Ran a quick RPC check against the DuskEVM testnet before deploying anything, just to confirm I was actually on the right network. Small step, but it grounded the CreatorPad task in something real instead of docs screenshots. Bridged a batch of $DUSK from DuskDS to fund the deployment wallet, then pushed a basic Solidity contract through Hardhat. #dusk @Dusk

What actually stopped me wasn't the deployment succeeding, it was the fee breakdown afterward. I'd assumed "privacy-preserving EVM" meant privacy was baked into every transaction by default. It isn't. The execution fee and the data-availability fee for posting the batch back to DuskDS were both fully visible, standard OP-Stack style. Nothing shielded unless you deliberately route through Hedger.

That's a fair assumption to have gotten wrong. Dusk's messaging leans hard on confidentiality, so it's easy to expect the EVM layer inherits that by default rather than as something you opt into separately.

Makes sense architecturally, settlement and privacy tooling staying decoupled from general-purpose execution. Still curious how many devs building here right now are actually reaching for Hedger, versus just shipping standard EVM contracts and moving on. This is my own observation from testing, not financial advice worth digging into further if you're evaluating the ecosystem.

Which part of building on DuskEVM would you try first? 👇