In the Web3 world, privacy and compliance are often seen as two opposing ends. But a Dutch team has been exploring how to combine the two since 2018—Dusk Network, supported by Yzi Labs, went live on the mainnet in 2019, and is now at a critical juncture.

Their idea is quite straightforward: transactions on public blockchains are currently transparent, and anyone can see a transfer of assets. But when it comes to institutional funds, bonds, stocks, and similar assets, transparency becomes a problem. Dusk aims to use zero-knowledge proof technology to lock down these sensitive financial data, allowing transactions to protect privacy while meeting global regulatory requirements. The official statement is "enabling the global financial market to fully on-chain while maintaining compliance and privacy."

Recent activities have been quite intensive. In November 2025, they performed a major upgrade to the Rusk engine on the testnet—standardizing data availability and settlement mechanisms, and confirming that transaction speeds have significantly improved. More importantly, Dusk has partnered with Chainlink and the Dutch securities exchange NPEX. How are they collaborating? Through Chainlink’s CCIP cross-chain protocol and data oracles, they are tokenizing regulated securities. What does this mean? It means that compliant stock trading on DuskEVM has become a reality. In simple terms, traditional finance and decentralized finance are finally truly coming together.

In December, Dusk launched the DuskDS Layer-1 upgrade. This upgrade reduced costs and sped up transaction confirmation, preparing for the upcoming mainnet launch.

What’s the plan for the future? The roadmap is clear:

Q1 2026: Launch of DuskEVM mainnet, compatible with EVM, with built-in privacy and compliance mechanisms.

Q2 2026: Launch of NPEX’s decentralized applications, aiming to tokenize over €200 million in securities.

Within 2026: Deep collaboration with custodial banks to expand regulated financial services under the MiCA framework (EU crypto asset regulation).

Honestly, the entire approach hits the most difficult pain point in Web3—how to get institutional capital involved. It’s not just hype; it’s a real technical solution to the contradiction between privacy and compliance. Support from Chainlink signifies that the project has gained credibility in regulated markets. If everything proceeds as planned, DUSK, as a settlement and gas token, could see a substantial growth in demand.