Dusk Network’s mission it to give the user complete and direct control over their Assets while also ensuring that they are fully compliant.
Emanuele Francioni is one of the founders and leaders of Dusk Network. He shares the vision and mission of Dusk Network’s future of finance. He recently posted a blog post in which he highlighted the shortcomings of the current financial system. He then explains how Dusk Network can solve these problems and briefly explains zero-knowledge proofs. He then demonstrates how compliance can be fully automated for an individual. He ends by explaining how Dusk Network can help solve inefficiencies in financial markets through tokenizing assets such stocks, bonds, and mortgages, as well as how it can do so on-chain.
Although the mission may seem simple, it requires a fundamental overhaul of mainstream technology. This overhaul includes a decentralized ledger that acts as a global settlement layer, zero knowledge cryptography to protect private data, and key protocols like Citadel and Zedger. Citadel allows privacy-preserving digital identity on Dusk and Zedger provides a regulatory framework to ensure the compliance handling of financial instruments.
Francioni: Our team consists of experts from diverse fields who work together towards a common goal. The research team is focused on exploring new developments in zero knowledge cryptography, computing security and FinTech. They are responsible to develop breakthrough technology like PlonKup and Succinct ATtestation, Phoenix, and others. These technologies are then implemented by the development team into our software libraries. They form the foundation for our blockchain and virtual machine platform. Many other projects also use Dusk’s libraries.
Our team also has a team that includes regulatory experts, who deal with official matters that many other projects avoid. Dusk has many aspects that make it a game-changer.
We want to sum it all. We want to give an overview of the building blocks of Dusk, their relationship, and, most importantly, why and how these will change the way that we approach ownership and finance.
These are the topics we will be covering:

The current limitations
Dusk’s solution
Zero-knowledge proofs
Automated Regulation
Tokenization on-chain

