The debate over the impossible triangle has been ongoing in the blockchain community for years—decentralization, security, and scalability seem to be mutually exclusive. But the Dusk project is tackling a more complex challenge: maintaining decentralization while incorporating privacy and compliance. It sounds a bit crazy, but their tech stack is indeed moving in this direction. Behind this is years of code refinement and architectural adjustments.

The core weapon is the Citadel protocol. What does the traditional Web3 KYC process look like? Users have to upload sensitive information like passports to a centralized server. This not only undermines the original intent of decentralization but also poses significant data breach risks. Citadel’s innovation lies here: building a self-sovereign identity system using zero-knowledge proofs.

How does it work specifically? Users don’t need to reveal any personal information; they can simply prove on-chain that they meet certain compliance requirements. For example, a DEX wanting to verify that you are over 18 and not from a restricted country doesn’t need to know your name or ID number. This transforms compliance checks from "collecting data" into "mathematical proof"—completely reversing the paradigm.

What does this solve? It directly lowers the compliance barriers for large institutions to enter while maximizing individual privacy protection. Using technical methods instead of manual review to handle compliance issues increases both efficiency and security. This is the way blockchain should go.