Recently, I’ve been obsessed with studying Dusk’s Hedger solution. The more I look into it, the more I think this idea is brilliant. On the surface, it’s a privacy tool, but in reality, it equips the entire EVM ecosystem with a compliance shield.

What is the current situation? Many projects on EVM chains are either extreme—making transaction data fully transparent so competitors can see everything; or they implement privacy so absolute that regulatory audits become impossible. Projects that fall in the middle are the most uncomfortable. Hedger hits this perfect balance point, using a combination of zero-knowledge proofs and homomorphic encryption to lock down transaction privacy while still leaving an audit trail for regulators. This is a necessity for any scenario involving finance.

Hedger Alpha is already in testing. From the product concept, it’s clear that Dusk isn’t about privacy for privacy’s sake but is specifically targeting regulated financial applications—such as on-chain transfers and asset settlements between institutions. The demand is clear: ensure that amounts and counterparty information are not leaked, while also meeting anti-money laundering and other regulatory requirements. No previous tool could handle both at the same time.

Here’s a real-world scenario: a fund company wants to perform transaction settlements on-chain. Using a regular EVM chain, their position data and transaction volumes are fully visible to competitors—leaking business secrets. But with Hedger integrated, all this data is encrypted, accessible only to the fund and regulators. During audits, there’s no need to expose complete transaction data; zero-knowledge proofs can directly verify that transactions comply with rules. The institution can enjoy the efficiency of blockchain settlements without worrying about information leaks.

This is the industry’s critical point that Dusk is addressing. For blockchain to enter mainstream finance, privacy and compliance are both indispensable. Many projects in the market only focus on one aspect and try to attract institutions, but realistically, that’s not enough. Hedger combines both functions quite seamlessly. Moving forward, if it can form a true ecosystem synergy with DuskTrade and DuskEVM—such as protecting the privacy of tokenized securities traded on DuskTrade with Hedger—the entire compliance loop will be complete. That’s why, in the long run, this technological approach has enormous potential.