What is Aztec? | Privacy-first zkRollup | Aztec Documentation
The PXE is unaware of the Public VM. And the Public VM is unaware of the PXE. They are completely separate execution environments. This means: Private state works with UTXOs, or what we call notes. To keep things private, everything is stored in an append-only UTXO tree, and a nullifier is created when notes are invalidated. Nullifiers are then stored in their own nullifier tree. Public state works similarly to other chains like Ethereum, behaving like a public ledger. Public data is stored in a public data tree. Aztec smart contract developers should keep in mind that different types are used when manipulating private or public state. Working with private state is creating commitments and nullifiers to state, whereas working with public state is directly updating state. Every account in Aztec is a smart contract (account abstraction). This allows implementing different schemes for transaction signing, nonce management, and fee payments. Developers can write their own account contract
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