Blocks Of Mars

When people hear about "digital dollars", many people think of just one thing, but there are actually three very distinct forms of "digital dollars" available to people: Bank Money, Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), and Stablecoins based on Public Chains. Analyzing the reason behind @Plasma ’s preference for open, permissionless stablecoins starts with understanding the unique level of control given (or prohibited) to a user in each of the three forms of digital dollars.
​Bank Money: Bank Money represents money held in a commercial bank's checking account. The actual representation of Bank Money is made through IOUs in a closed ledger owned by the bank. The establishment of Bank Money through a network of credit card associations and banks gives it very unique characteristics. In addition to being stable, regulated and integrated into the economy, Bank Money is also relatively slow due to the geographical time zones and multiple intermediary banks involved in cross-border transfers that can disrupt and delay the movement of money for days or more. Typical users of Bank Money incur all of the costs associated with the limitations and gatekeeping structures of the Banking system that have existed for the last century.
​CBDCs: CBDCs move the issuer of digital dollars from private banks to central banks. In essence, CBDCs should provide instant settlement for digital transactions, highly controlled and granular control of transactions, and programmable policy control tools. However, unlike other digital dollars, transactions using CBDCs are typically conducted on permissioned rail networks where the identification, access, and transaction rules are centrally controlled. As a result, CBDCs will likely increase the level of inclusion for individuals. However, CBDCs also create an inherent risk of government surveillance and oversight over the policy decisions of how CBDCs will be used by the individual.

Stablecoins fall into the third category of tokenized currency that is not owned by banks or regulatory bodies, Stablecoins are private entities that issue tokens on public blockchains in exchange for cash (money). They have the same benefits and features that traditional cryptocurrency provides including the ability to easily transfer money anytime and have access to your funds worldwide without any restrictions or limitations that banks impose on their customers. In other words, Stablecoins give everyday users the ability to conduct business and send and receive payment using their cryptocurrency wallet without relying on a traditional bank.
@Plasma believes in this concept: notwithstanding the fact that USD Stablecoins are digital dollar equivalents of fiat currencies like the US dollar, for the purpose of achieving true global adoption by users, USD Stablecoins should be created using open and public blockchains, instead of being created within closed systems, or closed financial institutions. The Plasma blockchain has been designed to provide infrastructure specifically for creating high-volume, high-speed USD Stablecoins. The cost of transferring USD₮, through the Plasma platform, is zero (0). Users can therefore use the USD₮ coin as payment, as all transfers are processed instantaneously through protocol-level paymasters. The Plasma platform has also built a bridge between Bitcoin liquidity and the traditional financial systems of the world. It thereby allows users to access their funds globally via instant wire transfer using USD₮, and, by the same token, allows for the ability to perform business transactions via DeFi applications.
$XPL is not just a logo on a chart but also a Coordinating Asset which brings together all of the Blockchain participants, and it has the following roles: Facilitating the ecosystem; set the wheels in motion for funding; coordinate validators (by aligning their interests with those of each other and the economic health of the Stablecoin emitted via Plasma); the money of the Bank cannot be accessed directly (CBDC is a Controlled Digital Currency) and the stable coins generated by Plasma L1 become the public W1nternet Neutral (a Digital Asset) means of saving, spending and settling. Hence in a time where the Digital Currency debate is a battle over 'who' makes the rules, @Plasma Plasma places its bet squarely on open digital dollars that are available to anyone to be plugged into and $XPL is the only true way to demonstrate this that every one involved in creating those stablecoins retains skin in the game to keep those rails honest. #plasma

People usually do not think about consensus. They just want their money to move quickly and not go back. PlasmaBFT is what makes this happen for stablecoins on @Plasma . It is like an engine that you cannot see. PlasmaBFT is made to work fast, and it uses Rust to implement Fast HotStuff BFT. From the start, PlasmaBFT was made to do one thing: make sure digital dollar and Bitcoin transactions are finished in seconds. This has to happen at a scale, and it has to be safe. PlasmaBFT is used for stablecoins on @Plasma . It makes sure transactions are safe and fast.
PlasmaBFT works in rounds where one leader is in charge. The leader, who is a validator, suggests a block of transactions. Then the committee votes on it. When most of the committee members agree, their votes are put together into something called a Quorum Certificate. This Quorum Certificate is like a proof that everyone agrees. These Quorum Certificates are linked together. This linking guarantees that once a block is finalized, it will not be changed, as long as less than one-third of the validators are not working correctly, which is the classic threshold for faults. PlasmaBFT uses this method to make sure that the blocks of transactions are secure. The Quorum Certificates are very important for PlasmaBFT. Fast HotStuff is really good because it does not need a lot of communication to work. It also handles leader changes well. This is why PlasmaBFT can usually commit things in two trips across the network when everything is working properly. Fast HotStuff and PlasmaBFT work together to make this happen. As a result, users of PlasmaBFT and Fast HotStuff get to experience finality that feels instant. They do not have to wait for confirmations that may or may not happen, which is a big advantage of using PlasmaBFT and Fast HotStuff.

