Hidden behind the surge are often some unexpected elements. This January, DUSK achieved a 113% weekly increase, refreshing many people's perceptions.

I carefully reviewed the timeline of this market movement. On January 14th, the DuskEVM mainnet officially launched, and that's when it all started. The price jumped from $0.06 to a 59% increase on that day, with trading volume reaching an astonishing 6.69 billion USD in 24 hours—jumping from the usual tens of millions to this huge figure. This combination of rising price and volume has continued to this day. By January 18th, the price stabilized around $0.1256, and the entire cycle's cumulative increase surpassed 113%.

Regarding the mainnet launch, the crypto space has seen quite a few before. But this time, DUSK's approach is indeed a bit different.

First, it's important to clarify one thing: Dusk is not a brand new chain. Its Layer 1 mainnet has been running since early 2025, almost a year now. The newly launched DuskEVM is actually a new execution layer—one that is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine. Simply put, it adds a layer capable of running Ethereum smart contracts on top of the existing privacy mainnet.

This idea is quite clever. The Ethereum ecosystem is filled with mature DeFi protocols, wallet tools, and development frameworks, making it very user-friendly. However, Ethereum itself faces some limitations in privacy protection and regulatory compliance. Dusk's native Layer 1 happens to fill this gap, inherently possessing privacy safeguards and compliance-friendly features. Combining these two aspects opens up a lot of possibilities.