When it comes to blockchain, many people get stuck on this dead end—either complete transparency or total privacy, and it seems there’s no third way. Transparency scares off financial institutions, while privacy angers regulators. The Dusk project happens to approach this problem from the opposite direction.

This is not a generic chain that tries to do everything. From the very beginning, Dusk has been clear about its mission: to build foundational infrastructure for the regulated financial world. The key is that it doesn’t treat privacy and compliance as two opposing concepts; instead, from the moment of its underlying architecture, it integrates both seamlessly.

The traditional approach is to first build the system and then attach compliance labels on top. Dusk’s approach is completely reversed—imagine a confidential channel with built-in checkpoints, where data in transit can hide details and protect trade secrets, yet still provide regulators with tamper-proof proofs. This is achieved using cutting-edge cryptographic tools like zero-knowledge proofs, but the real genius lies in the design of "selective disclosure." Sensitive parts of a transaction can be locked, while the parts that need verification are revealed.

What does this mean? Banks and asset management firms can conduct private transactions or issue assets on-chain, meeting audit and compliance requirements without any awkwardness. For those traditional players who have been watching blockchain from the sidelines, this instantly removes both psychological and technical barriers.

The ecosystem is also steadily advancing. The DuskEVM mainnet is already running, lowering the barrier for developers. More convincingly, it has partnered with the Dutch licensed exchange NPEX—this is not just a proof of concept, but real-world tokenized securities worth hundreds of millions of euros being moved onto the chain. The migration of real assets is far more convincing than any white paper.

Amid a sea of boastful projects, Dusk remains somewhat quiet. It’s not rushing to revolutionize or promote disruption; instead, it’s diligently solving the most practical and challenging problem—how to truly combine finance and blockchain. This pragmatic attitude and long-term vision make me believe it has found a solid path. The next-generation financial infrastructure might look like this.