Capital markets evolved around selective visibility. Prices are public. Strategies are not. This balance protects liquidity and stability. Public blockchains disrupted it without fully understanding the consequences. By making every transaction permanently visible, they introduced a new category of systemic risk.Market participants adapt quickly. When flows are observable, behavior changes. Large players split activity. Smaller players hesitate. Front running becomes structural, not accidental. These effects compound over time. Liquidity fragments. Trust erodes, not because of fraud, but because exposure alters incentives.
Dusk approaches this problem from the perspective of market design rather than ideology. It does not argue against transparency entirely. It narrows its scope. Validation without publication. Proof without disclosure. This mirrors how traditional markets already operate through clearing houses, custodians, and regulators.
Critically, this is not about hiding losses or avoiding accountability. Auditable systems still exist. They are just not public by default. That distinction matters. Markets fail more often from forced visibility than from controlled opacity. Dusk’s architecture acknowledges that reality instead of trying to overwrite it.Public ledgers solved one problem and created another. Dusk exists in the space between, attempting to restore a balance that finance historically depended on. Whether the industry accepts that trade-off will define how far blockchain can actually go.