the ones that are, you know, the service providers of the network should have seen governance."
Vote delegation: You can now delegate your voting power to someone else while still running your own validator. Perfect for people who want to participate but don't have time to keep up with every governance discussion.
Prover consistency rewards: There's now a "consistency boost for prover rewards" where you start with smaller rewards but earn more as you consistently post proofs for multiple epochs.
The validator queue acceleration
Big news here: "We think we're going to kind of turbo boost that up to 2500. So we're going to be really letting all of you in in like, no time."
Even bigger news: "Everyone that filled out the backup form for joining the sequencer said, is going to be added. Everyone will be added that filled in the backup form."
This is huge for everyone who's been waiting. As Amin put it: "We will make it go very much, like, very fast. And once you're in Nevada, dataset, register your discord handle. Register your Twitter, show off your validators, share it on Twitter on X."
Community creativity explosion
This part honestly made the whole call worth attending. The community energy was infectious.
seuncoded and the Aztec Wall of Fame
seuncoded joined the stage to talk about something cool they built - the Aztec Wall of Fame. Their motivation was simple: "I want to create something we by every man by Aztec community on come together, have fun where you can just go and look at everybody contributing to the Aztec community."
What I love about seuncoded's story is how organic it was. They discovered Aztec through a tweet, dove into the community, and immediately felt the energy: "Every community member was so glad to help you. They are not tired of being each other's. Those two things are the passion for me about hashtags."
The Wall of Fame isn't just a directory - it's become a place where community members showcase their contributions and connect with each other. seuncoded mentioned how supportive everyone is: "Everyone here is especially community side. So helpful. And, they're really forming their own, their own support system, right? Whenever someone is having any issues, any trouble, someone from the community always stands up to help out."
brcstate "Code Your Own Privacy" music video
This was the highlight for me. brcstate created an entire music video about Aztec privacy, and they played it during the call.
Her background is fascinating. She started following Aztec while "exploring ethereal scale solutions" and was immediately drawn to the privacy focus: "it's not just about speed or low gas. We bots about giving users to control of the data."
Being a music lover, she decided to write lyrics for Aztec. "Last Take that took me about four days. Then music video."
They played the full video during the call, and honestly, it was fire. Lyrics like: "When you see my... I believe that super tough. And they never know people to let you know. Keys to die... Check on the private line wallet. Lock my data safe. Moving in the talk at my own pace."
The team was clearly loving it. One of them said: "I can't wait to get all of our technical docs translated into rap."
The technical difficulties that showed growth
They tried to run a music quiz using an interactive tool, but it crashed because too many people were in the call. As someone explained: "I did a dry run for this, a few days ago. There weren't as many people in here, and that may be why it's not working."
That's a good problem to have - your community tools breaking because your audience is too big.
Community recognition time
The call featured extensive community shoutouts. As the team announced afterwards: "The following is a list of all our members who have gone above and beyond in helping create this community, in being a part of crafting who we are. For that we are so grateful!"
Main Award Winners (with prizes)
Homestaker Sentinel: Creed - Got the biggest prize, a DAP node from Aztec. The team was clear about why: "Creed, thank you so much. You definitely helped me out with so many things in the past... Creed is a very knowledgeable person. And he's very helpful. He's always in the chats, helping people out with whatever they they need."
