If we say which blockchain track will be the hottest in 2026, my answer is not AI concepts or meme coin booms, but privacy computing. Currently, there are projects everywhere doing this—Ethereum has Aztec working on ZK Rollup solutions, the Cosmos ecosystem has Secret Network using TEE trusted execution environments, Oasis has launched Sapphire, an EVM-compatible privacy layer, and even established privacy coins like Monero and Zcash are starting to pivot towards DeFi. With competition heating up to this level, how can projects like Dusk, which have been researching since 2018, survive in the gaps surrounded by giants? I've thought about this question for quite a while.

First, let's talk about the differences in underlying technology. Ethereum mainnet has an inherent flaw—complete transparency. All transaction limits, address balances, and contract data are on-chain for the world to see. This is a nightmare for institutional investors—what hedge fund would dare expose its holdings to the public? Therefore, privacy solutions on Ethereum are mostly post-facto—Tornado Cash mixes coins in pools, Aztec uses ZK Rollup to bundle and compress transactions. These methods are indeed effective, but the problem is that they are not native, which introduces compatibility issues and security risks. The Tornado Cash sanctions last year was a stark warning of this reality.

Dusk takes a completely different approach. From the very first day of its architecture design, privacy has been embedded into the core. DuskDS’s consensus mechanism directly supports private transactions at the protocol layer, eliminating the need for additional mixing or Rollup operations. It sounds impressive, but what are the costs of this design approach? The trade-off is that ecosystem compatibility and developer friendliness are likely to be limited. That’s why different projects choose different paths—some opt for post-facto compatibility, others for native privacy—each with its own trade-offs.