For builders this is not just a nice thing to know; it actually shapes how they design products. When stablecoin apps are sure that a transfer is final within one process, they can safely let people send money in real time, make payments, do a lot of trades quickly at stores, and handle complex DeFi flows without having to build in big safety nets or retry steps. Stablecoin apps can do all these things because they know the transfer is final. This means stablecoin apps can power real-time remittances and point-of-sale payments and high-frequency trading and complex DeFi flows. On the infrastructure side, PlasmaBFT works well with a Reth-based EVM execution layer. This means the chain can handle thousands of PlasmaBFT transactions per second. At the time it keeps the delay very low. So when you use PlasmaBFT, it feels like you are making Web2 payments, not using blockchains like you used to with PlasmaBFT.
The money behind this agreement is $XPL . It helps choose the people who validate transactions and makes sure the operators are working for the long-term security of the network. When people put up their money to help, the network picks who gets to decide what happens and form groups to make decisions. PlasmaBFT does more than just make things work faster. It also helps the people who make sure payments are final get a share of the benefits when the network grows. Now people are really interested in being able to settle payments quickly for stablecoins and Bitcoin. The @Plasma network is using something called HotStuff to make sure transactions are final, which makes it a good choice for settling payments instead of just being another new network that is still being tested. #plasma

Most blockchains think of stablecoins as another token. @Plasma does things differently. It is a layer where stablecoins like dollars are the most important thing, not something on the side. Now stablecoins are used a lot, almost as much as card networks, but they have to work on old systems that are slow and expensive. @Plasma wants to be the layer that helps stablecoins like dollars work better and faster all around the world. Plasma is about stablecoins; it is a stablecoin-native layer, and it thinks digital dollars should be the main focus so it is trying to be the missing piece that makes digital dollars work smoothly.
Plasma is a system that makes it easy for people to use money on the internet. It does this by letting kinds of money like US dollars move around quickly and without much cost. This is because Plasma has a way of making sure transactions are safe and final and it does not charge a lot of fees.

People can even send a type of money called USDT to each other without paying any fees because someone else is paying for the cost of sending it. Plasma also has plans to make payments private. It is connected to Bitcoin, which makes it easy to use Bitcoin on the Plasma system.
All of this makes Plasma a great way for people to send money to each other, for businesses to accept money from customers, and for people to borrow and lend money. For stores and financial companies, Plasma means they can know how much it will cost to accept money from customers, and they can get that money quickly. This is as fast and cheap as using payment systems like Visa or sending money through a bank. Plasma is like a road that makes it easy to move money around.
At the center of this design is $XPL , the native asset that secures the network and aligns validators, delegators, and ecosystem builders around the same growth loop: more payments, more usage, more value routed through Plasma. As stablecoins evolve from speculative sidekicks into everyday money—from Lagos street markets to on‑chain treasuries—a chain engineered exactly for them is not a luxury, but an inevitability, and that is the gap @Plasma is racing to fill with #plasma and $XPL at its core.

