ItsKhanOnChain

We often say, within the blockchain world, that "privacy is a luxury." Most privacy protocols are famously slow, clunky, and resource-heavy, thus making them a nightmare for real-world integrations. This is the so-called Privacy Paradox: we want decentralization, but we aren't willing to wait minutes at a checkout counter or a digital gate for a proof to verify.
This is exactly where Dusk (@dusk_foundation) has shattered the ceiling. This is where Dusk’s work in the FORT protocol has managed to achieve the unthinkable—Zero-Knowledge Proofs in the speed of thought itself.
The Secret Sauce: Lightweight Cryptography
The breakthrough isn’t just about privacy; it’s also about efficiency. ZK proofs usually need significant computing power, but Dusk’s work was designed with the “Edge” in mind, i.e., the smartphones and smartwatches carried around daily.
Verification in the Blink of an Eye Certainly, in the context of the FORT benchmarks, the verification of the private access right "feels invisible." The protocol supports the verification of multiple connections in high-density environments such as smart cities:
Mid-range Smartphone: Below 0.005 seconds for verification.IoT low power - Raspberry Pi Zero: It required only 0.13 seconds.
This means you can prove you have a valid subscription, a VIP pass, or a "right to enter" a zone without the gate pausing. You aren't just private; you are frictionless.
Selective Disclosure: Proving Facts, Not Data
The actual tech advantage, however, lies with Attribute Blinding. You’re not asked to disclose your whole ID, which, by the way, can expose your sensitive information like your address or birthdate, but rather relies on Bulletproofs or Range Proofs, and allows you to prove specific attributes instead.

For example, instead of proving that "you are over 18" or that "your bank balance is sufficient," and instead of revealing the actual values, one can prove this to the service provider using Pedersen Commitments and keep the actual values entirely hidden.

DUSK Opportunity
As we advance to a Real-World Asset (RWA) world, there is a need to search for a chain that is not only compliant and secure, as has been described, but also fast enough to use by consumers. We know that $DUSK is the only Layer-1 built from day one to perform the heavy lifting of Zero-Knowledge math at a rate fast enough to use by consumers. In the race to win at Web3, it’s not going to be about who is most private, but who is most seamless. And with Dusk Network, privacy is finally a background process, not a barrier.
#dusk $DUSK @Dusk_Foundation

Let's discuss Dusk Network and their Kadcast protocol. If you’re into crypto and tech, and care about global utility and regulated sectors in finance, then $DUSK from @dusk_foundation is definitely worth looking into. “It's a Layer-1 blockchain that truly delivers on both utility and privacy. Honestly, it's flying under the radar at the moment, but I have a feeling this isn’t going to be the case for much longer.”
Well, let’s talk about one of the smartest, most underappreciated aspects of Dusk’s tech: its own peer-to-peer broadcasting protocol, called Kadcast. And honestly, it’s leagues ahead of those old gossip protocol implementations that most blockchains are saddled with.
So here is the real scoop on the traditional gossip protocols used in 2025: they are a mess. All nodes just end up sending messages to all their neighbors. Then they all end up sending messages to all their neighbors, and so on. What results from all of this noise?
You're using up way too much bandwidth for the nodes.Latency? All over the place.The same message keeps being sent over and over again, clogging things up.You get more orphaned blocks and the network slows down.
Dusk saw all this chaos and basically said,
“Yeah, no thanks. We can do better.” And that’s where Kadcast comes in.
The Technical Core: How Kademlia DHT Changed
Kadcast begins with the Kademlia Distributed Hash Table, but turns it on its head. Kademlia’s origins are rooted in the discovery of nodes, simply knowing where things are. Dusk extends this into a powerful broadcast system, taking the old method and Dusk extends this into a powerful broadcast system.
The Real Reason the XOR Metric Counts
Kadcast isn’t random in its message dissemination. It uses a way of categorizing the nodes in buckets. These buckets are categorized by the XOR metric, which measures distance. So, the routing table is kept sharp at all times.
But honestly, the thing that really stands out here is the efficiency with which messages are delivered. It isn't just fast – it’s logarithmic, or O(log n), in a nutshell. So while you might up the node count in the network from a thousand to a million, messages only take a blink of an eye longer to propagate. The network doesn’t slow down under the sheer volume of messages that typically plague a standard gossip network.
From Chaos to the Multicast Tree
Most of these gossip protocols just send messages all over the place, and hope that eventually they get where they really belong. It’s messy, and it wastes an awful lot of bandwidth. Kadcast, of course, doesn’t work like this. It’s deterministic, which means we use the power of DHTs to put together a little multicast tree in just milliseconds. Each node gets the message just when they need it, no more, no less. The end result? You look at using 25% to 50% less bandwidth than all these previous messy protocols.

Built-in Fault Tolerance
let's face it: networks are messy; nodes sometimes go out of circulation without warning—often just crashing and burning altogether. Kadcast doesn't care: that's fine by them.
A routing table that adjusts in real-time.Automatic peer swapping if a node fails.Having more peers in each bucket to guarantee a backpath.
Security and Privacy That Actually Matter
Every piece of messaging receives a signature, and a checking process occurs before anything is relayed. This prevents Sybil attacks from happening. But here’s where it gets fascinating – what you don’t realize is that messages are relayed via a series of hops with distant nodes. Therefore, you cannot identify where anything comes from.
Thus, this is a big deal for Dusk. They are all about keeping things private while at the same time playing by the rules. Kadcast helps them with this since information can be moved around confidentially without necessarily revealing the sources. This is what exactly you need for your regulated DeFi, tokenized assets, etc., if you value your private information and adhere to rules.

