Regulation, to put it simply, has never been a matter of "whether" but rather "when" it will be officially rolled out.

Looking back over the past few years, the entire industry’s attention has mainly been focused on growth, stories, and traffic. Regulation? It’s like background music—sometimes loud, sometimes quiet. But now, things are different. More and more signals are flashing; regulation is shifting from a background that can be ignored to a prerequisite that must be faced.

Especially on the European side, the trend is very clear. The discussion is no longer about "whether to regulate"—that has long been decided. The current question is "how to regulate effectively while still leaving room for innovation." This presents a very real challenge for the underlying design of blockchain: if the architecture ignores compliance and identity issues from the start, fixing these later will be prohibitively expensive, or even impossible.

At this crossroads, the industry is gradually splitting into two paths.

One is to "scale up first, attract users, and only think about compliance once regulation really hits." The other is to "think through the compliance boundaries thoroughly first, then expand steadily." In the short term, the former looks vibrant, while the latter seems cautious. But from the perspective of financial infrastructure, the latter is actually a more realistic choice.

Dusk is a typical example of the latter. When it was founded in 2018, the market was still immersed in the daydream that "permissionless solutions can solve everything," but Dusk had already embedded key points like privacy, compliance, and auditability into its core design. Looking back now, that choice didn’t match the market’s temperament at the time, but surprisingly, it has aligned well with regulatory trends.

What’s more interesting is that Dusk has never regarded regulation as an adversary. Its approach is this: since regulation exists, it should be absorbed by technology, not avoided. Identity is not a tool for surveillance but for clarifying responsibility boundaries; audits are not about exposing privacy but about proving compliance. In essence, this is about redefining trust in financial infrastructure using blockchain technology, rather than simply transplanting existing systems.

You ask me what I think? Rather than saying Dusk is betting on a certain market cycle or a hot narrative, it’s more like placing a long-term bet. It’s betting on a slower, but more certain direction—when regulation becomes standard, order itself will become the core competitive advantage of blockchain.