No affiliation with Aztec, but it's absurd to lump them in the same bucket as Shiba.
> pump and dump crypto currencies
Aztec has been in development since 2017, and has solved some real problems in cryptography in order to accomplish their goals. Besides, it doesn't have its own token, so there's nothing to pump.
> Solves nothing, serves no purpose
It allows Ethereum users to transact in private.
> but increases the demand for Ethereum transactions which ultimately drives the cost of Ethereum
It does the opposite, since it's a rollup - the transactions happen off-chain.
Oh, and NFTs as well. Another worthless crap just to create more Ethereum transactions. Why worthless? Because ... Ethereum is just one of multiple crypto currencies/block chains and tell me again why your particular NFT on top of Ethereum is worth more than the same object on another blockchain? And how many times can the same object be (re)sold on all other blockchains? Do you need to own all of them? Or Ethereum NFT is somehow better?