DRK consensus has been upgraded from Proof-of-Stake of ETH 2.0 to Proof-of-Honor (PoH), following the footsteps of other multi-billion-dollar projects like TON by Telegram and Quorum by JP Morgan. The choice of ETH 2.0 over EOS, TRON, Stellar, NEO, etc. was based on its optimization for utilities and support from a large and strong global community of developers. The PoS consensus of ETH 2.0 has been further upgraded to Proof-of-Honor (PoH), utilizing HodgeRank to rank nodes based on Stakes and Transactions, encouraging DApp developers to serve more users and generate more transactions. In comparison, PoH is more advanced than NEM's Proof-of-Importance (PoI), which uses NCDawareRank.

PoH also implements an advanced incentive system to eliminate cheating and slacking miners, ensuring the longevity of the blockchain network. It also adopts a smart free-gas policy called "GasStation," which is more advanced than Tron's, making blockchain transactions cheaper while preventing spam and providing incentives to miners.

A privacy protocol called DaRK has been developed on DRK, being the first in the world to support smart contracts and offer "privacy on demand" instead of "privacy by default." It combines the best features of Aztec protocol, CryptoNote, BulletProof, and more. DaRK is a powerful tool for Smart Contract 2.0, surpassing Mimblewimble and Zk-snark, which only accommodate native privacy coins without scripting tools for smart contracts.