Tell someone Dusk Network was built for regulators and a certain kind of crypto native will assume you mean a permissioned ledger, a consortium of pre-approved validators, something closer to a private database with a blockchain marketing budget than an actual open network anyone can join. It is not a crazy assumption, and I think about it every time I see Dusk Network get filed into that category before anyone actually checks how its consensus works underneath the branding.
Dusk Network does not fit that description, at least not at the consensus layer. Succinct Attestation, the proof-of-stake mechanism securing the network, selects its validating committees through stake-weighted sortition open to anyone willing to stake DUSK, not a fixed list of pre-approved institutions handpicked in advance. Anyone can become a provisioner. Anyone can leave whenever they choose. Reaching that provisioner set does still require staking a meaningful amount of DUSK and running reliable infrastructure, so permissionless in the cryptographic sense is not quite the same as costless or trivial to join in practice. That is a permissionless design choice sitting directly underneath a project whose entire commercial pitch is regulatory compliance, and the two things are simply not in tension the way the stereotype assumes they must be.
Where I think the stereotype gets partial cover is one layer up, at DuskEVM. Like most rollups built on the OP Stack, the sequencer that orders transactions typically starts out run by a single operator rather than a decentralized set of participants, and Dusk Network's public materials do not dwell much on when or whether that changes over time. So the honest answer is layered rather than simple: permissionless at the base consensus layer, more centralized in practice at the execution layer for now, at least until that changes.
@Dusk_Foundation $DUSK #dusk
$TUT $BTW
Dusk Network does not fit that description, at least not at the consensus layer. Succinct Attestation, the proof-of-stake mechanism securing the network, selects its validating committees through stake-weighted sortition open to anyone willing to stake DUSK, not a fixed list of pre-approved institutions handpicked in advance. Anyone can become a provisioner. Anyone can leave whenever they choose. Reaching that provisioner set does still require staking a meaningful amount of DUSK and running reliable infrastructure, so permissionless in the cryptographic sense is not quite the same as costless or trivial to join in practice. That is a permissionless design choice sitting directly underneath a project whose entire commercial pitch is regulatory compliance, and the two things are simply not in tension the way the stereotype assumes they must be.
Where I think the stereotype gets partial cover is one layer up, at DuskEVM. Like most rollups built on the OP Stack, the sequencer that orders transactions typically starts out run by a single operator rather than a decentralized set of participants, and Dusk Network's public materials do not dwell much on when or whether that changes over time. So the honest answer is layered rather than simple: permissionless at the base consensus layer, more centralized in practice at the execution layer for now, at least until that changes.
@Dusk_Foundation $DUSK #dusk
$TUT $BTW