I recently heard an interesting story. A programmer friend of mine suddenly became mysterious over dinner and said that he has something in his wallet that helps him make money even while he sleeps. I was quite curious at first, so he took out his phone and pointed to four letters: DUSK.

What is this? Does it mean dusk? How does it relate to making money? Let me tell you slowly.

Dusk is not a trendy coffee brand, nor a game skin. It is a blockchain-based project, with core features focusing on strong privacy protection and compliance awareness. In simple terms, it’s an ecosystem that pays close attention to data security. But today, we won’t delve into those obscure blockchain terminologies. Instead, I’ll explain how an ordinary person like my programmer friend can earn some passive income through it.

The secret is actually one word: staking.

Imagine you have some Dusk tokens stored in your wallet. Instead of just waiting for their value to appreciate (which is like opening a blind box, all luck), you can "rent" them to the Dusk network. In other words, your tokens participate in network validation and security maintenance. During operation, the network periodically distributes rewards to participants — that is, additional Dusk tokens. The whole process is automated; once set up, you hardly need to manage it. Just eat, sleep, and the earnings will roll in on their own. This is what’s called "passive income."

But this is definitely not a mindless operation like depositing money in a bank. First, you need to understand the risks. Token prices fluctuate regularly, and during staking, you might encounter a price drop. Second, different staking schemes offer different yields; some more stable with lower returns, others more aggressive with higher yields but greater risks. Also, a very important point — you need to understand details like minimum staking amounts and unbonding periods. Some projects don’t allow you to withdraw tokens anytime after staking; you have to wait until a specific time.

The reason why Dusk is attractive is firstly because it places a much higher emphasis on privacy and compliance than similar projects, which means the ecosystem is relatively stable; secondly, its staking reward mechanism is designed reasonably, allowing participants to expect stable returns. However, I must especially remind you that any blockchain project carries risks, including technical risks, market risks, and even policy risks. So before deciding to stake, you must: 1) Fully understand the project’s whitepaper and mechanisms; 2) Only invest funds you can afford to lose; 3) Regularly follow the project’s updates.

In summary, practices like my buddy’s are indeed choices made by some crypto asset holders today. In this era, simply holding assets without doing anything is a bit outdated. Through staking, liquidity mining, and similar methods, you can make your assets work harder for you. This mindset has become quite common in Web3. But the prerequisite is that you truly understand what you’re doing, not just following the trend. After all, "passive income" sounds wonderful, but only if you do your homework first.