Having spent many years in the privacy public chain space, my aesthetic standards have indeed been refined. I've looked at and used dozens of projects—probably around eighty or ninety—and every white paper sounds spectacularly impressive. But honestly, very few projects make me feel confident about holding long-term and not wanting to trade frequently. It wasn't until I encountered Dusk that I realized my dissatisfaction with projects wasn't because I set the bar too high, but because most projects have been fundamentally misguided from the start.

The issues with early privacy chains are actually quite concentrated. Some completely ignore regulatory concerns; no matter how advanced the technology, I wouldn't dare use it, always thinking, "This will definitely cause trouble sooner or later." Others claim to be cutting-edge but run terribly slow in practice—forget supporting financial transactions, even basic operations can make your blood pressure soar. Dusk takes a different approach—it doesn't choose between "privacy" and "compliance." Instead, it treats both as fundamental principles of its underlying design, requiring both to be satisfied simultaneously.

What truly changed my view of Dusk was its clear understanding of its own positioning. It’s not trying to please everyone but is focused on financial application scenarios, building a regulatory-friendly privacy public chain. Thanks to this clear direction, it naturally adapts to regulatory frameworks like the EU’s MiCA. In essence—assets flow on-chain, and you don’t have to worry about sudden policy changes every day. This peace of mind is truly rare in the privacy track.

On the technical side, Dusk also has real skills. It uses zero-knowledge proofs to build confidential smart contracts, encrypting transaction data on-chain while allowing authorized parties (such as regulators or authorized participants) to view it normally. This balance between privacy protection and regulatory transparency is not just talk.