The number of nodes and staking scale of Dusk are steadily increasing, which looks very promising. But there's a hidden problem beneath the surface— the number of native DApps developed in Zinc language has remained in the single digits for years. This stark contrast is very noticeable.

Theoretically, Zinc is a good thing. It is tailored for privacy financial contracts, highly secure, and elegantly designed. The problem lies in practical application. This specialized programming language, combined with strict formal verification requirements, directly raises the learning curve to the sky. Developers accustomed to writing Solidity or Rust? Most have retreated because the barrier is too high.

Project teams haven't given up either. There are developer funding programs. But the money burns quickly, and the output is not proportional. Many proposals funded remain at the paper and concept stage and never turn into truly operational products.

The core contradiction is obvious: a high-level protocol originally intended to serve and transform traditional finance, but due to the high technical barriers, it fails to attract enough developers, let alone applications that can attract traditional finance users and large capital.

The time window is not unlimited. If Dusk doesn't launch a toolchain in the next two quarters that significantly reduces development difficulty, or efficiently compile Zinc into more common WASM environments—if it can't do either, it will fall into the trap of innovators: having top-tier technology but a cold ecosystem. By then, the network value will only be sustained by a few large institutions' customized needs, and the original goal of decentralization will become a joke. The system's anti-fragility will also be greatly compromised.