Michael John1

@Dusk began as a quietly ambitious project in 2018 and its token generation and public trading activity came together in mid-2019, with the TGE / trade launch recorded in July 2019. From the start the team framed Dusk not as another generic smart-contract chain but as plumbing for regulated finance: privacy built into the protocol, auditability when a regulator or custodian needs sight, and token standards meant for securities and compliant instruments rather than pure utility tokens.

Binance put a brighter spotlight on DUSK in July 2019 when it listed the token (initially naming the BEP2 version as the default withdrawable asset), which materially improved liquidity and exchange access for the project. The project has since focused its narrative and engineering on use cases like tokenized securities, custody-friendly settlement flows and pilot tokenizations with regulated venues rather than chasing the high-TVL DeFi playbook — you’ll therefore see modest on-chain DeFi TVL compared with the big general-purpose L1s, but a different set of signals matters here: regulatory partnerships, exchange pilots and custodial integrations.
Binance

If you want a market snapshot: as of today, January 20, 2026, CoinMarketCap’s live feed shows DUSK trading in the low-to-mid fractions of a dollar with 24-hour volumes in the hundreds of millions depending on the data provider; those numbers move minute by minute, so take the figure as a precise-to-this-second snapshot rather than a permanent truth. On the fundraising side, public fundraising trackers and token sale records indicate structured funding and token distribution events around the 2018–2019 window with several million raised in early rounds and a staged issuance designed to support ecosystem incentives rather than a one-shot pump-and-dump
Crucially, Dusk has recently been pushing the mainnet and regulatory integration story — the team announced a mainnet milestone in 2024 and market updates in January 2026 highlight tokenization deals and integrations with regulated venues, which is exactly the kind of traction that validates the project’s thesis if you care about real-world asset (RWA) flows rather than ephemeral TVL spikes.
Bottom line: Dusk isn’t trying to be the loudest yield farm; it’s building rails so a licensed issuer, exchange or custodian can tokenize bonds, securities or other regulated products and have them settle with privacy and auditable controls intact. If you’re after projects that aim for institutional compatibility and real-world asset programs, Dusk’s progress and partnerships are the signals worth watching it’s utility-first, compliance-minded infrastructure rather than hype.
@Dusk #dusk $DUSK #DUSK

@Plasma launched its mainnet on September 25, 2025, and it arrived with a clear, practical promise: give stablecoins their own fast, cheap rails so they behave like money instead of awkward tradable tokens. Within hours the chain had moved serious liquidity a pre-deposit drive pushed roughly $1 billion in within half an hour and reported stablecoin liquidity topped the $2 billion mark on day one and that momentum helped drive immediate exchange support, with Binance listing XPL at launch and other venues like OKX, Bybit and Bitget following quickly. Price action was the usual hype cycle: XPL spiked into the dollar-plus range (peaking around $1.68 on some trackers) before settling down into a lower trading band; in recent weeks it’s been trading around $0.12–$0.13 with daily volumes in the tens of millions, enough to keep market liquidity meaningful even as the dust settles.

What makes Plasma feel different is the engineering trade-off: full EVM compatibility through Reth so developers can port contracts with minimal friction, coupled with PlasmaBFT consensus that delivers sub-second finality so settlement flows actually complete quickly. The team leaned hard into stablecoin-first UX gasless USDT transfers via a paymaster model and the ability to pay fees in stablecoins rather than forcing users to hold native tokens because the whole point is low-friction value movement, not asking people to learn a new token economy just to send money.

Ecosystem activity mirrored that product focus: DeFi integrations and bridges were prioritized from day one, and analytics dashboards showed billions in bridged and on-chain stablecoins as developers and institutions tested settlement and rails use cases. The funding story backed the ambition an oversubscribed token sale that raised roughly $373 million and strategic support from heavy hitters across the industry, names associated with stablecoins, trading and venture capital and that capital helped bootstrap partnerships, liquidity programs and the early yield initiatives that filled quickly on launch.

At the end of the day Plasma isn’t trying to be a magic land of yield or an abstract “programmable everything” playground; it’s a pragmatic settlement layer built around a simple claim: if you want stablecoins to work for real payments and cross-border rails, you design for low cost, instant finality and broad composability. That’s a functional, product-first kind of utility not hype and for remittances, merchants and payments firms that need reliable rails, that matters more than another speculative story.
@Plasma #Plasma $XPL

@Dusk came out of the gates with a very clear mission: to be the blockchain that lets real financial markets banks, securities, tokenized bonds, regulated markets live on‑chain without compromising either privacy or compliance. It wasn’t built as another generic Layer‑1 where everything is public; from day one it married zero‑knowledge cryptography with regulatory primitives so institutions can issue, settle and trade tokenized assets under real world rules, while still keeping sensitive information shielded but auditable.

