When it comes to blockchain, many people's first reaction is Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other completely public ledgers. But for financial institutions, this "everyone can see" design is actually a nightmare—customer privacy leaks, regulatory audits are impossible to conduct, and problems pile up.

This is exactly what Dusk Network has been pondering since its founding in 2018. Their approach is quite interesting: they want to protect privacy while also meeting regulatory requirements. Can both be achieved simultaneously? The answer is yes—through the use of zero-knowledge proofs and homomorphic encryption, two cryptographic tools.

Imagine your transactions are completely private by default, invisible to everyone. But if you're an institutional client needing to report to regulators, you just need to turn on a specific "audit switch," and relevant parties can see the necessary information, while others remain completely unaware. This flexible design approach is precisely what traditional blockchains lack.

By 2026, Dusk will have delivered impressive results. The DuskTrade platform, in partnership with the regulated Dutch NPEX exchange, has tokenized over €300 million of real financial assets (bonds, stocks, etc.) on the blockchain. Investors can trade these assets here, with fully compliant processes, near real-time settlement, and fees far lower than traditional channels. In the second week of the same month, DuskEVM mainnet officially launched—a fully Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible contract layer, allowing developers to continue writing smart contracts in Solidity and seamlessly migrate the entire ecosystem.