- Midnight, a zero-knowledge companion chain to Cardano, will distribute its governance token $NIGHT (and later “mud” utility tokens) to 37 million wallets throughout eight main blockchains in an occasion dubbed the Glacier Drop.
- The workforce has dominated out any venture-capital or insider allocation; solely reside wallets holding ADA, BTC, ETH, XRP, SOL, BNB, AVAX and BAT will qualify, with Cardano addresses anticipated to obtain the largest slice.
- Though the drop should happen earlier than November 2025, feedback in a latest Lace Pockets X-House level to a July goal; customers will want a Cardano-compatible pockets to say.
Daybreak at Midnight
When Charles Hoskinson bounded onto the Consensus 2025 stage in Toronto final month, he dismissed tribalism with a single slide that learn “All chains welcome.” The hook was Midnight, a side-chain that wraps zero-knowledge proofs round Cardano’s UTXO mannequin to let customers protect transaction knowledge whereas nonetheless interacting with public DeFi contracts.
The privateness angle feels well timed. After a 12 months of mounting regulatory scrutiny, builders are trying to find methods to let shoppers hold their knowledge below wraps with out driving them into gray-market mixers. Midnight’s pitch is straightforward: show what you want to show, reveal nothing else.
From Paris to Toronto: Airdrop Roadshow
Hints of a large token giveaway first surfaced at Paris Blockchain Week in April, the place Hoskinson teased a distribution “larger than something you’ve seen.” By Might, the main points have been firmer: a Glacier Drop sending tokens to 37 million wallets on eight blockchains, no venture-capital carve-out, and a promise to maintain the taking part in subject degree.
Throughout a Lace Pockets X-House on June 12, panelists let slip that the drop “ought to hit in July,” though the Midnight core workforce has solely dedicated to “earlier than November.” That ambiguity has merchants circling calendars but nonetheless checking Twitter at breakfast.
Eight Chains, One Distribution
Midnight’s personal documentation confirms what Cardano influencers have been shouting all week: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Solana, Binance Good Chain, Avalanche and Courageous’s BAT customers will share the pot alongside ADA holders. Solely native L1 cash depend. If you happen to personal ERC-20 meme tokens or Cardano NFTs, they gained’t enhance your allocation.
Why forged the online so large? Hoskinson argues that siloed drops reward echo chambers; reaching into rival communities forces dialog. “If you happen to obtained one thing at no cost from Midnight,” he mentioned in Toronto, “you would possibly no less than boot up a Cardano pockets to see what the fuss is about.”
Mechanics: No Gasoline-Chain Swaps Required
Claiming needs to be simple. Builders say customers will be capable of pay charges of their native tokens whereas validators earn throughout chains, an financial trick that depends on Midnight’s cross-chain charge abstraction. Nonetheless, everybody—sure, even Bitcoin holders—must generate a Cardano-compatible tackle earlier than the declare window closes.
Tokenomics stay below wraps, however neighborhood analysts have run the maths: if Midnight floats a $1 billion preliminary valuation, every eligible pockets might see roughly $27 value of NIGHT; a $10 billion float would push that to $270. Hypothesis, positive, but it explains why Telegram rooms all of a sudden hum with chatter about “dusting off that previous BAT pockets.”
Privateness as a Promoting Level
Midnight leans on zero-knowledge cryptography, the identical household of math powering StarkNet and Zcash, to let builders construct selective-disclosure good contracts. In apply, a decentralized market could confirm {that a} bidder holds sufficient collateral with out exposing the scale of their stash—catnip for establishments nervous about broadcast stability sheets.
Cardano die-hards see Midnight because the lacking privateness module that DeFi on UTXO by no means had. CExplorer, a Cardano analytics website, calls it “the primary critical companion chain” and an opportunity for the ecosystem to courtroom app builders who beforehand defaulted to EVM.
Market and Neighborhood Response
Information of the Glacier Drop helped nudge ADA above $0.70 final week, a five-percent pop on roughly 40 % greater quantity, in response to Coinpedia knowledge. Over on r/Cardano, one put up titled “No VCs, lastly!” raced previous two thousand up-votes in a day, whereas a extra skeptical thread requested whether or not free tokens equal “free dumping.”
Exterior observers are paying consideration too. CoinDesk likened the dimensions of distribution to the Optimism and Starknet launches mixed—“a blunt instrument to finish maximalism,” as one analyst put it.
Dangers and Unknowns
Grand gestures carry danger. Midnight’s test-net is reside, however main-net will not be anticipated till late 2025. That leaves an extended hole wherein speculators might obtain tokens they can not but use. In the meantime, U.S. regulators have proven little endurance for privateness tooling that may obscure source-of-funds checks; the Midnight workforce insists its selective-reveal mannequin satisfies compliance, however that shall be examined within the wild.
Liquidity is one other query. Airdrops usually spark sell-pressure the second tokens checklist. With out VC cliffs to soak up stock, market makers might want to clean volatility or watch NIGHT swing like early UNI or ARB. Midnight’s dual-token design—NIGHT for governance, DUST for charges—might assist by splitting incentives, but no token-omics paper has been printed.
Greater Image: A Guess on Cooperation
If Glacier works, it might set a precedent for a way rising chains seed liquidity with out courting heavy-handed enterprise capital. By dropping tokens into rival wallets, Midnight is betting that curiosity outweighs cynicism. Additionally it is providing Cardano an opportunity to reframe itself: not because the gradual, methodical community that missed DeFi’s first growth, however because the one daring sufficient to put privateness at middle stage—and invite the entire trade to attempt it.
Will it succeed? That depends upon dev tooling, velocity to main-net, and the tone regulators take towards zero-knowledge methods over the subsequent 12 months. However Glacier has already achieved one thing uncommon: for one scorching minute, Bitcoiners, Ethereans and XRP loyalists are all refreshing the identical countdown. In a market that often speaks previous itself, that seems like information.