Over the past decade of blockchain development, there is one core contradiction—transparency has brought about decentralized trust, but it has also completely blocked institutional-grade capital from entering. What does traditional finance emphasize? Business secrets, legal compliance, privacy protection—all of which are luxury items on the chain. So you'll find that projects aiming to make a big impact are pondering one question: how to hide sensitive information while maintaining transparent verification?

By 2026, some teams have already found the answer. Dusk, which approaches from privacy protocols, is building a brand-new financial infrastructure. Their underlying design philosophy is very clear: don't follow the path of the Ethereum Virtual Machine, but start from scratch to create an execution environment optimized specifically for zero-knowledge proofs. This virtual machine can maintain high efficiency when handling cryptographic computations, allowing developers to build privacy smart contracts without compromising performance.

What is the key to turning technology into reality? The Plonk algorithm. As the most mature zero-knowledge proof scheme today, it cleverly balances proof size and verification speed—crucial for on-chain applications. Imagine transaction amounts and sender/receiver information hidden within mathematical encryption, yet verification nodes can still ensure legitimacy—that's exactly what institutional-grade applications need.