Since the launch of the Dusk mainnet at the end of last year, I have been paying attention to its developer ecosystem. First of all, the privacy-native smart contracts are indeed innovative, but they require understanding cryptographic concepts like zero-knowledge proofs and selective disclosure, which are not very friendly to beginners. Most of the early active developers have a background in cryptography or compliance experience, and there are relatively few experimental projects.

However, from another perspective, this can be an advantage. Compared to the chaotic competition among other public chains, Dusk takes a more focused approach—giving builders space to explore the possibilities of privacy DeFi. Take DuskEVM as an example; it is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, but with an added privacy layer, meaning existing smart contracts can be upgraded and migrated without exposing data on-chain.

Recently, they launched the Creators Season 2 event to attract developers, with a $10,000 prize pool encouraging the development of private DCA tools and similar applications. I have tested it on the testnet and feel that once the development tools and infrastructure are improved, scenarios like DAO governance and private fundraising can truly achieve privacy.

If you are a developer with programming experience, discussions in the Discord community are quite active, and you might find the next interesting direction.