This week’s team hangout featured Hein diving deeper into the progress of DuskEVM, tokenized RWAs, and the broader ecosystem. As well as a little alpha being dropped around DuskEVM testnet.
This summary offers a quick overview of the topics discussed, for the full context and information we recommend watching the recording.
You can find a breakdown of the key questions and answers below 
Q: What is the difference between ERC20 DUSK and EVM DUSK, and why can’t exchanges just list the former?
- ECR-20 $DUSK is just used for token transfers.
- EVM $DUSK is the native currency of DuskEVM, the gas currency.
- In Ethereum systems the token behaves differently if it’s the native currency vs if it’s ERC-20.
- Integrating DuskEVM $DUSK is often much simpler than listing ERC-20 $DUSK and then requiring users to bridge over to DuskEVM.
- Some exchanges, like Bitvavo, also only support one chain per asset.
Q: Could you please explain in simple terms how the L2 and L1 layers interact on Dusk? And how do blobs come into play, what kind of data is stored in them, and how the app layer connects with the settlement layer?
- DuskEVM and DuskDS interact through blobs, which are packets of data, such as transaction records or balance changes.
- On DuskEVM, a batcher processes and compresses these transactions into blobs, which are then sent to DuskDS for inclusion in the blockchain’s state.
- DuskEVM can sync this data from DuskDS to recover or validate transactions.
- In normal setups validators on DuskEVM can challenge blobs for accuracy, but we are planning to add awareness in DuskDS to prevent fraudulent blob transactions proactively - a “pessimistic optimistic” approach as Hein likes to call it. This will not be launched immediately, but afterwards.
Q: Do you already have a good setup for the finalization period?
- The first instance does not have this but we do expect this to be following soon after launch.
- Our setup has contextual awareness of the DuskEVM instance because we control DuskDS.
Q: What does the Venn diagram look like between regular EVM and DuskEVM? Can everything that works on a standard EVM also run on DuskEVM? Are there any differences? If it’s not a perfect overlap, what functionalities or dApps would fall outside these functionalities?
- The Venn diagram is ~98% similar, especially when talking about dApps and EVM coding.
- Little alpha drop was shared: We’ve already been testing this on testnet, which has been working smoothly for a couple of days already.
- Everything that works on Ethereum should also work on DuskEVM, with a few caveats such as that you don’t have a consensus and there’s a batcher, sequencer, and validator nodes.
Q: Can you provide a macro view of what the progress is looking like with DuskVM and what’s still pending?
- The BLOBs are basically done. The only thing we’ve done recently on this is the pricing and gas costs that just need a little tuning but that is simple to do.
- UI support is still pending. Currently you can see blob transactions on devnet explorer if you want to see how that’s going.
- The DuskDS bridge contract itself is done but there is some work left around security of fund withdrawals. There are validator nodes for that but the syncing needs to be finalized.
- Bridge support in the webwallet is also pending but already in progress. This will improve user experience and make it much easier to bridge funds for users.
- Implementation of these is quite easy, but we also want to make sure everything is done right so we’re putting a lot of effort into testing and validation. Especially moving to mainnet which needs to be done carefully and done right.
- We’ve already started testing Hedger on DuskEVM, transactions, contracts and we’re also looking at having third parties running on top of it as well.
Q: While DuskEVM is being developed, the NPEX dapp is also in the works. Is there anything we can share on how that’s progressing and if building it has taught you anything valuable about developing on DuskEVM, especially compared to other EVM solutions?
- While Hein is already quite familiar with that, he got the opportunity to learn more about how to deal with liquidity across chains. In terms of the dApps, how can we bridge over liquidity for existing crypto users.
- One way would be to allow payments on other networks and then we re-issue the assets in tokenized form on DuskEVM, in order to move liquidity from other platforms onto ours.
- A lot of the learnings have been around how to improve user experience so that it’s as simple for users to interact with the dApp, without needing to interact with the backend blockchain technology.
- The dApp will be launched in a staged approach, after DuskEVM is live. Initially it will launch with the onboarding process and then we can slowly add the assets and modules. All of these are currently in progress and are being designed and implemented in parallel.
Q: What steps remain before a tokenized RWA will be seen on Dusk?
- We can start tokenizing RWA at any point after DuskEVM is live but for it to have any meaning or utility you’d need the necessary systems in place - aka DuskEVM and dApps.
Q: What is the progress with the hardware wallet support and a DEX?
- We’re in talks with DEX providers to launch a DEX on DuskEVM & hardware wallet support is natively supported with DuskEVM.
Q: Is there any update you could give us around ITN rewards?
- There’s only 2 team members in the company that can do this, which is why this has been harder to prioritize considering the higher priority of getting DuskEVM ready for launch.
- Distribution will be prioritized after the launch of DuskEVM.
- The distribution of rewards will happen partially on DuskEVM and partially on DuskDS, but we’ll provide more information closer to it.
Q: We see the USA green-lighting tokenized RWAs and some chains adding millions per week in RWAs. In your opinion, do you think the EU will be left behind in the RWA race?
- No, the asset market is in the tens of trillions of dollars and in the EU there’s a completely different game than from the US.
- In the US they are solely focusing on tokenization but not on getting rid of the inefficiencies that you currently have in the existing TradFi systems. It’s great that this attracts more crypto users for the market as a whole.
- We however are looking to get rid of all that so you have full ownership of the underlying assets, you can get yield, have voting rights and you can always redeem the underlying.
- When it comes to legislation, this is the goal that the EU is moving towards whereas in the US we don’t see that happening.
- The pie is very big and with our unique focus on regulatory compliance, which is highly sought after by other RWA projects and institutions we’re in talks with, we are very confident that we’d get a large market share within the EU, especially since we’ve already built a lot of credibility with regulators.
Q: What’s the reason we don’t share launch dates anymore? From a CTO’s perspective, is it a matter of uncertainty or perhaps a lack of confidence in committing publicly to the dates?
- We do a lot of analysis and planning in terms of project plans, key deliverables, scope etc, and we have gotten much better at this over the years so that it limits feature creep and big changes in requirement analysis, but because we’re dealing with complex systems such as Ethereum, Optimism, DuskDS - since each on their own are complete beasts - there are still a lot of unknowns which can pop up.
- We have to be very careful on how and when we share launch dates, not only from a technical stand point, but also from a business development and marketing perspective.
Q: On a scale of 0 to 10, how bullish are you and why?
- Hein would say a a 10, but for people to not think he’s overselling it he changed it to a respectable 9.5
- The RWA market is exploding, and we’re in a prime spot to grab a chunk of it.
- The addressable market is massive, and we’ve got in-house financial expertise, which gives us a real edge.
- While many crypto projects ignore or don’t even think about compliance, we’re making it a core USP of Dusk.
- We’ve already built credibility with TradFi partners and regulators.
- We’re getting interest from third parties who want to collaborate and bring their user bases to us.
- Our unique approach to asset finality and network reliability sets us apart.
Watch the full recording here: https://youtu.be/8zs1YCC1AWQ
Have more questions? Drop them below and we’ll include them in a future session.
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