There is a well-known dilemma in blockchain—decentralization, security, and scalability cannot be achieved simultaneously. But for public chains focused on financial applications, the problem becomes more specific: how to protect privacy, meet compliance auditing, and not sacrifice performance? Strong privacy often slows down speed; adding compliance mechanisms may break privacy; pursuing high performance requires simplifying functions. These three seem to form a deadlock.

There is a project called Dusk, whose approach is not to cram all functions into a single monolithic system, but to split into modules, each with its own responsibility.

**Execution Layer Handles Privacy Tasks**

The Piecrust VM layer is dedicated to running privacy contracts, based on WASM architecture. You can execute code that includes zero-knowledge proof generation here, and the efficiency is quite good. What are the benefits? This layer can be optimized independently, such as integrating ZK hardware accelerators, without worrying about other layers. The logic for privacy computation, no matter how complex, is handled only here and does not spread throughout the entire system.

**Settlement Layer Manages Compliance and Security**

The SBP consensus takes over settlement and consensus tasks. It provides BFT-like fast finality—something required by financial applications. This layer also embeds global compliance state and audit interfaces, effectively giving the privacy computation results a "compliance anchor," ensuring that each transaction can be traced back to the compliance framework.

**Data Layer Responsible for Throughput**

Separating storage and distribution of transaction data, using data structures and protocols better suited for high throughput. This allows large volumes of privacy transaction data to flow efficiently, easing the system’s performance bottleneck.

The key point is interface standardization. The execution layer outputs a "privacy and compliance" transaction package, along with a proof saying "I executed the privacy contract according to the rules, and all operations meet compliance requirements." The settlement layer does not need to rerun this logic; as long as the proof is valid and consensus order is correct, settlement can be completed.

This is the beauty of modularization—clear division of labor, efficient verification, with privacy, compliance, and performance each having their own focus, without dragging each other down.