Bottom Line
Here's the real story: Kadcast is not some minor networking fix. This is a major step up that gives:
$DUSK faster speeds, slashes bandwidth, boosts privacyIt keeps the whole thing rock-solid. Even better, it runs smoothly on simple hardware; there is no need for fancy setups.
If you care about privacy blockchains that actually scale and play by the rules, pay attention to DUSK. The tech holds up under pressure, the team just keeps on delivering, and they know exactly where they're headed.
So, what's your take? Is structured P2P where we're all going to end up, or are we just going to stay with the same old gossip protocol forever? Let's hear it.
#dusk $DUSK @Dusk_Foundation

Let’s face it: almost everything we want to do online these days requires far more information than we ought to give out.
Purchasing a concert ticket? Enter your name, email, phone number, and sometimes even your ID scan.
Subscribing to a streaming service? Link a card and the viewing history becomes forever stored.
Future smart cities or IoT type stuff? Could be your location, habits, health info – end up in somebody’s database somewhere.
We're putting our trust in those large organizations (or unscrupulous apps) not to sell, divulge, or develop secret profiles about us, tracking our movements into the future. Most persons are unaware of just how integrated their virtual life currently is.
That is exactly why Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) feels so exciting right now. The idea is simple: You are in control of your credentials. You can verifiably claim “I'm over 18”, or “I bought the VIP ticket”, or “I completed KYC”, etc. without giving away your entire life story and without some entity being the middleman.
Early this year, a certain paper was published by Xavier Salleras (from Dusk Network) titled Citadel: Self-Sovereign Identities on Dusk Network, which actually tries to solve this in a serious, privacy-first way.
Most NFT-based identity projects today are still far from reaching that ideal.
A lot of teams tried putting tickets, memberships or access rights on-chain as NFTs — more often than not, on Ethereum or similar chains.
You mint NFT, you prove ownership with a zero-knowledge proof, but no one knows what’s inside.
Sounds good, doesn't it… until one looks at it
The information contained in the NFT itself is typically completely public (Token ID, address, date of mint, etc.)Even if the users hide their information, linking between the events or services could deanonymize users still.
Revoking a stolen ticket or a cancelled membership? Very hard without either violating privacy or using a centralized server.
Citadel was designed specifically to fix those exact issues, and it does so by living natively inside Dusk Network, a Layer-1 chain that has been designed for privacy from day one.
How Citadel actually works-the cool part

The Citadel SSI Workflow: Privacy-preserving interaction between Issuer, User and Verifier.
Dusk already has an extremely elegant transaction model called Phoenix; confidential notes — like private UTXOs — with zk-SNARK proofs on every transfer.
Citadel extends that very system to create private NFTs; they call them private notes carrying rights/licenses.
Two Flavors:
Type 2: Semi-transparent NFT (metadata visible, however benefits from Dusk privacy everywhere else)
Type 3: Fully encrypted payload. Only the owner can decrypt the contents (i.e., the ticket details, a signature from the issuer, and the expiry date).
Real-world example:
You want a festival ticketYou send $DUSK payment to the organizer via PhoenixThe Organizer then signs your attributes: (VIP access, valid 3 days, holder over 18)They mint a private encrypted NFT note and send it to a one-time stealth address that you createdThat message remains private on the Dusk blockchain, and no one else can read what is contained thereAt the gate, you generate a zk-SNARK proof showing:
• You own/decrypt this note
• The signature is valid
• The note has not been spent or revoked …all without revealing your identity or the note itself
Why this actually matters?
No on-chain traces that join you across events or services.True decentralized revocation - organizer able to revoke stolen tickets through consensus without requiring access to your wallet.You choose what to reveal, just the word ‘over 18’, ‘VIP holder’, etc., never the actual ticket data itself.Mobile friendly – heavy proof generation can be left to helpers (which Dusk’s approach safely supports).No need for gas wars or wallet linking as in Ethereum.
Imagine 2026
Buy festival tickets anonymously.Get venue access without scanning a QR code that links to your wallet history.Organizer revokes fake tickets without a central server.Same technology that's been used for parking rights, gym memberships, and other regulated DeFi apps and privacy-preserving voting systems.
That is the kind of future that Citadel is pointing to. @dusk_foundation has been working on its own privacy infrastructure, but the Citadel cum RWA tokenization drive, along with the push for MiCA, could make $DUSK one of the cleanest chains for private yet regulated activity. What do you think? Are we finally close to tickets & rights that are both secure and private?
#dusk $DUSK @Dusk_Foundation