The current financial system’s limitations
The current financial system has many limitations. Many of these limitations are taken for granted and accepted blindly as they are. These limitations pose challenges for both individuals and institutions.
Due to the custodial nature our financial systems, individuals have limited autonomy over their assets. We allow someone else to hold our assets, including government bonds and salaries in a bank. This is because it is difficult to see the practicality of having gold bars or piles at home.
Institutions, however, have high overhead costs and allocate substantial resources to regulatory compliance and data management. This is repeated across all banks, with little scaling or universal solutions despite other banks doing the exact same thing. Not to mention the fact that liquidity is often fragmented among all these custodians.
Lack of self-custody directly leads to stagnation in innovation in the financial markets and an abundance inefficiencies.
Arbitrage, which seeks to correct and profite from price inefficiencies, can be risky and difficult for many people in traditional financial infrastructure. The DeFi market, however, offers innovative technology such as flash-loans that are available to everyone. Lack of self-custody or direct control over digital assets hinders innovation and blocks financial inclusion and economic freedom.
Dusk’s solution
Dusk’s solution? To provide infrastructure that is efficient, private, and intrinsically compliant. These principles should be embedded directly in the core protocol. This will allow for greater innovation and wealth. But, most importantly, it will also help to transition towards a fairer, more inclusive economy where direct ownership and value can play a crucial role in empowering everyone to reach financial freedom.
The protocol is designed as a decentralized ledger tech (DLT) that can provide fast transaction settlement as well as immediate finality and sybil resistance. Every node on Dusk’s network has software that natively supports zero-knowledge cryptography (ZK). This ensures the privacy, scalability, and anonymity of the ledger as well as its transactions. This is unlike other blockchains that use ZK. The technology is kept apart from the network protocol.
Dusk protocol instead uses ZK cryptography everywhere. Rusk is our confidential smart contract platform. Citadel, a zero knowledge proof, soulbound NFT, is ideal for universal KYC and digital identity.
Next, regulation is something we need to consider. To break out of the crypto sandbox, and interact with real-world financial instrument, it is necessary to ensure compliance to the regulatory frameworks that govern these assets. This includes stablecoins, bonds, ETFs, and other types of securities. This is where Dusk protocol shines. Enabling compliance to be encrypted can help ensure transactions are secure and completely eliminate the possibility of violations.
You may have heard the expression “Code is law”, but we made it possible for law to be encoded.
The self-driving car
Let’s take the example of owning a car to illustrate the importance and importance of self-custody. You can use it whenever you want and you don’t need permission from anyone. You can modify it, paint it, or add a better sound system. This is the self-custody component. It’s yours. It is yours.
Even though you have full control of your car, you still need the rules of the road to follow. For example, you can’t drive on the other side of the road and there may be areas where you can’t park or drive. There are restrictions on what you can legally do in your car.
All limitations are enforced automatically when a self-driving vehicle is used. Auto-driving cars will come pre-programmed with compliance baked into them, eliminating any possibility of traffic rule violations.
You are not allowed to own or control your assets in today’s financial system. It’s like having your car used as a taxi and being driven and managed by someone else. In the absence of regulations, someone else drives your car (i.e. performs operations on your assets) for owners who aren’t trusted to follow the rules. Without custody of your property, you can rely on the custodian for any operation you wish. Traditional brokers are not motivated to introduce novelties. They see them as a risk and liability. Any undesirable side-effect could threaten their license.
The DeFi market, on the other hand, offers innovative technology (i.e. The DeFi market, on the other hand, offers innovative technology (i.e. This allows for financial inclusion and economic freedom, and corrects market inefficiencies. Arbitrage of DeFi assets can be done without leverage. This means that it is very risk-free and accessible to all. Traditional finance arbitrage operations, however, are more difficult to access and involve greater risks.
Zero-knowledge proofs
Dusk believes privacy is a right and not a privilege. We co-founded the Leading Privacy Alliance. Zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs), are a crucial part of our project.
This is a quick overview about ZKPs. They allow users to prove something without disclosing any information to a verifier. One example that I like to use is when you want to get into a bar but need to be over a certain ages. Instead of showing your ID and sharing your name, date of birth, address, etc., ZKPs will generate cryptographic proof that your meet the criteria. Other information is not required, except that you meet the minimum age requirement.
Privacy is crucial for both traditional financial instruments as well as new web3 ones. It is highly unlikely that professional organizations will ever agree to openly settle their financial transactions and make their entire financial history public. This is a barrier to mainstream adoption.
We don’t want to encourage secrecy and backroom deals. People have grown distrustful of institutions that regulate and govern the financial system because there has been a long-standing lack in transparency.
ZKPs allow us to keep our sensitive information private from any unwanted prying eyes, such as overreaching governments, angry ex-partners, and blockchain snoopers. They allow us to be transparent and ensure that transactions are legal, while protecting sensitive information.
Although the concept of ZKPs is intriguing, it is difficult to find a system that can build these proofs at scale and fast enough. We have a dedicated research group that is focused on this cryptographic tool and making it a reality.
Citadel
Citadel is a ZKP-protected, privacy-preserving, soulbound NFT product we have created. It has many benefits for both individuals as well as institutions.
Institutions can find KYC very expensive. They must invest large sums of money to validate and store data and identities, and comply with regulations. They must verify that individuals are who they claim to be, secure the data and keep it safe. This is especially important for EU institutions that must comply with GDPR. This is especially true for small and medium businesses, as the benefits of storing user data is not worth the cost.
Citadel takes care of this expense for them. Citadel allows individuals to complete their KYC online and receive a cryptographic seal approval that they can use to access various services, including streaming and trading. This creates a global identity layer. This allows companies to free up significant resources so they can focus their efforts on more important activities.
Citadel provides individuals with the benefits of data protection and the assurance that their data isn’t stored in multiple locations. They would not only be able to complete their KYC once to access all services, but it would also significantly reduce the likelihood of their personal information being stolen or doxxed (which was the case with Celsius, FTX and LastPass).
Automated compliance
Compliance is expensive. It is expensive to comply.
Institutions are the custodians of their users’ assets and are extremely distrustful of any other implementation than their own. Each institution will duplicate the technology infrastructure that implements the same set of rules. They will also keep duplicates of their users’ KYC/AML information despite the fact that these rules and information are not different across platforms.
Let me explain the absurdity of this practice by offering a silly but effective similitude. If regulations were a song everyone must listen to, each institution would pay a different band to perform the song instead of redirecting them to one online streaming platform. Dusk would be the online streaming service that everyone can use in this example.
Dusk’s features of user self-custody at the protocol level and compliance automation at that level offer the possibility for a universal infrastructure to support each standard regulatory framework supported by the network (currently, those are MiCA II and Mifid II).
Each institution would greatly benefit from adopting Dusk if they can avoid the enormous costs of creating and maintaining their system infrastructure as well as the development of new products like KYC-as a service (which they could offer without the transmission of any personal data thanks to the zero-knowledge cryptography provided by Citadel).
Tokenize everything
Last, I want to mention that we believe there is a great inefficiency in the current financial markets. This is because different asset classes can’t move freely. Dusk allows us to tokenize a wide range of assets on-chain. This includes stocks, shares, bonds, mortgages, and more.
This will enable capital efficiency as a bond or stock can be different off-chain but on-chain they are the same bytes. They can be traded and moved more easily and with greater fluidity. These types of activities are currently impossible or very expensive due to a high barrier for entry.
Blockchain technology allows us to see real equality in financial opportunity and opens up all financial instruments, even those not yet available, to everyone.
Future of finance and ownership
Dusk is fully committed to revolutionizing the financial sector. Our approach to this endeavor is unmatched. We are the only ones who know how to address the same issues as us, and we are proud to be leading the charge.
We’re launching a new initiative to help others understand the work we’re doing. Our team of experts, including researchers, developers and thought leaders, will contribute articles that explore their work, vision, expertise, and vision. We want everyone to be able to understand our innovative project, from developers to institutions to crypto investors.

Disclaimer: This article is intended for informational purposes only. This article is not intended to be used for legal, tax, investment or financial advice.