Privacy and compliance have always been like two parallel lines in the blockchain world, seemingly never intersecting. It wasn't until the emergence of Dusk's Hedger mechanism that a real solution to this difficult problem was found.

In the second week of January 2026, DuskEVM officially launched, bringing this innovative solution into the spotlight. Developers can now deploy Solidity contracts in a familiar EVM environment while enjoying privacy protection through zero-knowledge proofs and homomorphic encryption—transactions are private by default, yet the entire process is fully auditable. It sounds a bit like "both, and," but this is precisely the problem Dusk aims to solve.

The brilliance of Hedger lies in the concept of "compliant privacy." Ordinary users' transactions are completely confidential, with outsiders unable to see balances and history; but if regulators require it, authorized parties can verify the legality of transactions without revealing additional private information. This design is clearly tailored for institutional-level finance, especially suitable for scenarios like tokenized securities, private equity funds, and compliant DeFi. Since its establishment in 2018, Dusk has prioritized this goal, and its modular Layer 1 blockchain provides the settlement infrastructure for Hedger.

The launch of DuskEVM eliminates the biggest pain point of privacy chains—developer migration costs. Any project in the Ethereum ecosystem can now almost costlessly migrate to Dusk, immediately gaining privacy-enhanced capabilities, while remaining fully compatible with existing tools, wallets, and indexers. Institutions don't need to relearn new languages or virtual machines; they can directly build privacy-preserving RWA applications.

The recently launched DuskTrade is the best practical example of Hedger in action. It has partnered with the regulated Dutch exchange NPEX and will soon list over €300 million in tokenized securities. These assets are private by default when traded on-chain, allowing investors to trade with confidence without worrying about exposure.