Blockchain is always evolving, and this is particularly true when it comes to finding a balance between privacy and the need for regulation and auditing. The traditional blockchains, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, are all about transparency. You can see the transaction values, the wallet balances, the whole shebang. This is fantastic if you want to be transparent, but not so great if you want to maintain privacy, such as in business or supply chain management.
This is where Haults a protocol developed by $DUSK Network, comes in. It stands for Homomorphic Encryption-based Vaults, and it is a new protocol that has emerged from some new research. The interesting thing about Haults is that it combines homomorphic encryption, zero-knowledge proofs, and smart contracts. When you combine all of these things, you have a system that allows you to maintain the privacy of your balances, even on blockchains that use virtual machines, such as those that are compatible with Ethereum.
Haults provide a very intelligent wallet solution that strikes a balance between privacy and permissioning. They are not like completely anonymous platforms like Zcash or Monero. With Haults, you always know who is participating in a transaction, but you cannot see their balances or what they are sending. This is a good combination if you want to identify users, perhaps for legal purposes, but keep the actual money information private.
Haults revolve around these things called "notes." They’re specialized data structures that contain value, all encrypted. Each note has two encrypted components.
One of them is encrypted with MapRecoverable encryption. Essentially, if you have the right private key, you can decrypt this and read the underlying value.
The other one is encrypted with a homomorphic encryption scheme, MapHomomorphic, which is based on ElGamal encryption over elliptic curves. This one is particularly slick: you can sum up the encrypted balances of multiple notes without decrypting them. That way, you can add up all the values without learning what’s in each note.

Each user has their own Hault keypairs—this is like a set of special keys developed by $DUSK Network specifically for the Hault protocol, and they are completely separate from their blockchain addresses. These keys take care of all the encryption and decryption. There is also an auditor involved in this process, who holds a public key that provides an additional layer of encryption to every transaction. This way, in case there is a need to check compliance or investigate any transactions or even trace lost funds, the auditor can decrypt the amounts. However, this information is not accessible to the common user or the rest of the network, so privacy is maintained.

The core of Haults is based on the transfer protocol. When a user wants to send value w to another user, the following takes place:
First, the sender gathers their notes and calculates their old balance in both plain number form (after decryption) and its encrypted form. They then subtract w from the balance to obtain their new encrypted balance. Next, they make new notes for the recipient, locked under the recipient’s public key, as well as a set for the auditor. To connect all the dots, they construct a zero-knowledge proof that verifies all the steps are valid, including the fact that nothing new is created or destroyed, the old notes are destroyed, and all the encryption is sound, without revealing w or the balances.

The “Hault” smart contract verifies the proof and the public inputs—such as ensuring that the old encrypted sums actually match what’s been stored. It then removes any notes that have already been used and adds new ones to both the sender’s and the recipient’s accounts. This ensures that everything is safe on the blockchain, and at the same time, it doesn’t expose anyone’s private information.
There are a couple of special cases. For minting, the contract owner—basically the issuer—emits new notes through transparent encryption. This means that they set the randomness to zero, so the amount is exposed to everyone. This way, people can check the total supply, but regular notes still hide the amounts. Then you have the force transfers. If someone loses their keys, the auditor can chime in. With their own keys, they prove and complete the transfer, which allows people to get their money back without jeopardizing the entire system.
Haults’ design keeps things simple by using only one transfer circuit for almost all operations. This reduces complexity immensely. The zero knowledge circuit is responsible for a few important tasks: it verifies points on the elliptic curve, ensures that all values remain within bounds so you don’t end up with overflows or funky negative values, keeps homomorphic subtraction and encryption under control, and double-checks that recoverable and homomorphic mappings actually correspond.
This design is based on the basics of elliptic curve cryptography, in which the public key is a point on the curve (pk = sk · G).
But what does this all mean in practice? Haults can support enterprise blockchains, DeFi platforms that operate within the law, or networks where real-world assets are tokenized – areas where you need privacy, but you can’t afford to forget accountability. They avoid the problems that come with completely private blockchains, such as not scaling well or regulators pushing back, but they still maintain a whole lot more privacy than transparent blockchains.
With more and more regulated sectors turning to blockchain, solutions like Haults show the way forward: privacy is baked in from the start, there’s the ability to audit if necessary, and anyone can check what’s happening if they have to. It safeguards user data and helps people actually trust these digital finance systems, even as they come under the microscope. And with zero-knowledge proofs and homomorphic encryption continually improving, you can bet that Dusk Network's Haults-like systems will take privacy-enhanced smart contracts to the next level.
#dusk $DUSK @Dusk_Foundation

Dusk Reinforced Concrete (RC) is a new hash function that is super fast in zero-knowledge proofs (such as ZK-SNARKs or STARKs). It is not like regular hash functions (such as SHA-256). Rather, it is designed to work directly over mathematical fields (prime number fields) so that proofs need fewer multiplications and are much faster.
First, let’s understand this: What is a hash?
A hash is like a machine that takes data of any size and produces a fixed-size “fingerprint.”
This fingerprint is so sensitive that even a tiny change in the data completely changes the fingerprint.
To generate this fingerprint, $DUSK RC uses a sponge construction.
Think of a sponge like this: it soaks up water and then you squeeze it out.
Dusk RC uses the same principle to generate a fingerprint.
Data goes in during the absorb phase, and the hash output comes out during the squeeze phase.
Here’s a simple sponge idea:
Left side: input is absorbed (you keep feeding the message)
Right side: output is squeezed (you extract the digest / hash)