High Attester: vegeta - For excellent attestation performance
Proposer Commander: reremaru - Top performing proposer in the server
Meme Lord: Bigbuzzzzz - For keeping the community entertained with quality memes
Content Chronicler: viktoh - For educational content and ongoing explainers
Queue Masters: Lallamaland, sahamies, 片ヨ亡亡丹片 - Excelling in their operator roles while waiting in queue
New Maestros (for cultural contributions): Mahtisa, seuncoded, brcstate - Recognized for creative community contributions
Community Support Recognition
Top Guardians: LIGHT and iamdine - Consistently helping community members and staying active in chats
Top Explorers: Amir and Rowley - Always in voice channels helping others with technical issues
Explorer Shoutouts (19 people recognized)
Amir, Ashley, Adetola, Caprison, Moew, adesile96, Haru, LuBu, NÜELŁA, Derry, Uche, Omogecrypto, chemist, hieuwb, shiv@, jhei, Creed, Rowley, Mubarak
Guardian Shoutouts (20 people recognized)
christian216, Le Thach, 0xedward, BigFella, SpaceKing, Vaine, VICXWEB, 0baid, erolfi, Stunt, aabis, iamdine, BHARAT, DocKhachHanh, SPARSH, Tdayz, LIGHT, Lordy, Nasty benzo, Cryptocattelugu
Role Upgrades
The Paragon Upgrade: Mr FOMO - Elevated to the highest community recognition tier
The Archivist Upgrades (5 people): Lordy, 0baid, surojitpvt, frianowzki, Supra_Emotion
The Initiated Upgrades (21 people): Cornell, Oxroll, LuBu, mrnv, 0xedward, adesile96, 0, Kuro, Sacura, WyldB0t, Starfish, Ryzen, bimobb, Luckystar, Insane, Bhanu saini, Shravni, Hax, Le Thach, ZAYNI, jaehaerys
Special Appreciation
AzMods (Discord Moderators): Jaseke, Ahsok, Hendrix, Soleil, PlaceboEffect, 0xGolden, Bart, dinhdat
Language Ambassadors: Creed, Ufuk Yaman, Amir, Batuhan, Can, Danny, EDWARD, Rama Aditya, Nirnaeth, Fhermontiel, Lelouch33
This recognition felt genuine. These aren't just random giveaways - they're acknowledging people who've been consistently contributing across multiple areas of the community.
What's coming next
September 3rd network deployment - This will be the last time validators need to manually migrate. After this, governance-following validators will be automatically moved.
Validator queue acceleration - Everyone who filled out the backup form is getting added, and the processing rate is jumping to 2,500 per day.
Weekly recognition continuing - These community shoutouts are becoming a regular thing.
The 2K milestone challenge - Still hanging out there. If the next call hits 2,000 people, someone's doing karaoke.
The culture that's actually working
What struck me most was how the community is creating its own infrastructure. The Wall of Fame, music videos, educational content, helper networks - none of this was mandated or organized by the team. It's happening organically.
seuncoded's comment really captured it: "It is the energy that is, encouraging the community. And I appreciate you guys. Just keep up with the supporting systems. It means a lot to all of us."
The team clearly recognizes this. When they talked about community contributions, you could hear the genuine appreciation. They're not just tolerating community creativity - they're celebrating it and platforming it.
brcstate music video getting played in full during an official town hall? That's not something you see in most crypto projects.
Technical difficulties as a growth indicator
The music quiz breaking, tab management jokes, audio issues - all of this actually pointed to the same thing: rapid growth creating scaling challenges.
When someone made fun of Robert's browser tab situation, the response was perfect: "Every time we flush the validate the queue, I open up 50 new tabs." That's the kind of problem you want to have.
Final thoughts
This Town Hall reinforced something I've been noticing about Aztec - the community isn't just using the technology, they're actively building the culture around it.
Amin's governance presentation was solid and necessary, but what made the call memorable was seeing people like seuncoded and brcstate getting genuine platform time to showcase their contributions.
The technical updates matter, but the community energy is what's driving adoption. When you have people creating music videos about privacy technology and building directories to celebrate contributors, you know something real is happening.
The near-miss on 2,000 attendees (1,970) just adds to the anticipation for next week. Given the momentum, that karaoke challenge is probably happening soon.
Looking forward to September 3rd and seeing how smoothly this last validator migration goes. If they deliver on the governance-following promise, it'll be a major improvement to the validator experience.
Author's Note
I attended this Town Hall live on August 14th and took notes throughout the entire session. This recap reflects my personal experience and observations from actually being there for the full call.
The highlight was definitely the community segment - hearing brcstate music video and learning about seuncoded's Wall of Fame project. The energy around community contributions felt genuine and infectious.
The technical content from Amin was dense but important. The governance changes he outlined should solve a lot of the friction validators have been experiencing with network upgrades.
Please forgive any errors in the writing or in this recap - I tried my best to convey information accurately based on what I heard and noted during the event.
Want to join the Aztec community or attend weekly Town Halls? Join the Aztec Discord or follow @AztecNetwork for updates on upcoming calls and community events.