Dusk Domains Goes Live on Mainnet With .dusk Names

Steady attention without excessive speculation.

The Dusk Foundation confirmed the launch in a tweet at 11:00 UTC. CTO Hein Dauven had flagged the live status the night before, on 21 October. Users can now register a .dusk name, set their records, and trade names on a built-in marketplace.

How Dusk Domains Works

Dusk Domains maps a short .dusk name to the long strings a Dusk wallet normally uses. So instead of copying a Moonlight public address, a user can simply share a name like alice.dusk.

Each name can hold several records. These include a public Moonlight address, a shielded address, a DuskEVM address, a website, an avatar, and contract links.

Behind the scenes, the service uses sharded store contracts, a directory, and resolvers. An optional lens then speeds up batched reads. The design mirrors Ethereum Name Service, but it runs natively on Dusk’s Layer 1.

Who Built Dusk Domains

Hein Dauven, the CTO of the Dusk Foundation, built the service. He started it solo as an independent project for the ecosystem.

Dauven launched the testnet in July 2026 and described a simple goal. He wanted to make Dusk easier to use, recognize, and build on.

Dusk now lists Dusk Domains as a community project rather than a core Foundation product. Even so, the Foundation promoted the mainnet launch from its official account.

A Privacy Layer 1 Gets Readable Names

Dusk is a privacy-focused Layer 1 aimed at regulated finance and real-world assets. It pairs a settlement layer, DuskDS, with an execution layer, DuskVM.

The network uses zero-knowledge proofs and offers both public Moonlight accounts and shielded Phoenix accounts. A separate DuskEVM layer also adds Ethereum compatibility.

Naming does not hide the link between a name and an address. Everyday use needs public resolution, so that mapping stays visible on chain.

Pricing and the .dusk Marketplace

Pricing scales with name length. Three-character names cost 150 DUSK a year. Four-character names cost 50 DUSK a year. Names of five characters or more start from 10 DUSK a year.

The marketplace also supports fixed-price listings, auctions, and direct offers. During a sale, the contract holds both the name and the DUSK in on-chain escrow until the trade settles.

Every market sale then carries a 2.5% fee. So the platform earns on primary registrations and on secondary trades alike.

Where the Dusk Domains Fees Go

Fees do not simply disappear. According to Dauven, every registration, renewal, and 2.5% market sale pays DUSK into an on-chain vault.

Dauven said he will use that vault to provide liquidity in DUSK pools. A public treasury page also tracks the flow of fees in real time.

This setup turns naming activity into a demand sink for DUSK. In theory, more registrations mean more DUSK locked in escrow and routed to liquidity.

Incentives for Early Registrations

Dauven built in two incentives to pull in early users. First, a referral program pays 20% of registration fees and 10% of renewal fees to referrers.

Second, testnet users can claim a rebate. Anyone who registers on mainnet with the same address gets 50% back. That offer covers their first 10 names and ends on 4 November 2026.

These offers also reward the community that trialed the service after its testnet debut on 3 July 2026.

How Dusk Domains Compares to ENS

Ethereum Name Service popularized readable crypto names, and Solana Name Service followed on Solana. Dusk Domains brings the same idea to Dusk.

The key difference is the base layer. ENS runs on Ethereum smart contracts, while Dusk Domains runs on native DuskVM contracts and uses DUSK for payments.

That native design ties naming directly to Dusk’s privacy and compliance stack. It also keeps fees and escrow inside the DUSK economy rather than a separate token.

How DUSK Traded Around the Launch

DUSK changed hands at roughly $0.115 on 22 October, up about 3 to 4% on the day. Its market cap sat near $70 million, according to major aggregators.

The token had already climbed over the prior week on broader engineering and real-world asset news. So the launch itself shows no clear, isolated price impact yet.

On-chain adoption numbers are not public yet. For now, the app and the open-source indexer remain the main ways to watch registration activity.

This article is not financial advice. Readers should always research any token before buying.

What Comes Next for Dusk Domains

Dusk lists the project as a community service in its ecosystem docs. The SDK, frontend, and indexer are all open source. Early integrations already resolve mainnet names through the dusk.limo gateway.

Still, the naming market is crowded. ENS, Solana Name Service, and Unstoppable Domains all compete for the same mindshare. Early reception for Dusk Domains also looks muted.

The real test is adoption. If registrations and trades build in the coming weeks, Dusk Domains could become a steady DUSK demand sink. It would also be a cleaner front door to the network. You can register a name now at dusk.domains.