How BlackNodes Created Aztec's First Governance Proposal And It Passed With 99.99% Yes Votes

How BlackNodes Created Aztec's First Governance Proposal — And It Passed With 99.99% Yes Votes

On January 19, 2026, we published a proposal on Aztec's governance forum that would go on to become the network's very first executed governance action. Proposal #1 — the TGE payload to unlock $AZTEC token transfers — passed with an overwhelming 671.8M votes in favor and just 86.4K against. That's 99.99% approval.

This is the story of how it happened.

Why We Stepped Up

BlackNodes has been a Genesis Sequencer on Aztec since day one. We've been producing blocks, supporting the network, and watching the ecosystem mature. When the 90-day accelerated lock period began approaching its end, making February 11, 2026 the earliest possible date for TGE, we saw an opportunity — and a responsibility.

No one had put forward a formal proposal yet. The community was waiting. Exchanges, wallet providers, staking infrastructure — everyone needed a clear governance timeline to prepare. So we decided to write it ourselves.

Crafting the Proposal

Writing the first governance proposal for a brand-new network isn't something you take lightly. We spent time studying the TGE payload contract deployed at 0x77A5EEF319E23615B848a09Ebd151744547b959C, reviewing the ignition-contracts repository, and making sure we understood exactly what the payload would do once executed.

The proposal needed to be thorough. We broke it down into several key sections: what the payload does technically, what becomes unlocked at TGE, the full governance lifecycle from signaling to execution, and the voting parameters the community would need to meet.

We were deliberate about one thing in particular — we included a clear note that no one should signal or vote for a payload they hadn't personally verified. Governance only works when participants do their own due diligence.

The Governance Lifecycle in Action

Here's how the full process played out:

Community Discussion (Jan 19 onwards) — We published the proposal on the governance forum. The response was immediate. Community members began reviewing the payload, asking questions, and providing feedback. The forum post gathered over 2,400 views and 31 likes.

Sequencer Signaling — Genesis Sequencers began configuring their nodes to signal support for the payload address. The quorum requirement was 600 out of 1,000 slots. We provided clear instructions, recommending the environment variable method so signaling would persist across node restarts.

Proposal Creation (Jan 23) — Once signaling quorum was reached, the proposal was formally submitted on-chain. The proposer address 0x06Ef...63ef called submitRoundWinner on the Governance Proposer contract, officially creating Proposal #1.

Voting Period (Jan 26 – Feb 2) — Seven days of voting. This is where the numbers spoke for themselves.

Execution (Feb 9 onwards) — After the 7-day execution delay, the proposal became executable. It was successfully executed, and TGE went live.

The Results: By the Numbers

Metric Value Proposal Number #1 (First ever on Aztec) Yes Votes 671,799,154 AZTEC (99.99%) No Votes 86,400 AZTEC (0.01%) Total Voting Power 759.3M AZTEC Participation Rate 100% of quorum requirement met Quorum Required 100,000,000 AZTEC Supermajority Threshold 66.5% Yes needed Actual Yes Percentage 99.99%

The proposal didn't just pass — it passed with near-total consensus. Out of hundreds of millions of tokens voted, fewer than 87,000 voted No. The community was aligned.

What TGE Unlocked

With the proposal executed, several things happened simultaneously:

Token Transferability — 100% of tokens from the public sale became fully transferable on Ethereum mainnet. No changes to allocations or balances — only the transfer restrictions were removed.

Staking Rewards — Accumulated block rewards for stakers became claimable. Sequencers who had been producing blocks since genesis could finally access their earned rewards.

Uniswap v4 Pool — The pool went live with 273,000,000 $AZTEC tokens paired with matching ETH at the final clearing price. This gave the token its first on-chain liquidity venue.

Governance Expansion — The new Staker implementation enabled voting power delegation for non-genesis sequencers, broadening participation in future governance decisions.

Lessons Learned

A few takeaways from being the first to author a governance proposal on a new network:

Clarity matters more than brevity. When you're asking people to vote on something that affects an entire network, you need to be exhaustive. We included payload addresses, contract references, Etherscan links, the full governance lifecycle, and step-by-step signaling instructions. The goal was to make it as easy as possible for anyone to verify independently.

Timing is everything. We published the proposal with enough lead time for community discussion before signaling began. Rushing governance erodes trust. Giving people time to review, ask questions, and raise concerns made the eventual vote stronger.

Community alignment is real. A 99.99% approval rate isn't something you manufacture. It reflects genuine consensus. The Aztec community understood the importance of TGE and was ready for it.

What's Next for BlackNodes

This was our first governance proposal on Aztec, but it won't be our last. As a Genesis Sequencer, we're committed to the long-term health and growth of the network. We'll continue producing blocks, participating in governance, and contributing to the ecosystem.

Privacy is the future of blockchain. Aztec is building the infrastructure to make that future possible. We're proud to have played a role in one of its earliest milestones.

BlackNodes is a Genesis Sequencer on Aztec Network and the author of Proposal #1 — the first governance proposal executed on the network.