@Dusk ’s focus on European securities and regulated venues is not a marketing afterthought; it is the product of years spent watching how EU regulation, privacy law, and capital‑market structure collide—and then building a chain that fits that reality. The partnership with Dutch exchange NPEX and the work around EU rules like MiCA show how deliberately @Dusk has anchored itself in Europe’s regulated securities landscape.
Europe: strict rules, big opportunity
The European Union is rolling out some of the world’s most comprehensive crypto and digital‑asset regulations, including MiCA and travel‑rule style requirements that force exchanges and wallet providers to capture identities and transactional metadata. At the same time, leaked proposals have targeted “anonymity‑enhancing coins,” making it difficult for institutions to hold or interact with classic privacy coins while still complying with EU law. @Dusk ’s team recognized early that if blockchains were ever going to host serious securities in Europe, they would have to satisfy both capital‑markets rules and strict privacy and data‑protection standards at the same time.
Instead of trying to avoid these rules, @Dusk embraced them by designing a protocol where KYC and compliance are mandatory, but executed through zero‑knowledge cryptography so that data remains confidential. That places the project in a unique niche: it is not a generic privacy coin, but a regulated‑finance platform that uses privacy tools to implement European rules mathematically rather than fighting them.
Why NPEX and Dutch securities came first
This European orientation crystallized in @Dusk ’s commercial partnership with NPEX, a licensed stock exchange in the Netherlands operating a multilateral trading facility (MTF). NPEX already lists and trades SME shares and other securities under Dutch and EU law, which makes it an ideal bridge between traditional markets and a blockchain purpose‑built for compliant tokenization. Together, @Dusk and NPEX are building what they describe as one of Europe’s first blockchain‑powered security exchanges—DuskTrade—where issuance, secondary trading, and settlement of regulated instruments all happen on Dusk’s infrastructure.
The choice of a European MTF is strategic. EU markets are fragmented but highly regulated, and MTFs are core venues for small and mid‑cap securities that often struggle with liquidity and complex post‑trade processes. By targeting that layer first, @Dusk can demonstrate how on‑chain settlement, programmable compliance, and privacy‑preserving identity can reduce costs and expand access for real companies, not just synthetic DeFi projects. It also lets @Dusk prove, in a live regulatory environment, that its privacy and identity stack is acceptable to supervisors who must sign off on NPEX’s operations.

Protocol design shaped by EU regulation
The EU’s approach to privacy and crypto directly influenced @Dusk ’s core architecture. In a policy analysis on proposed EU rules for privacy‑enhancing coins, Dusk’s team emphasized that they are “not specifically a privacy‑enhancing coin” in the regulatory sense; instead they use zero‑knowledge proofs to keep transactions private while ensuring every action is compliant by design. Users KYC once, keep that KYC data private, and then transact in ways that are mathematically restricted to permitted counterparties and instruments—if sanctions bar a certain country, the protocol simply makes those transfers impossible.
To satisfy requirements that names of senders and recipients can be recorded or retrieved when needed, @Dusk uses provable encryption and digital identity via Citadel, aligning itself with the EU’s emerging European Digital Identity (EUDI) framework. This means each transaction can be audited by the right authority even though ordinary observers see only commitments and proofs, a balance that fits Europe’s simultaneous insistence on financial traceability and data minimization. In short, European rules didn’t just influence Dusk’s legal strategy—they literally shaped how the chain encodes and reveals information.
Building a template for on‑chain European securities
The combination of NPEX, EU‑aligned identity, and built‑in compliance is gradually turning @Dusk into a template for how European securities might live on‑chain. @Dusk and NPEX are already extending this framework with partners like Chainlink to handle verified market data and cross‑chain settlement for European securities, ensuring that tokenized assets on DuskEVM can interact securely with the wider crypto ecosystem. This marriage of licensed venues, privacy‑first infrastructure, and interoperable data standards is aimed squarely at institutions who want to modernize their European operations without stepping outside regulatory comfort zones.
@Dusk ’s story, then, is not just about a blockchain choosing a region; it is about a protocol that grew up around Europe’s specific blend of strict securities law and strong privacy rights. By making European securities and regulated venues its first proving ground, Dusk is betting that the hardest regulatory environment will also be the most powerful showcase for its technology—and a launchpad for similar regulated markets worldwide. $DUSK #Dusk

@Dusk ’s mission is pretty clear: build markets where institutions can actually meet on-chain regulatory requirements—without sacrificing privacy, speed, or control. Sounds simple, but pulling it off is a different story. @Dusk isn’t just another network. It’s built from the ground up to handle compliance, identity, and confidentiality right in its core protocol, not as some afterthought.
Here’s the real problem: regulation and blockchains just don’t get along
In traditional capital markets, everyone plays by strict rules. Intermediaries need licenses, owners have to be known, and regulators must trace every move. Public blockchains turn that upside down. Either everything’s out in the open for all to see, or it’s all hidden behind mixers and off-chain tricks, which makes regulators nervous and leaves institutions stuck—risking legal trouble or missing out on new tech. @Dusk ’s main idea is that real-world assets and serious financial instruments will only go on-chain if the infrastructure can prove it’s following the rules—no shortcuts, no guesswork.
Regulations aren’t static, either. Places like the EU are rolling out laws for crypto service providers, transaction tracing, and digital IDs. Think MiCA and travel rule stuff. @Dusk saw this coming and spent years building a protocol that just fits these new rules by default. Anyone can use the network privately, but if the law steps in, authorized auditors can see who sent what to whom. It’s about being compliant, private, and efficient all at once—so markets don’t have to pick between following the law and using good tech.

