In the second week of January, DuskEVM mainnet officially launched, performing well in its first week. As a Layer 1 focused on compliant privacy, Dusk has been targeting the regulated financial sector since its establishment in 2018, providing infrastructure for institutions and developers.

The most immediate benefit is a significant reduction in development barriers. Developers can write code in Solidity, deploy it directly to Dusk without any modifications, and enjoy support from underlying consensus mechanisms—including zero-knowledge proofs and homomorphic encryption for privacy protection. This saves a lot of trouble for teams accustomed to the Ethereum ecosystem.

Hedger is the core innovation of this round of mainnet updates. In the EVM environment, privacy transactions are enabled by default, completely hiding users' asset transfers and balances from external view, while regulators can perform audits after obtaining authorization. This design directly breaks the traditional on-chain finance dilemma—either complete privacy or full transparency, with no middle ground. Now, there is.

Data shows that gas consumption and contract deployment volume are rapidly increasing. Several compliant DeFi protocols and RWA projects have already announced plans to migrate here, providing a safer environment for institutional applications like stablecoin issuance and on-chain bond trading. Licensed institutions are also paying more attention.

Looking ahead, in 2026, Dusk will launch DuskTrade, collaborating with the Dutch licensed exchange NPEX, planning to tokenize over 300 million euros of securities on-chain. As the native token on the chain, $DUSK is responsible for gas fees, staking rewards, and governance voting. The enthusiasm for the mainnet is directly translating into increased demand for the token.

In terms of timing, institutional adoption is still in the early stages. Entering this ecosystem now could allow capturing long-term growth dividends from compliant privacy finance.