During this period of researching the privacy public chain track, I found that although there are not many players in the market, each has its own way of doing things. Dusk, as a newcomer, claims to integrate several advantages of privacy, compliance, and EVM compatibility, which sounds pretty good. However, when you compare it with old players like Zcash, Monero, Secret Network, and Oasis, you will find a huge gap between ideals and reality.
Let's start with the privacy mechanism. Monero is the big brother in this field, using a combination of ring signatures, stealth addresses, and RingCT to achieve enforced privacy. When you make a transfer on Monero, the sender, receiver, and amount are all obfuscated, and even blockchain explorers cannot see the real information. This design is very pure, aimed at extreme privacy.
Zcash takes the route of optional privacy, using zk-SNARKs to implement shielded transactions. Users can choose between transparent and private transactions and can selectively disclose information to auditors by viewing keys. This design is more flexible than Monero, providing users with more choices.
Dusk's design philosophy is somewhat similar to Zcash, also featuring a dual-track system. The Phoenix mode utilizes UTXO for private transactions, while the Moonlight mode uses public account transactions. Technically, Dusk employs zero-knowledge proofs and selective disclosure, which can theoretically meet the need for 'both privacy and compliance.' However, I found in actual testing that most users still prefer Moonlight public transactions because the fees are higher and confirmation times are longer in Phoenix mode.
This exposes a contradiction: when you make privacy an option rather than the default, most users will forgo privacy for convenience. Monero's enforced privacy, though less flexible, ensures that the entire network's anonymity set is large enough. Dusk's design compromises between user experience and privacy strength, but fails to excel at either.
Now let's look at Secret Network and Oasis Network, which follow the TEE (Trusted Execution Environment) route. Simply put, they use hardware security chips (like Intel SGX) to protect data privacy during contract execution. The advantage of this solution is low performance overhead and a good developer experience. However, the shortcomings are also clear—reliance on hardware trust means that if the chip has vulnerabilities or is compromised, privacy protection fails.
Dusk uses a purely cryptographic solution that does not rely on hardware trust, making it theoretically more secure. However, the problem with cryptographic solutions is that they have high computational overhead and slow transaction confirmations. I tested the Phoenix mode transactions, and the confirmation time was noticeably several times slower than Moonlight. This is a significant issue in high-frequency trading scenarios.
Compliance features are Dusk's main differentiating selling point. Through the Citadel digital identity system and XSC smart contracts, regulatory requirements like KYC/AML can be directly embedded into the protocol layer. Theoretically, you can issue a security token with conditions like 'only addresses that pass KYC can hold' and 'must comply with anti-money laundering rules to transfer.'
Sounds advanced, right? But the question is, does this demand actually exist? If traditional financial institutions want to tokenize assets, they are more inclined to choose permissioned chains rather than public chains. Institutions like JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs have long been experimenting on enterprise-level blockchains like Quorum and Canton. Although public chains are more decentralized, the control is not in their hands, so institutions are very cautious.
Zcash has similar functionality, allowing specific transaction information to be disclosed to regulators by viewing keys. However, Zcash has never advertised itself as building a 'compliant privacy financial infrastructure' because they know that these two markets are fundamentally different. It is challenging to meet strict financial regulations while maintaining the decentralized characteristics of a public chain. Dusk attempts to balance both, but in practice, it resembles a theoretically feasible solution that no one uses.
EVM compatibility is another advantage of Dusk. DuskEVM allows developers to directly migrate dApps from Ethereum, theoretically enriching the ecosystem quickly. However, the question is, why would Ethereum developers migrate to Dusk? With a TVL of almost zero, very few users, and no liquidity support, who would be willing to come in such an environment?
Secret Network also supports EVM and can run Ethereum contracts through SDK and bridging solutions. However, Secret's TVL is only $3.83 million, and its ecosystem is similarly bleak. Oasis Network has created two runtime environments, Sapphire and Emerald, with a combined TVL of $558,000, which is slightly better than Dusk but still not impressive.
This highlights a key issue: EVM compatibility is just infrastructure, not a moat. There are plenty of EVM-compatible chains in the market; why should developers choose you? Liquidity, user base, and ecosystem prosperity are the key factors. Dusk lag behind in all these aspects and cannot rise solely on the basis of EVM compatibility.
In terms of performance, Dusk claims a block time of 2 seconds using the Succinct Attestation consensus mechanism. It sounds quite fast, but there is no public TPS data. I tested it myself and found the performance acceptable, but there was no qualitative breakthrough.
For comparison: Zcash has a block time of 75 seconds, with TPS ranging from 1 to 7; Monero has a block time of 2 minutes, with TPS ranging from 1 to 20. Both projects are optimized for privacy, with performance not being a priority. Dusk aims to achieve both privacy and high performance, but its actual performance seems to find a middle ground between privacy and performance, lacking in both areas.
In terms of transaction fees, Dusk uses LUX as the pricing unit, making actual payments very cheap. However, this is mainly due to low network usage; once transaction volume increases, will fees skyrocket? It's not clear yet. Zcash and Monero also have low fees, but that is based on the characteristics of PoW consensus. Dusk uses PoS, which theoretically offers a more flexible fee structure but is also more unpredictable.
TVL comparisons illustrate the issue most clearly. Dusk's TVL is almost zero, Secret's is $3.83 million, and Oasis's is $558,000. These three projects are all doing similar things—privacy smart contract platforms—but market recognition for them is low. In contrast, Monero and Zcash, although lacking a DeFi ecosystem, have a stable user base as privacy payment tools.
This reflects a harsh reality: the market does not buy into the concept of 'privacy smart contract platforms.' Users either choose pure privacy (Monero/Zcash) or mature smart contract platforms (Ethereum/BSC), with very few needing a combination of both. The three projects—Dusk, Secret, and Oasis—are all attempting to carve out this niche market, but none have succeeded so far.
From market capitalization and trading volume, Zcash and Monero are clearly ahead. Monero's market cap has consistently been in the top 50, while Zcash is also in the top 100. Dusk's market cap ranks outside the top 200, with daily trading volumes fluctuating greatly from $100,000 to $1 million. This scale does not even count as a fraction in mainstream coins.
Community activity also shows significant differences. Monero has the most passionate privacy supporters globally, and its developer community is very active. Zcash is supported by two organizations, Electric Coin Company and Zcash Foundation, making its ecosystem relatively healthy. Dusk's community mainly relies on official promotion, with little spontaneous discussion, which can be clearly seen from social media interaction rates.
Finally, let's talk about their respective advantages and disadvantages. Monero's strength is its pure privacy and large user base, while its weakness is the lack of smart contracts, limiting it to payments. Zcash's strengths are its advanced technology and flexible selective disclosure, while its weakness is that optional privacy leads to a smaller anonymity set. The advantages of Secret and Oasis are their smart contract capabilities, while their weaknesses stem from reliance on hardware trust and a lack of ecosystem.
Dusk attempts to integrate the strengths of various projects—Monero's privacy, Zcash's selective disclosure, Secret's smart contracts, Oasis's EVM compatibility, along with its own unique compliance features. However, the result is that it tries to do everything but excels at nothing. With a low TVL, scarce users, and a barren ecosystem, this is the evaluation provided by the market.
There is a saying: it's better to be a head of a chicken than a tail of a phoenix. Monero focuses on privacy payments and takes this to the extreme, thus establishing a foothold. Dusk wants to grasp everything, but in the end, it may end up grasping nothing. Unless it can make a real breakthrough in a specific niche—like having large-scale RWA projects running on it, it is difficult to escape the predicament of 'theoretically beautiful, practically miserable.'