The project itself dates back to 2018 when its founders laid out the vision and kicked off token sales. That initial private sale and ICO ran through late 2018 at around $0.04 per DUSK, raising roughly $8–10 million from supporters including Binance Labs (now YZi Labs) and others, giving early backers a meaningful entry point before public trading began.
For several years DUSK lived mostly as an ERC‑20/BEP‑20 tradable token across exchanges, but the big architectural leap came with its mainnet launch on September 20, 2025, when the native Dusk blockchain finally went live and started producing blocks under its own consensus.
That launch shifted Dusk from concept to operating infrastructure: validators staking native tokens, settlement happening on‑chain, and privacy‑preserving primitives like shielded transactions turning from idea into reality. Soon after, the team delivered practical tooling like a two‑way bridge with Ethereum‑compatible assets and in late 2025 opened up DuskEVM in public testnet so developers can start building compliant, Solidity‑based applications.
On the exchange front, DUSK has broadened its availability dramatically in the last year. Early listings included BitMart’s DUSK/USDT pair in March 2025, and in October 2025 the token made its US debut on Binance US, opening up liquidity in perhaps the world’s most important regulated market for traders and institutions alike.
Price action over time reflects that evolution: for most of its life DUSK traded quietly below a dollar, but broader adoption and ecosystem milestones drove momentum into 2025 and 2026. Today it sits in the roughly $0.20–$0.25 range with daily volume in the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars on big exchanges, showing that market participation has grown with utility.
When people talk about TVL total value locked in crypto they mean how much value is actively committed to on‑chain protocols, a rough proxy for activity and trust. Unlike pure DeFi networks built around decentralized lending or AMMs, Dusk’s current TVL story is more nascent and tied to its emerging ecosystem of compliant applications and bridges rather than massive liquidity pools you’d see on big DeFi chains. The focus here isn’t yield farming but building real regulated venues for tokenized securities and institutional rails.
That ecosystem angle is key: beyond price and volume, there’s work underway to bring regulated securities on‑chain, to stitch traditional assets into programmable formats, and to let institutions build real financial market infrastructure using privacy‑preserving smart contracts. In a world where data privacy and regulatory compliance are often at odds with blockchain transparency, Dusk’s modular architecture separating settlement, privacy layers, and EVM‑compatible execution aims to give you both sides of that equation.
Backers like Binance/YZi Labs, BlockVenture and others who saw early value in this compliance‑first angle helped seed the project, and token sale participants from 2018 still look back at significant ROI compared to their entry price. It’s not about speculation alone though; the heavy lifting has been in building out tech that might genuinely replace parts of legacy finance with on‑chain equivalents that respect rules and confidentiality.
@Dusk #dusk $DUSK #DUSK

Founded in 2018, @Dusk is a Layer 1 built with a very specific goal in mind: making blockchain actually usable for regulated finance. From the start, the focus has been on privacy that doesn’t break compliance. Using zero-knowledge cryptography and a modular design, Dusk lets institutions build financial applications, compliant DeFi products, and tokenized real-world assets where sensitive data stays private but can still be audited when required. That balance is the core of what the network is trying to solve.

After several years of research, testnets, and protocol upgrades, Dusk moved into its mainnet phase in early 2025, marking the shift from theory to a live network designed for real financial use cases. The DUSK token is listed on major exchanges including Binance, giving it solid global access and liquidity. As of recent market data, DUSK trades in the sub-dollar range with daily trading volume typically in the tens of millions, reflecting steady interest rather than short-term hype.

On the product side, Dusk doesn’t chase TVL in the same way as yield-driven chains. Its ecosystem is centered around regulated asset issuance, private smart contracts, staking, and infrastructure for institutions. You’ll see activity through native staking, growing validator participation, EVM compatibility for developers, and partnerships aimed at bringing real securities and financial instruments on-chain. TVL figures stay modest, but the value lies in the type of assets and users the network is targeting, not inflated DeFi numbers.

Dusk raised its initial funding during its 2018 token sale, with early backers from the crypto investment space and strategic partners aligned with finance and infrastructure rather than meme cycles. Token economics are designed for long-term participation, with emissions spread over many years to support network security and sustainable growth.