This is simple sponge diagram – the green bit is the rate (where you put in the message), and the red cylinders are the permutation rounds that mix it.
Concrete
This is the linear mixing step.
Imagine there is water in 3 glasses. You multiply them by a matrix, so everything gets mixed together, and then you add a few constants.
This helps changes spread very quickly across the whole state (strong diffusion)
Bricks
This is the non-linear phase (similar to S-boxes).
It employs some mathematical squaring and multiplication to make algebraic attacks (mathematical attacks) extremely difficult.
The algebraic degree is maintained high (5) to make attacks costly and impractical.
Bars
This is the actual Dusk speedup!
A number is broken up into small pieces (e.g., a 256-bit number into 32-bit pieces).
A simple non-linear operation is done on each piece (using a lookup table), and then all the pieces are combined again.
The reason why lookup tables are so cheap in zero-knowledge proofs is why Dusk RC is about 10-15× faster.
This entire concept originates from an SPN (Substitution-Permutation Network):
First, substitute with a non-linear substitution
Then, permute the values
You can imagine a simple round of an SPN like this:
The purple boxes represent S-boxes (non-linear components), and the lines represent permutation and diffusion.

Why is all this important for Dusk Network?
In a regular hash function such as Poseidon, each round has a lot of multiplications, so it is slow in zero-knowledge proofs.
$DUSK RC, due to Bars, replaces many multiplications with tables, so it is much faster.
Also, Bricks + Concrete maintain the high security level, which resists both algebraic attacks and statistical attacks.
To add some extra understanding: have you ever heard of a Merkle tree?
In blockchains, transactions are hashed and put into a tree structure such that the proof is small.
Dusk RC is used in exactly these types of proofs.
This is a simple diagram of a Merkle tree – the data is at the bottom, and as you go up, you combine the hashes step by step.

#dusk $DUSK @Dusk_Foundation

Dusk Network is more than just another privacy coin. It is a conscious effort to create a blockchain on which real-world financial transactions can take place without revealing who is sending what to whom and why. To achieve this, the network relies very heavily on a shortlist of very specific cryptographic primitives: Pedersen commitments, Bulletproofs, EdDSA, bLSAG, BLS signatures, and zero-knowledge proofs in general.
These are not selected because they are fashionable. They are selected because each one addresses a specific problem that cannot be solved by simpler tools (basic ECDSA, basic hashes, basic public keys) without breaking either privacy or performance.
I can take you through each component and explain the real-world need that drove its creation and how they all work together in Dusk’s design.
1. Pedersen Commitments – Hiding values while still being able to prove they add up
Suppose you wanted to send funds on-chain but didn’t want the amount to be visible. However, the network still needs to be able to verify that the total amount of money going in is equal to the total amount of money going out (no inflation, no magic money creation).
A simple public-key encryption scheme would allow you to hide the amount. However, then you could never prove that the two hidden amounts added up to something.
Pedersen commitments exactly solve this problem.
You choose two group elements G and H, where the discrete log relationship between H and G is unknown (in practice, H is computed from G via a hash-to-point so that no one knows the log). To commit to a value x, you compute C = rG + xH.
The "magic" here is:
Hiding: Even if an attacker has unlimited compute power, they can’t figure out x from C (since that would require solving the discrete log problem for H).Binding: You can’t open the same C to two different values (discrete log hardness again).Additive homomorphism: C(x1, r1) + C(x2, r2) = C(x1+x2, r1+r2). You can add commitments without knowing the values.
In Dusk, this is used for every confidential transaction output. The sender commits to the amount they are sending and the amount they are receiving (the change). The network only sees commitments, but it can prove that they add up to zero using the homomorphism. No amounts ever go on the chain in the clear.
Vector Pedersen applies the same concept to multiple values at once (amount + blinding + memo field + whatever else you want to hide together). That’s why the paper presents the vector form – Dusk frequently needs to commit to multiple scalars at once.

2. Bulletproofs – Proving “this hidden number is between 0 and 2⁶⁴” without revealing it
With hidden numbers comes the next challenge: how to prove that the number is non-negative (or within a valid range) without revealing the number itself?
Traditional range proofs (as in old confidential transactions in Monero before Bulletproofs) were massive – several kilobytes per output.
Bulletproofs reduced this to ~2 KB for a 64-bit range, and importantly, without trusted setup.
The key to Bulletproofs’ efficiency is that they prove assertions about arithmetic circuits using inner-product proofs. The prover and verifier both operate on vectors whose inner product represents the range constraint. The proof size is merely logarithmic in the bitsize of the range.
In Dusk, Bulletproofs are used to prove:
The transaction amounts are in [0, 2⁶⁴)Correct computation of the Poseidon hash (used for note commitments) in a circuitVarious other small circuit integrity checks
Poseidon is selected specifically for its suitability for arithmetic circuits (low multiplicative depth), which keeps the Bulletproof circuit small and efficient to prove/verify.
The verification time is linear in the size of the circuit, but since the circuits Dusk employs are very small (primarily Poseidon calls), this remains feasible even on mobile hardware.

