Here’s the script of the impromptu AMA hosted by Dusk founder Emanuele (Ema) on Discord, May 20, 2025.
For those prefer TL;DR, George has it summarized on Discord:
Full Q&A below
Intro
Ema: I have a bit of time before my next meetings, so I thought about hanging out with my favorite peeps and get some questions if any
Ema replying to community member jochem reposting 21x X post:
soon, on a wallet near you…
Q1
Oh, to have a sneak peek at your calendar..
A1
I have a call with Max (21x CEO) and Mark (NPEX CEO) in 30m in order to get all assets from 21x brokered by NPEX on Dusk
Q2
Are there any new partners you are really excited about? I know you cannot drop names, just to know if you are enthousiastic about new things in the pipeline?
Did any new ones arise out of token 2049?
A2
yes there are more partners but to be honest what I am excited about is the focus on rolling out NPEX’s dapp as soon as we can
Q3
I’m off too, but good seeing you here! Good luck with the call 
A3
no luck needed. This is to plan ahead the “wen” part
there are some development I would like to touch upon as I am not quite sure that their significance has been widely understood
the main challenge was regulatory
and this is one of the developments I wanted to be touching upon
everybody here knows that NPEX has an MTF license and therefore is enabled to create a trading venue for assets
this is already quite pivotal in our journey to bring securitized RWA to Dusk
however, what it has been flying under the radar is the fact that NPEX has also a broker license, which we can fully utilize
this means that not only NPEX can open secondary market capabilities for securities and assets listed on its own exchange, but it also has the license to fetch assets from other exchanges and offer them to its users at best price execution
with the introduction of an NPEX dapp on Dusk, we are now able to go fetch any asset tradeable on any exchange we onboard, tokenize it, and offer it for trading in a full RegDeFi setup
we are gonna start with assets that are already onchain
i.e. on the only DLT-TSS exchange in circulation which is 21x
Q4
Obviously you can’t share any numbers but wondering how packed their pipeline is?
A4
It’s not that they share this information with me, but unofficially I have a pretty good idea
but it doesn’t really matter to be honest
in the long run we are gonna bring ALL securities on-chain, either because we will use the broker license, or because the securities will be brought on the MTF directly
now my intention (and Hein’s main task) is to reduce the time to market as much as possible
which is why we are probably going to deploy the dapp on Dusk EVM and treat it as the main execution layerthis will make sure we can bring liquidity early on, remove any hurdle for integration, partner up with many bridge providers, and attract DeFi developers to create financial applications based on regulated RWA as soon as possible
in order to do this in the fastest possible way, we have been overhauling Dusk L1 to become a modular blockchain
as such, we are implementing Proto-Danksharding
Q5
That means tokenized treasury also?
A5
absolutely
the strategic move will be to move these assets to the MTF later on, but I am excited to be working toward having these assets available and tradeable on Dusk asap
Q6
Sounds like the business plan is still quite NPEX centered, or it only seems that way due to NDAs and WIP?
A6
lemme be completely clear
there is no security RWA without a Mifid license holder
NPEX IS DUSK
it is the license arm of Dusk, the regulatory entity that enables Dusk to do what we are set out to do
without NPEX we would be just another pseudo-RWA protocol dealing with assets with lower compliance capabilities such as non-MiCA stablecoins yielding ROIs from either marketing budget or sourcing leverage from crypto exchanges
Q7
1.How much (and what type) of work is there to go from released Zedger Beta to full blown Zedger?
2.Is Citadel coming with a separate biz case or is the release just for NPEX for now?
A7
-
from a technical perspective actually not much. We already have some simple form of privacy-preserving swap developed and the main missing part is the corporate action. The main overhead is coming from 2 places: compliance overhead in getting the DLT-TSS license, and the deployment/interaction with Dusk EVM as execution layer
-
In the interest of speed, we are gonna go with a more traditional KYC/AML workflow before using Citadel
Q8
How imminent is imminent? (for 2-way bridge)
A8
I expected the 2-way bridge to be deployed already. The security review is taking longer than I anticipated. In any case, the code is done
Q9
Where has Hein been? Haven’t seen him for time
A9
coordinating the whole tech team, following the work on Dusk EVM, liaise with the security review of the bridge, etc
Q10
Whats with NPEX license? is it still in progress? any positive news for that
A10
there has been some back and forth on the application with our attorneys. The process has been quite slow and there are new regulatory directions that pop-up here and there which need to be integrated. An example has been DORA and the Cybersecurity act, but ther are others
Q11
Always like your enthousiasm you bring in! Compared to 6 and 12 months ago are you similar or more enthousiastic about the potential model/denand for dusk?