What does this actually look like?
@Dusk is building a settlement layer with regulation baked in. Every node runs software that supports zero-knowledge cryptography. That means transactions stay encrypted, but still prove they obey the rules. So, authorities can audit if they need to, but regular users and data scrapers can’t snoop on counterparties or amounts.
There’s more to it. @Dusk uses special protocols—Citadel and Zedger. Citadel handles digital identity. It lets users and institutions prove things like “I’m KYC-verified” or “I’m allowed to invest” without exposing all their personal details. Zedger brings in the rules for handling security tokens and other real-world assets: who can own them, how they move, what needs to be disclosed. Together, these pieces let issuers and trading venues launch products where the chain itself enforces the compliance logic.
Automation: A key part of Dusk's mission
One of the biggest shifts @Dusk brings is automation—compliance that runs on autopilot. Instead of each exchange or broker juggling their own KYC lists and manual checks, they plug into Dusk’s shared, protocol-level identity and rule system. Zero-knowledge proofs mean they can run all the checks they need, without ever exposing raw identity data. That cuts overhead and keeps personal info safer.
This kind of automation changes the game for regulated markets. Businesses get access to financing, trading, and managing tokenized assets—and a lot of the compliance heavy lifting happens right on the chain. Institutions see faster clearing and settlement, less fragmented liquidity, and more predictable regulatory outcomes, since every transaction already follows the rules in the protocol. And users? They can hold real assets in their wallets without trusting some middleman to stay compliant for them. It’s a new way forward for regulated finance, built for the world that’s coming.
Mission in practice: inclusion through compliant RWAs
@Dusk wants to make real economic inclusion possible by letting anyone access institution-grade assets, all while staying on good terms with regulators. For them, real financial freedom isn’t just about holding your own assets—it’s also about having solid safeguards against fraud and big blowups. That’s why they don’t see privacy and compliance as enemies. Instead, they’ve tied the idea of inclusion directly to both.
They’re building a platform where you can issue, trade, and manage things like securities, bonds, and funds—basically, all sorts of real-world assets—within the rules that already exist. The goal? Shift trillions of dollars in value onto rails that are programmable, transparent for those who need to see, and open to regular users.
So, @Dusk isn’t just chasing the next DeFi trend. They want to change how regulation actually works. Think less paperwork, fewer middlemen, and more on-chain, automated checks that both institutions and regulators can trust. $DUSK #Dusk

@Dusk tackles a problem that’s held back real institutional adoption for years: how do you follow strict regulations, let users hold their own assets, and keep markets open enough that everyone trusts what’s happening? Instead of treating these as things you have to compromise on, @Dusk pulls them together using programmable privacy and identity, so they actually support each other—all on one regulated DeFi stack.
Regulation: privacy with real accountability
In places like the EU, the rules say you have to know who your customers are (KYC/AML), but you also have to protect their privacy. It’s a tough balance. @Dusk uses zero-knowledge cryptography and what it calls “zero-knowledge compliance.” Here, users prove they meet all the regulatory checks, but nobody—except those who absolutely need to know—ever sees the details. Transactions get encrypted using user keys, but there’s also an auditor key layered in. Zero-knowledge proofs guarantee the right auditor can see what they need, and that all the rules were followed, but the rest of the world just sees the proof, not the data.
Basically, this setup means you can share info with regulators or auditors when you have to, but you don’t expose your whole order book or client list to the public. That’s not just a nice-to-have; in privacy-focused places, it’s the law.
Self-custody: real control, not regulatory blind spots
Self-custody is core to what @Dusk does. Users get full, direct control over their assets, and can still join in regulated financial markets. Instead of forcing everyone to park assets with big custodians, Dusk uses security-focused token standards and private smart contracts, so you can hold regulated tokens yourself. Protocols like Zedger and the XSC security-token contract let people own and move regulated assets, while the chain quietly enforces all the necessary rules—stuff like lockups or jurisdictional restrictions.
This also cuts down on the endless duplication of KYC checks. Rather than every platform building their own identity silo, you get verified once and use that across anything built on Dusk. You hold your own assets and credentials, and the chain itself makes sure only the right people get into each market.

