This week’s hangout was a bit different, we were joined by Jack (“T-Minus”), co-founder of Sozu, a community-built project leveraging Dusk’s Hyperstaking (Stake Abstraction) technology.
Sozu is enabling delegated staking where users can participate in network security and earn staking rewards without running a node.
Breakdown of key questions and answers below 
Q1: How did the Sozu founders meet and decide to build on Dusk?
- Jack (“T-Minus”) and Mr. Smith met during Dusk’s Incentivized Testnet (ITN) phase.
- Both were active community members testing and discussing the network daily.
- After brainstorming, they identified liquid staking as a core DeFi building block for Dusk’s ecosystem.
- Once confident, they began building Sozu, focusing on simplifying staking for users who found node operation complex during ITN.
- The goal was to make staking accessible to everyone while leveraging Hyperstaking (Stake Abstraction), allowing smart contracts to participate directly in Dusk’s staking process.
Q2: What is liquid staking and how does it work?
- Liquid staking allows users to participate in a network’s consensus (e.g., securing the chain and earning rewards) without locking their funds.
- When staking through Sozu, users receive a fungible token representing their share of the staking pool.
- The idea is that you continue earning staking rewards, while the token can also generate additional yield elsewhere (for example, by being used in lending or yield-farming protocols).
- In the future, Dusk’s ecosystem could see DeFi integrations that allow compounding these rewards even further.
Q3: What’s your background and experience before building Sozu?
- Jack has been a developer for over 10 years, specializing in backend systems.
- His work focuses on the server-side logic and APIs that power applications.
- Mr. Smith, his co-founder, also has a technical background combined with experience in financial institutions, bringing a valuable finance + tech perspective to the project.
Q4: Did you have to build your own wallet extension to interact with Sozu?
- Yes, the Sozu team developed a custom wallet extension to enable direct interaction with Sozu’s platform.
- The custom extension allows users to unlock their encrypted wallet, sign transactions, and interact smoothly with the platform.
- The goal behind the wallet extension was to provide a clean, intuitive interface that could attract non-technical users as well.
- The team is still deciding whether to expand the tool into a full standalone wallet extension (similar to MetaMask), which would allow any Dusk dApp to plug in and interact directly.
- Building on DuskDS, which was not EVM-compatible, meant Sozu had to create its own tools and integrations from scratch, a major challenge at the time.
- With DuskEVM now nearing release, future developers will be able to use standard EVM tooling (MetaMask, WalletConnect, Solidity, etc.), making the development process much easier.
Q5: What’s the main goal of Sozu’s current open beta?
- The open beta focuses on testing long-term stability and core functionality of Sozu’s staking platform.
- Finding bugs is still valuable, but the main goal now is to validate new system features and ensure smooth backend performance.
- This is Sozu’s third beta phase:
- Beta 1 – verified basic staking functionality.
- Beta 2 – refined performance and reliability.
- Current open beta – introduces two major long-term features.
Contract Updates:
- Enables updating contracts without disrupting users or staking operations.
- Especially useful for token contracts, allowing new functionalities (e.g. DeFi integrations) to be added later.
- Provides flexibility to evolve the system over time without redeploying or resetting.
Third-Party Operator Management:
- Operators can now self-manage their nodes and staking pools (register, provision, add/remove, etc.).
- Operators receive a share of staking fees as incentive, effectively a profit-sharing model.
- This decentralizes network participation and reduces the team’s operational overhead.
- Overall, the beta ensures both upgradeability and decentralization are functioning as intended before full mainnet release.
Sozu Demo - How to join open beta:
Q6: How long will Sozu’s final beta phase last?
- The final open beta is expected to run for about 3–4 weeks.
- During this time, the team aims to:
- Complete contract reviews, a key requirement before mainnet launch.
- Test and onboard third-party operators, ensuring they understand how to interact with Sozu’s contracts.
- If the reviews take longer, the team plans to launch a bug bounty campaign so community testers can help identify potential issues.
Q7: What is stDUSK and what role will it play in Sozu’s ecosystem?
- stDUSK is the liquid staking token users receive when staking through Sozu.
- It represents their share of the staking pool and the rewards it generates.
The token’s main purpose is to stay liquid, allowing users to use or transfer it while still earning staking rewards. - Once DuskEVM is live, the team intends to:
- Bridge StDUSK to the EVM layer, enabling use in smart contracts and DeFi protocols.
- Allow StDUSK to be used within the NPEX dApp and other applications built on DuskEVM.
- The long-term vision is to integrate StDUSK across the Dusk ecosystem, giving it utility in DeFi, trading, and RWA applications built on Dusk.
Q8: Will there be an airdrop or early rewards?
- Yes. Sozu will run an Early Adopters Rewards program after launch.
- Rewards will be paid in DUSK.
- Original allocation was 200,000 DUSK; the team is exploring increasing this.
- Tester rewards: the team is tracking beta interactions across all betas and plans to reward testers separately (format TBD. Could be non-token perks or other rewards).
Watch the full recording here: https://youtu.be/55HoRjbdZRU
Follow Sozu here: https://x.com/sozu_dusk
Join Sozu Telegram: Telegram: View @sozufi
Have more questions? Drop them below and we’ll include them in a future session.
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