Dusk
Dusk is an Amsterdam-based Layer 1 blockchain protocol company providing privacy-preserving, compliance-ready infrastructure for tokenized real-world assets. It serves regulated financial institutions including exchanges, custodians, brokers, and stablecoin issuers through its native L1, EVM-compatible execution layer, and licensing partnerships.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2018
- HeadquartersAmsterdam, Netherlands
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Dusk does
Dusk Network B.V., headquartered in Amsterdam and founded in 2018, operates a Layer 1 blockchain protocol purpose-built for regulated digital assets and real-world asset (RWA) tokenization. The protocol combines zero-knowledge proof cryptography (PLONK), deterministic settlement, and privacy-preserving transactions with selective disclosure capabilities, targeting financial institutions that need compliance without sacrificing confidentiality. Its product stack includes DuskDS (native L1 with confidential shielded transfers and ZK smart contracts), DuskEVM (OP Stack-compatible execution layer for Solidity developers), Hedger (Confidential EVM via homomorphic encryption and ZK proofs), Dusk Trade (application layer for tokenized assets), Citadel (ZK-based self-sovereign identity for KYC/AML), Dusk Pay (MiCA-compliant on-chain payments via EURQ), Dusk Vault (institutional custody), Dusk Connect/Dusk Wallet (wallet SDK and first-party wallet), Forge (smart contract development framework), and STOX (regulated trading platform).
The company monetizes through protocol-level transaction fees on tokenized securities issuance, trading, and settlement routed through licensed entities, primarily the NPEX partnership (a Dutch MTF under MiFID II in which Dusk holds approximately 10% equity). Additional revenue mechanics include licensing of institutional infrastructure to custodians and exchanges, and DUSK token economics (gas fees and staking rewards). The go-to-market combines enterprise sales to regulated financial institutions (NPEX, 21X, Cordial Systems, Quantoz Payments) with a community- and developer-led motion via Discord, GitHub, grants, and documentation. DuskEVM serves as an API-first on-ramp for Solidity builders, while DUSK token listings on Binance US, Bitvavo, Bybit, Gate.io, KuCoin, and MEXC provide market access. Mainnet went live on January 7, 2025, after six years of development, and the company is pursuing the European DLT-TSS license to enable natively issued tokenized securities markets.
Dusk firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Dusk
- Legal name
- Dusk Network B.V.
- Website
- https://dusk.network
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2018
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Dusk is an Amsterdam-based Layer 1 blockchain protocol company providing privacy-preserving, compliance-ready infrastructure for tokenized real-world assets. It serves regulated financial institutions including exchanges, custodians, brokers, and stablecoin issuers through its native L1, EVM-compatible execution layer, and licensing partnerships.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Dusk industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Blockchain Infrastructure
- NAICS
- Securities and Commodity Exchanges (52321), Financial Transactions Processing, Reserve, and Clearinghouse Activities (522320)
- SIC
- Security & Commodity Brokers, Dealers, Exchanges & Services (6200)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Cryptography, Privacy & Identity Infrastructure (ZK, MPC, DID, key management) (FSAPAAAJ)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Permissioned Blockchain Platforms & Frameworks (Hyperledger, Corda, Quorum) (FSAPAIAA), Privacy, Data Protection & Compliance (zk compliance, GDPR/PII handling) (FSAPAJAM), Digital Asset Custody & Wallet Infrastructure for Institutions (MPC/HSM, key mgmt, policy controls) (FSAPAIAE), Identity, Credentials & Permissioning for Enterprises (DID/VC, access control, attestations) (FSAPAIAG)
Keywords
Where Dusk is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Amsterdam
- HQ country
- Netherlands
- HQ region
- Europe
Offices1 record
Markets served
Dusk business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations
Revenue model
- Network Token Economics (DUSK): DUSK token serves as the native cryptocurrency of the network, used for gas fees, staking to secure the network, and as a settlement asset. Token holders can stake to earn rewards while contributing to network security.