In simple terms, Dusk isn’t trying to be everything for everyone. It’s building quiet, serious infrastructure for a future where real financial markets use blockchain without giving up privacy or regulatory standards, and that kind of real-world utility is usually slow, unglamorous, and very hard to fake.
@Dusk #dusk $DUSK #DUSK

@Vanarchain is a Layer-1 blockchain that’s been built with one clear idea in mind: Web3 won’t scale unless it actually works for everyday users. The project comes from a team with deep experience in gaming, entertainment and brand partnerships, and that background shows in how the chain is designed. Vanar moved to its own L1 in 2023 alongside the launch of the VANRY token, following the migration from the earlier TVK token. VANRY is listed on Binance, where it trades with steady liquidity, and recent market data places the price in the low-cent range with daily volume in the millions, reflecting active participation even outside hype cycles.
What makes Vanar interesting is how broad its focus is without feeling unfocused. The chain is built to support consumer-facing products across gaming, metaverse experiences, AI integrations, eco initiatives and brand solutions. Flagship products like the Virtua Metaverse and the VGN games network are already live and running on Vanar, showing how the technology is meant to be used rather than just talked about. From a network perspective, on-chain activity and ecosystem metrics show a growing number of active wallets, a circulating supply approaching its long-term cap, and TVL that’s still modest but real, with capital deployed in liquidity pools and applications rather than sitting idle.
On the funding and distribution side, Vanar hasn’t leaned heavily on loud VC marketing. Token distribution has been structured to support validators, ecosystem growth and long-term incentives, with a strong emphasis on builders and users rather than short-term speculation. That approach fits the project’s broader philosophy of gradual, sustainable adoption.
The real takeaway with Vanar is simple: instead of trying to reinvent finance overnight, it’s aiming to bring blockchain into places people already spend time, like games, digital worlds and branded experiences. If Web3 is going to reach the next billions of users, it’ll likely look a lot more like this, practical, familiar, and quietly powered by real utility under the hood.
@Vanarchain #vanar $VANRY

Founded in 2018, @Dusk started with a clear idea in mind: build a layer-1 blockchain that regulated finance could actually use without giving up privacy. The team focused early on combining confidentiality with auditability, which is why Dusk has always leaned toward institutional use cases instead of hype cycles. The network moved from research to reality over the following years, with mainnet going live in stages and the token becoming tradable in 2019. DUSK has since been listed on major global exchanges, giving it steady liquidity, and over time its price has moved through multiple market cycles while maintaining consistent daily trading volume that often reaches into the tens of millions during active periods.

What makes Dusk different is how it’s built. It uses a modular architecture designed for privacy-preserving smart contracts, compliant DeFi, and tokenized real-world assets. Applications can keep sensitive data private while still allowing verification when regulators or auditors need access. The DUSK token is used for staking, fees, and securing the network, with a fixed supply designed to support long-term participation rather than short-term inflation. While Dusk isn’t a typical DeFi TVL leaderboard project, on-chain activity, active addresses, and institutional pilots show a growing ecosystem focused on real financial workflows instead of speculative farming.

Early funding came from private and public token sales around 2018, backed by crypto-native investors and exchange-linked funds that understood the value of privacy-first compliance. Years later, the direction hasn’t changed. Dusk is not trying to be everything to everyone. It’s quietly building infrastructure where real assets, real institutions, and real regulations meet blockchain in a way that actually works.

@Dusk #Dusk #dusk $DUSK

Founded in 2018, @Dusk was created with a clear focus on one problem most blockchains avoid: how to bring real financial markets on chain without breaking privacy laws or regulatory rules. From the start, the goal wasn’t hype-driven DeFi but a Layer 1 built for regulated finance, where institutions can issue, trade, and settle assets while keeping sensitive data private and still auditable. Dusk’s modular design and zero-knowledge technology allow transactions to stay confidential while remaining verifiable, which is essential for things like tokenized securities, compliant DeFi, and real-world assets operating under frameworks such as MiCA and the EU DLT Pilot Regime.

The project began development in 2018 and raised roughly $10 million across early funding rounds, with backing from names like Binance Labs, Maven 11, Bitfinex, BlockVentures, and other crypto-focused funds that understood the long-term vision. DUSK initially circulated as an ERC-20 and BEP-20 token before the network moved toward full independence. Mainnet went live in September 2024, marking a key shift from research-heavy development to real deployment. Since then, DUSK has been listed on major exchanges, with steady trading volume that moves with broader market cycles rather than short-lived hype.
Price action has seen multiple phases, from early lows near the private sale range to strong rallies during peak market conditions, followed by cooling periods. Like most infrastructure-focused projects, its valuation tends to reflect long-term expectations more than short-term speculation. On-chain metrics such as TVL remain modest compared to consumer-focused chains, but that’s largely because Dusk is built for permissioned, compliance-aware use cases where value doesn’t always show up as public liquidity. The ecosystem is gradually expanding with staking, tooling, and EVM compatibility, laying the groundwork for institutions and developers who need privacy by default.
What makes Dusk interesting isn’t flashy numbers or viral narratives. It’s the fact that the chain is designed for situations where privacy is mandatory, regulation is unavoidable, and trust actually matters. That’s real utility, and it’s the kind that tends to grow quietly before the market fully notices.

@Dusk #dusk $DUSK #DUSK