Last week, a colleague saw a post that said, “Dusk can completely hide transfers,” and then asked me, “Isn’t this just the black-money blockchain?” I froze for a moment, because it didn’t match my understanding at all, so I dug into what was actually going on.
Later, I figured out how to explain it to her—when you receive a package, the courier knows your tracking number, the package’s weight, and whether anything is abnormal, but they don’t know what’s actually inside your box. And if a dispute arises, the platform can provide records to prove, “This package does exist, and the process was indeed compliant,” without having to open the box for everyone to see. In Dusk, there’s a design called “selective disclosure” that works in much the same way: transaction details are not visible to the public by default, but you can actively generate a proof to show specific people—such as regulators or counterparties—that this particular transaction is “indeed compliant” and “indeed completed,” without laying out every detail for everyone.
So what my colleague thought of as “completely invisible” is basically a totally different thing. Privacy here isn’t a switch—not “either everything is hidden or everything is exposed.” It’s a routing mechanism—you decide how much of the transaction you reveal, and to whom. After thinking about it, I realized this design is actually quite realistic. What institutions truly fear isn’t “being reviewed,” but “having their cards exposed to competitors.” Selective disclosure directly solves that pain point, rather than helping anyone evade oversight.
This is nothing like the privacy coins I used to think about. The more I considered the details, the more I felt most people overlook this nuance.
If it were you, what state would you prefer your transfer record to be in?
@Dusk_Foundation $DUSK #dusk
Later, I figured out how to explain it to her—when you receive a package, the courier knows your tracking number, the package’s weight, and whether anything is abnormal, but they don’t know what’s actually inside your box. And if a dispute arises, the platform can provide records to prove, “This package does exist, and the process was indeed compliant,” without having to open the box for everyone to see. In Dusk, there’s a design called “selective disclosure” that works in much the same way: transaction details are not visible to the public by default, but you can actively generate a proof to show specific people—such as regulators or counterparties—that this particular transaction is “indeed compliant” and “indeed completed,” without laying out every detail for everyone.
So what my colleague thought of as “completely invisible” is basically a totally different thing. Privacy here isn’t a switch—not “either everything is hidden or everything is exposed.” It’s a routing mechanism—you decide how much of the transaction you reveal, and to whom. After thinking about it, I realized this design is actually quite realistic. What institutions truly fear isn’t “being reviewed,” but “having their cards exposed to competitors.” Selective disclosure directly solves that pain point, rather than helping anyone evade oversight.
This is nothing like the privacy coins I used to think about. The more I considered the details, the more I felt most people overlook this nuance.
If it were you, what state would you prefer your transfer record to be in?
@Dusk_Foundation $DUSK #dusk