- Protocol-Level Licensing: Through the NPEX partnership, Dusk enables native issuance of regulated assets (money market funds, stocks, bonds, treasuries) on-chain. Revenue generated from transaction fees, issuance fees, and trading fees flows through licensed entities.
- RWA Tokenization Services: Dusk provides infrastructure for tokenizing real-world assets for institutional clients. Revenue model includes platform fees for issuance, trading, and settlement of tokenized securities through regulated venues.
Go-to-market motion3 records
Distribution channels5 records
Marketing channels10 records
Dusk product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Dusk provides a privacy-preserving Layer 1 blockchain protocol (DuskDS) purpose-built for regulated digital assets and real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, combining zero-knowledge proof cryptography, deterministic settlement, and selective disclosure for compliance. Its stack includes an EVM-compatible execution layer (DuskEVM), a confidential EVM engine (Hedger), an application layer for tokenized asset workflows (Dusk Trade), institutional custody (Dusk Vault), compliant on-chain payments (Dusk Pay), a ZK identity layer for KYC/AML (Citadel), and a smart contract development framework (Forge). The protocol is offered to financial institutions, issuers, custodians, trading venues, and developers building regulated on-chain financial applications.
Product overview
Dusk is a blockchain protocol for regulated markets that combines a privacy-preserving native L1 (DuskDS) with an EVM-compatible execution layer (DuskEVM). The stack includes Dusk Trade for tokenized asset workflows, Hedger for confidential EVM transactions, Dusk Pay for compliant on-chain payments, Dusk Vault for institutional custody, Dusk Connect and Dusk Wallet for dApp/wallet interoperability, Forge for smart contract development, Citadel for zero-knowledge identity/KYC, and STOX for regulated asset trading. The architecture enables issuance, trading, settlement, and servicing of regulated digital assets with privacy by default and selective disclosure for compliance.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- DuskDS: The native Layer 1 blockchain of Dusk, providing deterministic settlement, data availability, confidential shielded transfers, and ZK smart contracts.
- DuskEVM
- Dusk Trade
- Hedger
- Dusk Vault
- Dusk Pay
- Dusk Connect
- Dusk Wallet
- Citadel
- Forge
Products and services
- DuskDS (Dusk Native Layer 1) Native Layer 1 blockchain for regulated onchain finance providing deterministic settlement, data availability, confidential shielded transfers, transparent public accounts, and ZK smart contracts in one base layer. Designed for issuers, venues, custodians, regulators, and investors coordinating around regulated asset workflows.
- Dusk Trade Application layer for tokenized financial assets on Dusk, providing investor onboarding, wallet binding, controlled transfers, payment coordination, and compliant settlement coordination. Built around real market workflows for regulated asset issuance and trading.
- DuskEVM EVM-compatible execution layer built on OP Stack compatibility, allowing Solidity applications to deploy on Dusk while settling back to DuskDS. Provides a familiar EVM path for regulated market applications with stronger settlement guarantees and a route toward confidential workflows via Hedger.
- Hedger Privacy engine for EVM flows using homomorphic encryption and zero-knowledge proofs. Adds confidential transaction flows to DuskEVM for applications where users, venues, or issuers need privacy without giving up verifiable execution.
- Dusk Vault Secure and compliant custody solution tailored for financial institutions. Provides self-hosted wallet technology for maintaining full control over digital asset custody infrastructure.
- Dusk Pay On-chain payment system providing fast, cheap, regulatorily compliant payments powered by the EURQ electronic money token, enabling compliant on-chain payment flows.
- Dusk Connect Standard wallet connection SDK for DuskDS dApps based on EIP-6963 pattern. Enables applications to discover compatible wallets and communicate through a shared provider interface.
- Dusk Wallet First-party wallet for browser extensions, desktop, and mobile built around Dusk Connect. Supports public and private transfers, shield/unshield, staking, reward claiming, DRC-20 and DRC-721 asset flows.
