The next phase of blockchain adoption won’t be driven by hype alone—it will be driven by real-world utility, regulation, and trust. Since its founding in 2018, @dusk_foundation has been building a Layer 1 blockchain designed specifically for regulated, privacy-focused financial infrastructure, and its upcoming roadmap shows why $DUSK is becoming increasingly relevant in the RWA and compliant DeFi space.
A major milestone ahead is DuskTrade, scheduled to launch in 2026. This will be Dusk’s first real-world asset (RWA) application, built in collaboration with NPEX, a regulated Dutch exchange holding MTF, Broker, and ECSP licenses. Unlike experimental RWA concepts, DuskTrade is designed as a fully compliant trading and investment platform, bringing more than €300M in tokenized securities on-chain. Importantly, the waitlist opens in January, signaling that this is an active product roadmap, not a distant idea.
What makes DuskTrade possible is Dusk’s modular blockchain architecture, which separates execution, settlement, and privacy layers. This design allows Dusk to support institutional requirements like auditability and compliance, while still preserving transaction confidentiality. For regulated markets, this balance is critical—and it’s where many blockchains fall short.
Another key development is the DuskEVM mainnet, launching in the second week of January. DuskEVM is Dusk’s EVM-compatible application layer, enabling developers and institutions to deploy standard Solidity smart contracts while settling transactions directly on Dusk’s Layer 1. This removes friction for integrations, tooling, and onboarding, allowing existing Ethereum developers to build compliant DeFi and RWA applications without learning an entirely new stack.
Privacy remains central to Dusk’s vision, but not at the expense of regulation. Through Hedger, Dusk introduces compliant privacy on EVM, using zero-knowledge proofs and homomorphic encryption. Hedger enables transactions to remain confidential while still being auditable when required, a feature designed specifically for regulated financial use cases. With Hedger Alpha already live, Dusk is actively proving that privacy and compliance don’t have to be opposites.
With $DUSK at the core of this ecosystem, Dusk is positioning itself as infrastructure for the next generation of financial markets—where institutions, developers, and users can interact securely, privately, and legally on
-chain. #Dusk