3. Signature schemes – the various roles they play in Dusk
EdDSA – efficient, deterministic, non-malleable message authentication
For regular peer-to-peer messages (gossiping, block announcements, and so on), Dusk employs EdDSA on Curve25519.
Why not ECDSA?
EdDSA is deterministic → no bad randomness can reveal the private key.
Twisted Edwards curve provides faster arithmetic and complete addition laws (no special cases).
The signature consists of merely two group elements — very compact and efficient to verify.It is the go-to scheme for anything that does not require anonymity.bLSAG (Back Linkable Spontaneous Anonymous Group signatures) – anonymous spending with double-spend protectionThis is the ring signature variant used for spending notes.
You have a set of public keys (the ring). You prove you know the secret key for one of them, without revealing which one. The signature size is constant, regardless of the ring size.
Linkability is provided by the key-image: a deterministic value computed from the secret key, and key-images are unique for each key. If you attempt to spend the same note twice, the key-images match → double-spend detected.
The “spontaneous” component indicates that there is no setup process, and anyone can choose any ring on the fly. The “Back” component refers to Adam Back’s solution that enabled linkability without compromising anonymity.
This is what enables Dusk to have anonymous transactions like Monero but also allows for double-spend detection on-chain.

BLS signatures – aggregation for consensus
BLS (Boneh-Lynn-Shacham) signatures live on pairing-friendly curves (BN-254 or BLS12-381). The pairing enables aggregation of many signatures into one short signature that verifies against the aggregated public key.
In $DUSK , this is applied in the consensus layer: hundreds of validators can sign the same block, and their signatures are aggregated on the fly, leaving only one signature on-chain. Block size remains small even with thousands of signers.
The drawback is that BLS signatures need a trusted setup for the curve parameters (or MPC ceremony), but after that, it is very powerful.

4. Zero-knowledge proofs – the overall philosophy
All the above building blocks are ultimately employed within larger zero-knowledge proofs.
The zero-knowledge proofs of $DUSK must fulfill three properties (which are explicitly stated in the paper):
Completeness – honest prover always convinces honest verifier.Soundness – cheating prover cannot convince verifier except with negligible probability.Zero-knowledge – verifier learns nothing beyond the truth of the statement.
The explanation for why these three properties are absolutely essential is straightforward: in a privacy coin, the proof is literally the only thing between the user’s financial privacy and complete transparency. If soundness is broken, then someone can print fake money. If zero-knowledge is broken, then the entire point of privacy is moot.
Dusk employs a mix of Bulletproofs (for range and circuit proofs) and other SNARK-friendly methods within its transaction proofs. This means that the observer can see only the proof and the commitments, while everything else remains hidden.

Why this particular set of tools?
It’s not possible to get everything done with one primitive. Pedersen’s gives you anonymity + binding + additivity. Bulletproofs give you efficient range and circuit proofs on top of those commitments. bLSAG gives you anonymity for spending. BLS gives you efficient consensus. EdDSA gives you fast everyday signing. They all combine to create a layered system where each layer solves exactly the problem the layer above can’t solve.
This is why Dusk’s design appears “over-engineered” compared to other, simpler chains – because it’s a harder set of problems to solve. Most other chains have to give up either privacy or scalability. Dusk is attempting to preserve both, and this requires using this particular set of cryptographic tools.
#dusk $DUSK @Dusk_Foundation

Dusk Network is a blockchain built with privacy at its core, made for the world of regulated finance. The team chose its cryptographic tools carefully—they want to keep things private, but not so private that regulators can’t do their job. At the same time, they’re after speed and efficiency without compromising security. The 2024 whitepaper spells this out: Dusk’s cryptography lets users stay anonymous when they need to, but it also leaves room for proper audits. Transactions finish quickly and don’t eat up a ton of resources. Let’s break down why each cryptographic tool made the cut and see how they help with consensus, transactions, and keeping everything running smoothly.
Digital signatures play a big role in Dusk Network. They let people prove who’s doing what—proposing blocks, making transactions—without giving up their privacy. Fraud? Not happening. Only the right folks can act, and the system knows it. The consensus mechanism uses BLS signatures, which are pretty clever. You can bundle a bunch of votes into one small signature, so the network doesn’t get bogged down with heavy traffic. That means finality happens in seconds, not minutes—important when every second counts in finance.
Now, for private transactions, Dusk turns to Schnorr signatures. These prove ownership securely and can’t be tampered with, which matters if you want to stay on the right side of the rules in regulated markets. So in short, the network stays fast, secure, and private—all thanks to smart use of digital signatures.
Zero-knowledge proofs, or ZKPs, are really the backbone of Dusk’s privacy system. They let people prove their transactions are legit without spilling details like the amount or who’s involved. That’s the whole reason Dusk uses PlonK and Groth16—they make it easy and fast to check transactions in smart contracts, without bogging everything down or burning extra energy. You get privacy, but you don’t pay for it with speed or sustainability.
When it comes to private transactions, ZKPs stop double-spending and still keep your data locked away. So $DUSK works well for confidential finance—regulators can still confirm everything’s above board, but sensitive info stays private. And here’s the kicker: ZKPs let the network scale. They can handle all sorts of complex checks without blowing up the size of the blockchain, so things like security tokens work smoothly.

