What is Dusk?

Dusk is a Layer 1 blockchain for regulated onchain finance. It gives financial applications public and shielded transactions, selective disclosure to authorized parties and deterministic settlement, so regulated assets can be issued, traded and settled onchain without exposing every position to the public.

Public blockchains show every balance and transfer to anyone, which does not fit how regulated markets handle client positions. Systems that hide everything make it hard to show an auditor or regulator what happened. Dusk is built as privacy-preserving infrastructure for regulated onchain finance with selective disclosure, so activity can stay confidential while the parties entitled to check it still can.

How does Dusk work?

Dusk is made of components that each do one job. DuskDS is the base. It handles consensus, settlement and data availability, and finalizes blocks with a proof-of-stake protocol called Succinct Attestation.

Value moves on DuskDS through two transaction models. Moonlight is the public, account-based model. Phoenix is the shielded model, which hides the amount, the sender and the notes spent from public observers. A user or application picks the model that fits the transaction.

Smart contracts run in two environments. DuskVM runs Rust/WASM contracts directly on the Layer 1. DuskEVM runs Solidity contracts with standard Ethereum tooling and settles on DuskDS, and Hedger brings confidential balances and transfer amounts to DuskEVM applications.

Selective disclosure lets a user reveal specific information or prove a condition without exposing all the underlying data. Citadel, Dusk's self-sovereign identity protocol, applies it to identity: a user proves they hold a valid credential without putting personal details onchain.

The DUSK token pays transaction fees and is staked to secure the network. The initial supply is 500 million DUSK, and a further 500 million is emitted over 36 years through block rewards, for a maximum supply of 1 billion. The DUSK token page covers the supply and emission schedule, and the staking explainer covers how staking works.

Dusk serves three groups. Institutions can use it for native asset issuance, trading venues and secondary markets and digital asset servicing. Developers can build with Solidity on DuskEVM or Rust on DuskVM. Products for investors are built on top, such as Dusk Trade, an investment platform for tokenized real-world assets. Dusk's Apps & Products page lists the wallets, network components and developer tools in the stack.