Aztec TGE could launch as early as February 2026: Analysis of the roadmap and investment value after the 19,000 ETH public sale

Aztec recently announced that the public sale of its token, AZTEC, has officially ended. This auction, which adopted the innovative CCA mechanism, attracted a total of 16,741 participants and raised 19,476 ETH, with approximately 50% of the funds coming from Aztec community users, testnet operators, and creators.

A notable timeline: the TGE (Token Generation Event) could be triggered as early as February 11, 2026, through on-chain governance voting.

01 Public Sale Overview

Aztec’s token sale used a fully on-chain and transparent Continuous Clearing Auctions mechanism, in stark contrast to traditional private-sale-driven models.

According to official data, a total of 16,741 unique users participated in this public sale. This reflects the project’s commitment to community-driven and fair access.

In terms of funding sources, up to 50% of the subscription capital came from community members, including regular users, testnet operators, and content creators. This funding structure is markedly different from traditional token issuances dominated by institutional capital.

02 Technical Value

Aztec is not just another high-throughput general-purpose Layer 2—it is fundamentally positioned to bring programmable privacy to Ethereum.

This means developers can add privacy layers to smart contract transactions, user balances, and even application logic within the familiar Ethereum ecosystem, without needing to turn to dedicated privacy chains.

This design enables Aztec to support a wide range of privacy-demanding use cases, from confidential lending strategies and encrypted DAO governance to institution-grade financial compliance.

03 TGE Timeline & Mechanism

According to Aztec’s official roadmap, the TGE trigger mechanism is entirely determined by community governance, embodying the project’s spirit of decentralization.

The process, which can begin as early as February 11, 2026, will undergo a complete on-chain voting flow. Only token sale participants and genesis sorters are eligible to participate in this critical vote.

The voting will last for 7 days, requiring participation from at least 100 million AZTEC tokens, and must receive at least 2/3 approval to pass.

04 Current Steps for Investors

For investors who have successfully participated in the public sale, Aztec has clarified several key steps.

First, they need to visit the sale website to create their own “Token Vault”—a smart contract deployed on Ethereum mainnet for safely storing tokens before the TGE.

Notably, if a user’s Token Vault holds 200,000 or more AZTEC tokens, they can now start staking and earning block rewards. Users holding less than this threshold are temporarily unable to stake.

05 Unlock & Liquidity

Once the TGE is triggered by vote, several key liquidities will be immediately released.

At that time, all AZTEC tokens acquired through the token sale will be 100% unlocked and freely transferable.

Meanwhile, a Uniswap V4 liquidity pool will launch simultaneously, containing 273 million AZTEC tokens and an equivalent value of ETH, providing deep liquidity for initial trading.

06 Market Positioning & Valuation Analysis

During the public sale, based on ETH prices at the time, the fully diluted valuation (FDV) for the token sale was about $390 million.

Previously, officials stated that the starting floor price for this community-first issuance was based on a $350 million FDV, which is roughly a 75% discount compared to Aztec Labs’ recent network valuation implied by equity financing.

AZTEC Tokenomics & Distribution Overview

07 Risk Considerations

As a privacy-focused technical Layer 2, Aztec’s development inevitably comes with certain domain-specific risks.

Regulatory risk is a primary concern; global attitudes towards crypto privacy tools are still evolving. Additionally, the non-transferable period before the TGE and the staking threshold may result in limited initial liquidity and participation stratification.

Furthermore, the technical requirements and hardware costs for running validator nodes could initially impact the degree of network decentralization.

Future Outlook

As of December 8, the AZTEC token has not yet been listed for trading on platforms such as Gate, so there is currently no public market price data available.

After the TGE, users can check the latest price and trading information on the Gate platform. Aztec’s official team will hold a Discord online meeting at 3:00 pm on December 11 to discuss next steps for token holders in an AMA format.

This auction, which ran from December 2 to December 6, has ended, but Aztec’s journey to build a privacy-preserving Ethereum Layer 2 is just beginning.