Hash functions play a big role in keeping things fair and unpredictable in Dusk Network, especially when it comes to picking leaders during consensus. The team picked SHA3 because it stands up well against pre-computation attacks. That means block generators get picked in a way that’s both random and predictable, so nobody can game the system—as long as most people play by the rules, security holds up. For zero-knowledge circuits, BLAKE2b and Poseidon really shine. They’re fast and work smoothly with these circuits, which means proofs get generated quicker and privacy features don’t cost much to run. Altogether, these hash functions help $DUSK run efficiently and keep messages obfuscated as they move through the network. That’s a big plus for financial environments where resources are tight.

Commitments and nullifiers help keep private assets safe and transactions honest. Commitments let the system verify transaction outputs—called notes—without showing the details. That’s great for privacy and also helps the system scale, since it doesn’t need to cut out old data when things get busy. Nullifiers come from secret keys. They make sure people can’t spend the same asset twice, but they don’t reveal who’s doing what. That way, if auditors need to check for fraud or mistakes, they can do it without seeing everything. It’s a setup that fits well with finance rules, since you can share just enough information without giving away too much.

Encryption in Dusk keeps your transaction details private—only the people who need to see them can access them. It pulls this off with stealth addresses and some smart symmetric encryption. Stealth addresses are a neat trick: every time you use one, it creates a one-off key, so nobody can link your transactions together. That’s a big deal if you care about keeping your identity under wraps, especially when you’re dealing with sensitive finances. It also makes life easier for delegation. Third parties can watch for incoming funds, but they can’t spend them. So, you get privacy and flexibility at the same time. And here’s the kicker: Dusk doesn’t sacrifice compliance. You can selectively audit encrypted data, so regulators get what they need—without blowing up everyone’s privacy. It’s a way for Dusk to connect the decentralized world with the rules of traditional finance.
Under the hood, elliptic curves do the heavy lifting for keys and computations. Dusk uses BLS12-381 and Jubjub—both picked for solid security and speed. BLS12-381 powers transparent accounts, making key management fast and cheap. Jubjub is a favorite for private transactions that use zero-knowledge proofs, since it’s easy on circuits and cuts down on verification time and energy use. These curves keep everything secure and efficient, so Dusk can handle tons of compliant transactions without slowing down.

All these building blocks turn Dusk Network into a tough, privacy-first platform for finance. Since 2021, it’s come a long way—now it runs faster zero-knowledge proofs like Groth16 and uses SHA3 for consensus. Basically, Dusk is getting ready for the busy, more regulated world of blockchain in 2026.
#dusk $DUSK @Dusk_Foundation

Dusk Network is not another blockchain. It is one of the ones out there. This is especially true now in 2026. Dusk Network is doing something cool with real-world assets. They are making it possible to turn these assets into tokens. This is a deal because it makes finance work better with rules and laws. Dusk Network is really good at this. They are one of the leaders, in this area. Dusk Network is doing a job with this.
Here is what really sets Dusk apart: Dusk does not go all the way with total anonymity like some privacy coins and Dusk does not make everything public either. Instead Dusk focuses on privacy for $DUSK . The whole idea of Dusk from the start was to help markets and institutions such as people who need to follow all the rules of MiCA and MiFID II but who also need to keep sensitive business information private, for Dusk. That’s the balance Dusk strikes, and honestly, not many projects do it like this.
The Heart of Dusk — Segregated Byzantine Agreement (SBA)
Dusk uses something called Segregated Byzantine Agreement or SBA for short. Dusks Segregated Byzantine Agreement is their version of Proof-of-Stake. The Segregated Byzantine Agreement that Dusk uses goes for something called finality. This means that once a few steps are taken with Dusks Segregated Byzantine Agreement you can be very sure that the chain will not fork. Dusks Segregated Byzantine Agreement is an improvement, over the usual Proof-of-Stake approach. The usual Proof-of-Stake approach always leaves some doubt. Dusks Segregated Byzantine Agreement does not.
SBA splits people into two groups, and it keeps them strictly apart. First, you’ve got the Generators. They’re the ones who come up with new blocks—think of them as the leaders or proposers you see in classic BFT systems. Then there are the Provisioners. Their job is to check and finalize those blocks, just like voters or attesters.
Dusk does a job of keeping things safe by separating these roles. This really cuts down the ways that bad people might try to mess with the system. You see, of having one big group that does all the work Dusk has two separate teams, each with their own task. Dusk makes the system safer by doing this. The two teams that Dusk has are each responsible, for their job.
Now picking a leader is where things get really interesting. The Dusk method uses something called Proof-of-Blind Bid or PoBB for short. I think Dusks Proof-of-Blind Bid is one of the ways to choose a leader. It is also very good, for keeping things private. I really like the way Dusks Proof-of-Blind Bid works.
Here is the basic idea of how PoBB works:
Each participant sends in a bid that includes a things:
A Pedersen-style commitment is, like a promise that shows how stake they are putting in. This is made up of a number, which we will call v and a blinding factor, which we will call b. These two things are combined into something called c, which is calculated using the formula c = C(v, b). The Pedersen-style commitment is important because it helps to keep the stake private. The number v and the blinding factor b are used to create the commitment c.
A Poseidon hash of a secret (just, secretHash = H(secret))The secret code itself which is connected to their address the stealth address is what we are talking about the encrypted secret itself and the stealth address.The heights at which the bid is valid and the heights, at the bid expiration timeTheir stealth address, which is a pair (R, pk)
All these bids get put into something called a Merkle tree, which is also known as the bidTree. This is where the bidTree really does its thing, with all the bids. The bidTree is pretty important because it handles all the bids.