On-chain transparency: oversight without the spotlight
Total secrecy isn’t good—regulators need to catch abuse, spot risks, and piece together what happened if something goes wrong. But full public exposure isn’t workable either. @Dusk goes for “selective transparency.” Details stay private from the general public, but are always visible to the right people—regulators, exchanges, whoever’s authorized. High-level market data is still out there, so everyone can see that settlements are happening and rules are followed, just not the granular details of every trade.
By baking compliance and identity into the protocol itself, Dusk avoids messy workarounds like mixers or off-chain tricks—stuff regulators just don’t trust. KYC is enforced by math, not business logic. Sanctions and blacklists are built right into transaction rules. Regulators get a clear, standard way to check what’s going on. In Dusk’s world, transparency means the right people can verify everything, not that everyone has to share their entire financial life with the world.
Putting it all together on one chain
Most blockchains pick two out of three—regulation, self-custody, or privacy—and leave the rest behind. @Dusk doesn’t choose; it builds all of them into one system. Zero-knowledge proofs and encrypted transactions keep things confidential, while programmable privacy and digital identity make sure only compliant activity can happen. You get real self-custody over regulated assets, with rules everyone can trust. And authorities get enough visibility to supervise, without turning every address into a public dossier.
The end result? An L1 where capital markets can finally move on-chain, with legal compliance, user control, and genuine transparency—something generic public chains just never managed to pull off. $DUSK #Dusk

Capital markets don’t just dislike total transparency—they can’t actually function with it. That’s the real reason they need a privacy‑first L1 like @Dusk , not a generic public chain. Institutions have to protect client confidentiality, keep their strategies under wraps, and shield regulated data. At the same time, they need to prove to regulators that everything’s legit. On a fully transparent ledger, there’s just no way to strike that balance.
Radical transparency doesn’t fit the way institutions work
If you’ve ever used a block explorer, you know: public chains lay out every transfer, balance, and interaction for the whole world to see. For asset managers, banks, and broker-dealers, that’s a disaster. Their strategies, liquidity needs, even client behaviors—everything becomes public, breaking internal risk controls and running straight into rules like GDPR in Europe. Sure, addresses are pseudonymous, but analytics can cluster them, revealing who’s behind what. Suddenly, what looks like “transparency” turns into a giant information leak—something compliance teams just can’t sign off on.
Traditional markets go out of their way to hide this stuff. They keep order books partially hidden, use dark pools, and settle trades through intermediaries for a reason: nobody wants to broadcast their trading intent. When a big fund rebalances, only a handful of people know the details. Public chains tear that apart. Now, every move is out in the open, and that means front-running risk, a big disadvantage for institutions, and a direct clash with privacy rules baked into financial regulation.

“Add-on privacy” doesn’t cut it
Some projects try to patch things up with mixers, sidechains, or half-private layers on top of transparent L1s. The problem? That just splits the market between compliant and non-compliant users. Regulators usually don’t trust mixers—they see them as a way to hide dirty money, not just sensitive business info. Plus, these tools break how everything connects, so institutions have to pick between keeping secrets and accessing liquidity. That’s not a real choice.
For capital markets, privacy has to come built into the core protocol. The chain needs to support private-by-default transactions, finality you can count on, and compliance tools that regulators can actually understand and audit. And it needs to do all of this without making institutions rely on tools that look like they’re hiding something. That’s exactly where @Dusk comes in: native privacy, but with real support for on‑chain oversight.
How Dusk actually solves the problem
Dusk doesn’t treat privacy and compliance as trade-offs—they’re both built into the protocol. It uses zero-knowledge proofs and confidential transaction schemes, so things like amounts, counterparties, and balances stay private, but still get mathematically verified. At the same time, Dusk offers “programmable privacy,” letting issuers and venues give regulators controlled access to specific information using viewing keys or selective disclosure. This way, trading strategies and client details stay private, but supervisors can still do their jobs and keep markets honest.
Since Dusk was designed from the start for digital securities, it can bake regulatory rules right into token standards and smart contracts. That means things like investor eligibility, where tokens can be traded, lockups, and reporting—these all get enforced on-chain, not pushed off to lawyers and paperwork. Combine that with confidential settlement, and institutions finally get something the public chains can’t offer: a market that acts like a regulated venue, with all the necessary controls, but still protects sensitive info.
Keeping up with modern regulations
Laws like GDPR, MiCA, and new digital-asset rules in Europe treat privacy as a right, not a bonus. A system that broadcasts every transaction detail just doesn’t fit, no matter how good it is at settling trades. Dusk is built as a direct answer to that problem. The only way institutions will ever bring real-world assets on‑chain is if the base layer is built for compliance and privacy from the start. That’s the point—and that’s the gap Dusk fills.
@Dusk brings confidential issuance, private settlement, and on-chain corporate governance together on one privacy-first L1. That means exchanges, brokers, and issuers can finally move to blockchain without worrying about breaking the rules or losing their edge. Sure, public chains are great for open experiments and retail DeFi, but real capital markets have rules—lots of them. They need strict privacy and compliance. For them, a privacy-first L1 like Dusk isn’t just a nice upgrade. It’s the only way in. $DUSK #Dusk