Someone in a group chat said "on-chain, you're either fully public or you go full privacy-coin, there's no in-between" and I almost just agreed because that's the default assumption😅.
Except that's not actually true, it's just true for most chains, which isn't the same thing.
Dusk runs two separate transaction models side by side😁, not privacy as a bolt-on setting.
One's called Moonlight🌕 — it's transparent and account-based, basically the normal Ethereum-style model where balances are public and a signature proves you own the funds.
The other's Phoenix🔥 — UTXO-based, and instead of the network checking your balance directly, you submit a zero-knowledge proof that the transaction is valid (right amount in, right amount out, funds not double-spent) without revealing what those amounts actually are.
Both run through the same transfer contract.
Same rules underneath — no double-spending, no forging transactions, no tampering after the fact — just proven two different ways. Moonlight proves it in the open.
Phoenix proves it privately.
That's the actual point most "privacy chain" pitches skip: privacy isn't one global switch. It's a choice per transaction, and the guarantees underneath don't get weaker in either mode, they just get proven differently.
Where this actually matters is a regulated trade doesn't get to pick "public forever" or "hidden forever" — sometimes it needs to be invisible to competitors and fully visible to one specific auditor.
That's the harder design problem, and it's the one @Dusk_Foundation built its base layer around instead of retrofitting later.
Caveat: this is the base-chain design, live today. The newer app-layer stuff (DuskEVM, Hedger's disclosure tooling) sits on top of this and I'm not folding claims about that into what I just described.
Curious where people land on this:
Which would you actually want per-transaction control over?
👁️ Who sees my balance
🧾 Who sees the counterparty
💵 Who sees the amount
🔓 None of it, full transparency's fine
#dusk $DUSK
Except that's not actually true, it's just true for most chains, which isn't the same thing.
Dusk runs two separate transaction models side by side😁, not privacy as a bolt-on setting.
One's called Moonlight🌕 — it's transparent and account-based, basically the normal Ethereum-style model where balances are public and a signature proves you own the funds.
The other's Phoenix🔥 — UTXO-based, and instead of the network checking your balance directly, you submit a zero-knowledge proof that the transaction is valid (right amount in, right amount out, funds not double-spent) without revealing what those amounts actually are.
Both run through the same transfer contract.
Same rules underneath — no double-spending, no forging transactions, no tampering after the fact — just proven two different ways. Moonlight proves it in the open.
Phoenix proves it privately.
That's the actual point most "privacy chain" pitches skip: privacy isn't one global switch. It's a choice per transaction, and the guarantees underneath don't get weaker in either mode, they just get proven differently.
Where this actually matters is a regulated trade doesn't get to pick "public forever" or "hidden forever" — sometimes it needs to be invisible to competitors and fully visible to one specific auditor.
That's the harder design problem, and it's the one @Dusk_Foundation built its base layer around instead of retrofitting later.
Caveat: this is the base-chain design, live today. The newer app-layer stuff (DuskEVM, Hedger's disclosure tooling) sits on top of this and I'm not folding claims about that into what I just described.
Curious where people land on this:
Which would you actually want per-transaction control over?
👁️ Who sees my balance
🧾 Who sees the counterparty
💵 Who sees the amount
🔓 None of it, full transparency's fine
#dusk $DUSK