Here’s how it works. For each round and step, if you know the opening (that’s v and b) and the secret, you can figure out your score on your own. If your score hits or beats a certain threshold—which changes every epoch, depending on λ, the expected number of leaders per slot—you’re a leader for that slot.
When that happens you say loud your score, your seed and a Plonk proof. The Plonk proof is, like a math score. It shows that you did the math correctly. You are not telling anyone your secret number v or the secret itself. You are showing that you have a Plonk proof. We can also call the Plonk proof the π_score. The π_score proves that you did the math right. You are using the Plonk proof to show that you did the math correctly with your score and your seed and the Plonk proof.
This whole process is really simple. The process does what the process has to do without anyone telling the process what to do. The process is based on stake weights. One thing, about the process is that it is very hard to guess what is going to happen with the process. Nobody gets to know the secret of the process until the end when the secret of the process is finally revealed. The process also uses something called zero-knowledge proofs to help the process.
The bidding process is private. Nobody knows what anyone else is bidding on. This is the case unless the person who is bidding the bidder actually wins the auction. Then the bidder has to prove that they won the bidding process for the auction. This means the bidder has to show that they really did win the auction. The bidding process is private. That is why nobody knows what anyone else is bidding on for the auction.
If someone has than a third of the control in the system and they try to be in charge of everything like always being the leader or stopping others they will not get what they want.
The system is made so that this person cannot win.
This is true even before people start making decisions.
The person with than a third of the control in the system will fail because the system is made to stop this kind of thing from happening.
The system is designed to prevent the person with, than a third of the control from getting what they want.
Now, about finality—how blocks get confirmed for good. After someone proposes a block, there’s a two-step Reduction phase (borrowed from TABA84 but with some key differences), then an Agreement phase that runs asynchronously.
Reduction is a way to take a lot of results and turn them into a simple decision that is either yes or no. This is called an agreement. It uses something called BLS threshold signatures to make this decision.
When you use reduction the people, in charge called provisioners are divided into groups. These groups are formed in a way using VRF sortition.
To vote you need a lot of people to agree, more, than two-thirds of the committees stake. If the committee does not get votes on time the committee will move to the next step or the committee will run out of time.
The whitepaper explains the math in terms: as long as more than two thirds of the people who have a stake in each role are honest the chance of a problem with the system like a fork is very low. This is the case when you look at a round from the moment a block is proposed to the end when it goes through two reduction steps and an agreement. The chance of a fork drops low often lower, than 2 to the power of negative 40. This depends on how big the committee's what λ is. The whitepaper is talking about the whitepaper and the math it presents the math related to the whitepaper.
That’s statistical finality. It’s stronger than theThe thing about proof-of-stake chains is that they have a finality that is based on probability. This means that proof-of-stake chains have a kind of finality. But with this probabilistic finality proof-of-stake chains are still open to everyone so they stay permissionless. This is a deal, for proof-of-stake chains because it means that anyone can use them.
Privacy-Preserving Transactions — Phoenix & Zedger
When it gets dark Dusk brings two ways of doing business to the table and these two transaction models really work well with each other the Dusk transaction models are a team.
Phoenix is built on a system that uses something called UTXO. This system uses proofs called zero-knowledge proofs to keep your transfers private.
You can move your assets between modes. Some are transparent some are hidden and some are completely secret.
The Phoenix system uses things like Schnorr proofs and commitments and nullifiers to keep your transactions private.
This means that it hides the links between your transactions it protects how money you have and it stops people from spending the same money twice.
What is really cool about Phoenix is that you can use the money you get from things, like staking rewards without having to tell everyone about it.
Most systems that use zero-knowledge proofs cannot do this.
Phoenix and its use of zero-knowledge proofs is what makes it special.
Zedger is a system. It is also known as Hedger in some new documents. The Zedger system combines two ways of doing things: the UTXO model and the account-based model. This is mostly used for security tokens.
The Zedger system uses something called a Sparse Merkle Segment Tree, which's a way to keep track of multiple balances for each segment. This includes things like the balance the transactional balance, the voting balance and the dividend balance.
Zedger makes sure that all the rules are followed, like one account per user and it has a list of approved users. It also makes sure that the people receiving something have approved it and it keeps a record of all the balances. Zedger even tracks the lifecycle of something.
The Zedger system can also handle something called Confidential Security Contracts, which are also known as XSC. This means that Zedger can handle securities that can be programmed. The Zedger system is very useful, for security tokens. It helps to keep everything private and secure.
When you put these things together you can move bonds and equities and funds around in a private way. At the time people, like regulators or auditors can still look at things when they need to check on tokenized bonds and equities and funds.
There’s more under the hood, too.
Rusk VM is a WebAssembly-based virtual machine that’s gas-metered and plays nicely with zero-knowledge proofs. Kadcast handles efficient message spreading with its structured gossip overlay. And native Genesis Contracts take care of core features like staking, rewards, slashing, DUSK transfers, and moving assets between transparent and shielded layers.
2025–2026 Milestones & Why It Matters Now
The mainnet goes live in early 2025, wrapping up almost six years of research and development. That’s a huge stretch—one of the longest, most intentional builds you’ll find for any Layer-1 project.
Here’s what’s on deck for 2025 and 2026:
DuskEVM launches, and it’s Solidity-compatible, so you can bring over Ethereum tools without the usual headaches.
Zedger rolls out completely, opening the door for institutions to issue real-world assets.
They’re teaming up with regulated venues like NPEX and 21X.
$DUSK holders get hyperstaking rewards.
They’re building MiCA-aligned infrastructure, which means on-chain trading of real, regulated securities is actually happening.
Thing is, regulators want KYC, AML, audits, and transparency. Traders and issuers? They want privacy—nobody wants their strategy or holdings out in the open. Dusk’s approach strikes a rare balance. You get compliance where it counts, but you don’t have to give up confidentiality.
If you care about real RWA infrastructure, or you’re serious about privacy-first, regulated DeFi, Dusk is worth a long, hard look.
#dusk $DUSK @Dusk_Foundation