- Citadel Decentralized licensing protocol providing zero-knowledge proof solution for self-sovereign identity (SSI), enabling proof of ownership, proof of validity, unlinkability, decentralized nullification, and attribute blinding for KYC/AML compliance.
- Forge Development framework for building Dusk smart contracts. Uses Rust and WASM for native privacy, ZK smart contracts, and protocol-level control.
- STOX (Code Name) Trading platform for regulated assets being built on DuskEVM, offering access to money market funds, stocks, bonds, and more. Rolling out iteratively starting with selected partners and assets.
- Pituitary Open source AI spec drift detection tool that indexes specs, docs, and decision records to detect overlapping decisions, stale documentation, code-spec contradictions, and terminology drift. Includes MCP server for AI coding agent integration.
Quantifiable outcome
- Settlement time reduced from days to seconds
- +3 more outcomes
Companies that use Dusk
Customer profileNamed customers4 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles4 records
Dusk technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration4 records
AI capability2 records
Feature7 records
Dusk partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Six partnerships are on record, tiered core and flagship.
- Developer CommunitycoreOpen-source developer ecosystem partnerships through grants program, documentation, and developer preview releases. Repository contributions from community developers. Grant funding available through docs.dusk.network/developer/contribute/grants/
- 21XcoreStrategic collaboration with 21X, the first company to receive DLT-TSS license under European regulation for fully tokenized securities markets. Dusk is onboarded as a trade participant with deeper integrations planned, including 21X integrating DuskEVM as one of their supported blockchains.
- ChainlinkcoreStrategic partnership integrating Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), DataLink, and Data Streams. DuskEVM becomes natively interoperable with the broader tokenized asset ecosystem across all CCIP-connected chains (65+). Chainlink provides oracle infrastructure for real-time data feeds, price discovery, compliance, and settlement of tokenized RWAs.
- Cordial SystemscorePartnership for institutional-grade RWA custody using Cordial Treasury self-hosted wallet technology. NPEX uses Cordial's on-premises infrastructure for full control over their technology stack. Cordial's blockchain integration expertise enables adding support for new networks within weeks.
- Quantoz PaymentscorePartnership to bring EURQ (a MiCA-compliant electronic money token) to Dusk. EURQ is a digital euro designed to fully comply with MiCA regulations and serves as legal tender. This enables Dusk Pay for fast, cheap, regulatorily compliant on-chain payments. Dusk is one of only three blockchains where EURQ is accessible.
- NPEXflagshipDusk partnered with NPEX to launch Europe's first blockchain-powered security exchange for issuing, trading, and tokenizing regulated financial instruments. NPEX operates as a licensed Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF) under MiFID II. Dusk became a shareholder of NPEX in December 2020, and the partnership expanded into a commercial agreement in March 2024. Emanuele Francioni (Dusk CEO) also serves as non-executive CTO of NPEX.
Scale indicators6 records
Recent moves7 records
Expansion highlights5 records
Dusk competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Ava Labs (Avalanche): Avalanche is an L1 protocol with a strong institutional/RWA focus (AvaCloud, Evergreen subnet for regulated assets). It competes with Dusk for regulated-finance infrastructure mandates and offers comparable EVM compatibility with broader scale and liquidity.
- Provenance Blockchain: Provenance Blockchain (built by Figure) is an L1 designed specifically for financial services and regulated asset workflows, including lending and capital markets. It mirrors Dusk's regulated-finance focus but operates at a more mature scale in US mortgage and credit markets.
- Ondo Finance: Ondo Finance is a leading RWA tokenization platform focused on institutional-grade tokenized treasuries and yield products. While application-layer rather than an L1, it competes directly with Dusk Trade and STOX for tokenized securities workflows aimed at regulated institutions.
- Centrifuge: Centrifuge is an L1/alt-L1 purpose-built for tokenized real-world assets (trade finance, credit, treasuries) with Tinlake and parachain integrations. It is one of the closest architectural analogues to Dusk in the RWA tokenization space.
