Privacy coins have indeed gained popularity in early 2026. Dusk Network's native token DUSK surged 583% in just 30 days, with the latest price breaking through $0.3, hitting a nearly one-year high, and a single-day increase of over 25%. In this era of strict regulation, privacy cryptocurrencies that can thrive are exemplified by DUSK.

What is its secret? Simply put—"Default privacy, auditability on demand." It sounds a bit convoluted, but this approach is truly clever. Using zero-knowledge proof technology to hide transaction parties and amounts, while allowing regulators to access the data when necessary, perfectly aligns with the EU's MiCA regulations and travel rules. This breaks the deadlock traditionally faced by privacy coins and regulatory compliance.

From a technical perspective, the launch of DuskEVM in the first quarter of this year is considered a key development. It achieves Ethereum Virtual Machine compatibility, allowing developers to deploy Solidity contracts directly. Coupled with the integrated Hedger privacy module and Chainlink oracle support, cross-chain asset transfers and on-chain real data inputs are all handled smoothly, paving a broad path for ecosystem expansion.

Even more hardcore are the moves at the institutional level. Collaborating with NPEX, they completed a €300 million security tokenization project, and a trustless custody solution has also been implemented, making the RWA (Real World Asset) track truly their domain. As a proof-of-stake token, DUSK handles network gas fees, staking mining, and governance voting. Validators stake to maintain nodes; the higher the network activity, the more apparent the deflationary value and ecosystem value become. Only then can privacy coins move beyond mere speculation to become real financial infrastructure.