If you really want to get what @dusk_foundation is about, you’ve got to look beyond the usual talk around “privacy.” Most blockchains treat privacy like an afterthought—something you slap on later with a mixer or a Layer 2 solution. $DUSK takes a totally different approach. It’s built from the ground up as a privacy-first micro-kernel. That’s not just a fancy label, either. It’s about how the whole thing actually works.
1. How Circuit-Based Computation Changes the Game
The big idea in Dusk’s design isn’t just a tweak to the old way of doing things. Instead of the standard instruction-set model, Dusk uses circuit-based logic. Here’s why that matters: On a regular blockchain, nodes have to re-run code to make sure everything checks out. Dusk flips the script. Its Piecrust VM doesn’t just execute code—it creates a mathematical proof that the code ran exactly as it should. So instead of trusting that each node re-did the work right, you get cryptographic certainty from the start. That’s a pretty fundamental shift.
Here’s the real edge: With Zero-Knowledge Verification, a validator can confirm a transaction is legit without ever seeing the details. That’s a big shift—from everyone peeking into a “public ledger” to a new kind of “verifiable secret ledger” where privacy and trust actually work together.
2. The “Blind Bid” Game Theory
So, why did @dusk_foundation come up with Succinct Attestation (SA)?
The answer hides in the way “Blind Bid” game theory works.
Here’s the thing: In most proof-of-stake networks, you can spot the wealthiest nodes. That paints a target on their backs for hackers and even big state actors.
Dusk flips the script. They use a symmetric cryptographic primitive so a block proposer can prove they’ve earned the right to produce a block, but their identity stays secret—at least until the block’s done. This “Privacy of the Producer” makes it a lot harder to bribe or attack the network. Honestly, even Bitcoin’s mining pools, with all their size, can’t promise that level of censorship resistance.
3. Asynchronous Finality vs. Probabilistic Risk
Most investors miss this, but “finality” is the real sticking point for Real World Assets (RWA).
Here’s why: If you’re trading a $100 million bond on a chain like Ethereum, which only offers probabilistic finality, there’s always a small risk your trade could get unwound in a re-org. That’s a lot of money hanging on a mathematical chance things could go sideways.
The Dusk Solution: SA consensus locks in blocks the moment they’re certified. There’s no waiting around—once a block is attested, it’s set in stone. Why do this? It’s all about meeting those tough Legal Settlement Finality rules from Basel III and other big banking standards.
4. The Phoenix Protocol: Cracking the UTXO vs. Account Model Problem
Dusk doesn’t pick sides. Instead, it brings in something new: Phoenix, a hybrid approach.
Here’s the real issue: Account-based models like Ethereum tie every transaction to your main address, which is a privacy nightmare. UTXO models, like Bitcoin, are much better for privacy, but they fall flat when it comes to running complex smart contracts.
Phoenix changes the game. It introduces a “Private UTXO” setup that actually works with smart contracts. Your transaction blends right in with thousands of others—nobody can pick yours out. It’s more than just slapping on some privacy layer. Phoenix rethinks how data lives on the blockchain from the ground up.
5. Why “RWA” Isn’t Just a Badge—It’s Earned
A lot of projects slap on the “RWA” tag after spinning up a website. DUSK actually earns it, and the key is their Confidential Security Contracts (XSC).
Here’s the big idea: In the XSC framework, the “Compliance Engine” runs separately from the “Transfer Logic.” So, when laws or tax rules shift, a company can update its compliance setup without needing to re-issue every token. That’s real dynamic regulatory compliance. It’s why $DUSK stands alone as the only chain that can keep securities legal and up-to-date for decades, not just a few years.
The Infrastructure You Don’t See
Right now, the market isn’t really valuing institutional-grade privacy. But as we move on from “Transparent DeFi” to real, regulated on-chain finance, the way DUSK has built things—from the Piecrust VM to the Phoenix model—sets it up as the financial backbone nobody else is even close to. Call it the “Financial Kernel” for the next era.
DUSK isn’t just tweaking what’s already out there. They’re not making a faster horse. They’re building the engine for a car the market hasn’t even imagined yet.
#dusk $DUSK @Dusk_Foundation