DUSK dusk

Dusk is a Layer-1 blockchain and market-infrastructure protocol designed for regulated digital assets and general finance. Its stated goal is to support issuance, trading, compliance, privacy, and settlement workflows on-chain without exposing sensitive positions, balances, counterparties, or operational data by default. The project positions itself between transparent public chains and closed financial systems, emphasizing access controls, selective disclosure, and deterministic settlement.

The current architecture separates settlement/data availability from execution. DuskDS provides consensus, finality, data availability, and native transaction models; DuskVM runs Rust/WASM contracts directly on the L1; and DuskEVM is an OP Stack-based EVM-equivalent environment for Solidity and standard Ethereum tooling. Rusk is the reference Rust node implementation, while Citadel supplies identity and access primitives for selective disclosure.

Dusk supports both public and confidential value movement. Moonlight is an account-based public model, while Phoenix is a shielded note/UTXO model using zero-knowledge proofs, nullifiers, Merkle trees, and viewing keys. This dual approach is intended for regulated securities, tokenized real-world assets, institutional DeFi, confidential payments, delivery-versus-payment settlement, and identity-gated applications where some information must remain private while authorized parties can obtain evidence.

Traditional financial-market infrastructure is fragmented across closed systems, while fully transparent blockchains can reveal balances, counterparties, positions, and transaction activity that regulated institutions may not be able to publish. Dusk addresses this tension by combining public verifiability with privacy-preserving execution and selective disclosure.

The protocol also targets settlement and operational constraints: financial workflows need fast, deterministic finality, access and eligibility rules, transfer restrictions, reporting, recovery, and predictable network operation. Dusk combines a committee-based proof-of-stake protocol with structured Kadcast networking, native privacy models, and programmable execution environments to make these requirements protocol-level capabilities rather than purely off-chain processes.

DuskDS uses Succinct Attestation, described by the project as a permissionless, committee-based proof-of-stake protocol. Stakers (provisioners) are selected through deterministic sortition weighted by stake. A consensus round proceeds through proposal, validation, and ratification: a selected provisioner proposes a block, a validation committee checks it, and a separate ratification committee confirms the result. Attestations aggregate committee signatures, and rolling-finality rules distinguish accepted, attested, confirmed, and final blocks.

The settlement layer supports two transaction models. Moonlight maps public keys to account nonces and balances; signatures authorize transfers, contract calls, and deployments. Phoenix stores encrypted notes in a Merkle tree; zero-knowledge proofs demonstrate ownership, balance integrity, correct nullification, and sufficient funds without revealing unnecessary transaction details. Nullifiers prevent double spending, while viewing keys enable authorized scanning or selective disclosure.

Dusk separates execution according to application needs. DuskVM is a Wasmtime-based Rust/WASM environment with direct access to L1 assets, transaction models, privacy, and ZK capabilities. DuskEVM provides an OP Stack-based EVM-compatible environment settled through DuskDS. DUSK is the native gas and staking token: fees are gas used multiplied by gas price, and staking secures the network and earns protocol rewards. The documented minimum stake is 1,000 DUSK.