During the explosion of DeFi in 2020, I was actually a bit hesitant. The risk of privacy leaks always lingered in my mind, and I didn't dare to take real action for a long time. It wasn't until I came across Dusk—a Layer 1 blockchain project that started in 2018—that I finally broke through my psychological barrier.

The project's starting point is very clear: to build infrastructure for institutional-grade financial and compliant DeFi applications. What attracted me even more is that it integrates privacy protection and auditability into its architecture. In other words, data can be protected while not becoming a black box. For scenarios like RWA tokenization—bringing real-world assets onto the chain—this solution truly addressed my biggest concerns.

Initially, I only followed the project updates on social media. The foundation team often shared technical progress, especially around the optimization iterations of zero-knowledge proofs. It was clear they weren’t just doing superficial work; every step was carefully refining the privacy mechanisms. Once, I participated in their AMA and directly asked about the application logic of the DUSK token in DeFi. The team’s answers were both in-depth and practical, especially the part about how the consensus mechanism achieves transaction anonymity and compliance, which completely alleviated my doubts. I decided to acquire some DUSK.

What truly surprised me was the community atmosphere. Discord and Telegram were filled with practical sharing—some discussed how to connect privacy bridges with traditional finance and on-chain worlds, others shared the latest ideas for RWA applications. The project team also regularly hosts hackathons to encourage developers to contribute ideas. I even submitted an optimization proposal, which was adopted by the foundation, and they rewarded it with an airdrop as an incentive.

This feeling of being seen and valued gradually transformed me from a simple holder into a participant. Dusk is essentially more than just a chain; it’s an ecosystem co-evolving with users and the project team. Privacy, compliance, governance—these three elements are interconnected, and in the Web3 world, I finally found a long-missed sense of security.