- Sei Network: Sei is an L1 optimized for trading and financial applications with sub-second finality. It competes with Dusk for institutional trading and asset-issuance workloads where fast deterministic settlement is the differentiator.
- Polygon Labs: Polygon operates scaling solutions and a dedicated Polygon CDK/Polygon Labs RWA push, including partnerships with major institutions. It targets the same tokenized-asset and enterprise-finance workload as Dusk, but with a substantially larger developer ecosystem and capital base.
- R3 (Corda): R3's Corda is a permissioned enterprise DLT platform purpose-built for regulated financial institutions and capital markets. It overlaps directly with Dusk's target market of banks, exchanges, and regulated venues, though Corda is more mature and uses a private-network architecture.
Broad incumbents
- Hyperledger (Linux Foundation): Hyperledger is a Linux Foundation consortium of permissioned enterprise blockchain frameworks (Fabric, Besu, etc.) widely used by financial institutions. It is a broader incumbent in the enterprise DLT space where Dusk competes for regulated-finance workloads.
Emerging players
- Quant Network (Quant/Overledger): Quant Network provides enterprise blockchain interoperability (Overledger) for regulated financial institutions, bridging multiple DLTs. It overlaps with Dusk's regulated-asset interoperability positioning and Chainlink CCIP integration story.
- Plume Network: Plume Network is an emerging RWA-focused L2 built on Ethereum that supports tokenization of real-world assets. It targets the same institutional RWA tokenization use case as Dusk but is at an earlier ecosystem stage.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks7 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Dusk social profiles
Digital presenceDusk compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance1 record
Dusk financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Dusk leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles5 records
Dusk funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds6 records
Investors5 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Dusk M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments1 record
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Dusk
What does Dusk do?
Dusk provides a privacy-preserving Layer 1 blockchain protocol (DuskDS) purpose-built for regulated digital assets and real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, combining zero-knowledge proof cryptography, deterministic settlement, and selective disclosure for compliance. Its stack includes an EVM-compatible execution layer (DuskEVM), a confidential EVM engine (Hedger), an application layer for tokenized asset workflows (Dusk Trade), institutional custody (Dusk Vault), compliant on-chain payments (Dusk Pay), a ZK identity layer for KYC/AML (Citadel), and a smart contract development framework (Forge). The protocol is offered to financial institutions, issuers, custodians, trading venues, and developers building regulated on-chain financial applications.
Is Dusk a public or private company?
Dusk is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was Dusk founded?
Dusk was founded in 2018. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Dusk based?
Dusk is headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in the Europe region.
How does Dusk make money?
Three revenue lines are on record. Network Token Economics (DUSK) is the primary driver. The others are protocol-Level Licensing and RWA Tokenization Services.
Who are Dusk's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Ava Labs (Avalanche), Provenance Blockchain, Ondo Finance, Centrifuge, Sei Network, Polygon Labs and R3 (Corda). Hyperledger (Linux Foundation) is listed as a broad incumbent. Emerging players are Quant Network (Quant/Overledger) and Plume Network.
Does Dusk have an API?
Yes. Dusk provides developer tooling including Solidity/EVM path (DuskEVM) and native privacy path (Dusk ZK/WASM) for building dApps. Documentation available at docs.dusk.network with GitHub repositories at github.com/dusk-network. Includes wallet connection SDK (Dusk Connect) for dApps to integrate with compatible wallets. Developer documentation is at docs.dusk.network.
What industry is Dusk in?
Dusk's product category is Blockchain Infrastructure. Its primary akta.pro industry code is FSAPAAAJ, Cryptography, Privacy & Identity Infrastructure (ZK, MPC, DID, key management), with a secondary code of FSAPAIAA, Permissioned Blockchain Platforms & Frameworks (Hyperledger, Corda, Quorum). Its NAICS code is 52321 and its SIC code is 6200.