A11
exponentially more enthousiastic
I am annoyed by the churn in rolling out Dusk EVM. I wanted it to be done by now
Q12
What is the bottleneck? / whats making it delay?
A12
EIP-4844 needs to be ported to Dusk by using our own contract taxonomy. We are working with external consultants to bridge the knowledge gap with Ethereum, but it is taking them longer than expected to port the standard to Dusk. This is due to the dependency of the contract to rkyv
and the fact that Dusk has a different architecture from what these guys are used to
to solve that, Milosz are Seppia are rolling out the Data Driver in the next couple of days. But this slowed us down a bit
Q13
So when NPEX will native issue its making use of MTF license? And to bring already existing securities to dusk wallet they just use Broker license. While benefits of native issuance on blockchain we already got explained, whats the benefit of bringing exisitng ones to dAPP? Smaller broker fees?
And one think i probably missed. In the older days there was plan to have view keys for phoenix transactions. Was this phased out by phoenix 2.0?
A13
if you have the private key, you can already generate a view keys for phoenix transactions. However, this is not the way to disclose information
Q14
Luca said Duskevm is couple of months away. is that accurate?
A14
yes
however this is not the full story
the modification to Dusk L1 to enable Dusk EVM does not prevent the development of the asset Dapp
in fact we could deploy Dusk EVM in Testnet and make it settle on some other L1 until we are ready
Q15
Why not roll out without 4844 and later upgrade it to market asap?
A15
(in fact we could deploy Dusk EVM in Testnet and make it settle on some other L1 until we are ready)
that’s the idea ^
ugh
late for the meeting
later folks
(After Ema’s call meeting)
Ema: Call over. Crank up the hype-o-meter 100x
Q16
Your enthusiasm is contagious, Ema! Are there any marketing activities planned? And when do you think or hope the market will start to see the potential of this project?
A16
we are talking about co-hosting an event in Amsterdam quite soon. As for creating marketing awareness, we need to rollout the application with assets that other chains can only dream about
A14 follow-up question
(Ema: …in fact we could deploy Dusk EVM in Testnet and make it settle on some other L1 until we are ready…)
If dusk EVM can settle on another layer 1, why would you still aim to settle on dusk? (Cost, privacy) and if you go for another layer1 , will you ever port everything to dusk?
A14 follow-up
Dusk is not a L1 for generic L2s, it is for Dusk-specific L2s that would be enshrined in its consensus for immediate finality. L1s which utility is to provide settlement for arbitrary L2s cannot grant them immediate finality, not even to ZK rollups. Finality guarantees are another absolute requirement for security trading
what I said is that we can still develop applications on DuskEVM and let it settle on another L1 in Testnet, so to speed up application rollout
Q17
Sounds very exciting, Im just a little concerned that there might still be more technical issues to sort out and we are going to have to stay patient
A17
no technical issues, just plain old development+testing
Q10 follow-up answer by Kye Vanhoot | Dusk Moderator
(Q10: Whats with npex license? is it still in progress? any positive news for that)
The first leg for DLT Pilot Regime will end in 10 months time. Now, it’s basically guaranteed they will use the 3y extension but the question is will they change any of it to cater to the big boys like Deutsche Börse, Euronext etc. That’s when the real fun starts
Ema:
I think they will most likely extend for another 3 years, at the end of which they will get rid of the various caps and commoditize DLT within the financial market
Kye:
I’m highly confident they’ll modify the limits well before that though. Some reasons being disappointing uptake, feedback from the industry and recently even other regulators, competition with UK Sandbox (they do have caps that scale) and the upcoming US one, the general willingness on EU capital market rehaul in sight of EU acc movement