Key Notes
- Cardano Midnight CTO Sebastien Guillemot highlighted key achievements in the protocol.
- About 1,000,000 unique addresses are engaged in mining its native NIGHT token.
- There have also been 200,000 direct claims of the token.
Cardano Midnight Network Celebrates Milestone
Cardano Midnight CTO Sebastien Guillemot took to X to share some key achievements of the protocol. He noted that about 1,000,000 unique addresses are now engaged in mining its native NIGHT token.
This suggests that many are drawn to the protocol’s privacy- and decentralization-focused approach, largely powered by zero-knowledge proofs.
~200,000 direct claims
>1,000,000 addresses mining
– large dApps (ex: Minswap) distributing tokens
– KYC'd sites (Kraken, Gate, more coming) distributingSo many NIGHT holders already
Obvious bet: more NIGHT holders are coming pic.twitter.com/Q0GndfBEVh
— Sebastien Guillemot (@SebastienGllmt) November 6, 2025
Noteworthy, the Midnight Network is Cardano’s privacy-focused sidechain that is designed to leverage ZK proofs for verifiable and confidential information. With a 24 million fixed supply, NIGHT is the backbone of this protocol. Its long-awaited airdrop, dubbed the “Glacier Drop,” took off in August 2025 .
Precisely, the Glacier Drop targets 30 million wallets across eight major blockchain ecosystems, such as BTC $101 976 24h volatility: 1.4% Market cap: $2.04 T Vol. 24h: $59.47 B , ETH $3 319 24h volatility: 1.3% Market cap: $401.02 B Vol. 24h: $31.99 B , Cardano, Solana, BNB Chain, Avalanche, XRP Ledger, and Brave. When it went live on August 5, it offered a 60-day claim window that eventually closed on October 4.
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson described the launch as a milestone event, calling it the result of six years of hard work. Apart from the 1 million mining addresses quoted by Guillemot, Midnight has also achieved 200,000 direct claims and distributions via platforms like Minswap, Kraken, and Gate.
This is also a sign of rapid adoption, undermining a previous privacy-demand narrative.
Cardano Pushes to Enhance Scalability and Privacy
On the other hand, Hoskinson has consistently acknowledged his commitment to solving the scalability and privacy problems with Midnight Network. Last September, he posted on X, saying, “The road to Omega is full of challenges and surprises.” Furthermore, he added that it is the solution to the scalability pillar.
The Cardano founder also referenced an earlier TapTools post highlighting the capabilities of Leios Lite, which Input Output Global plans to roll out as a major iteration. There is so much confidence in its ability to deliver a 30–55x increase in throughput to Cardano.
Ultimately, it could boost Cardano’s transaction capacity and bring it into closer competition with top rivals like SOL $156.9 24h volatility: 1.4% Market cap: $86.74 B Vol. 24h: $5.66 B .
next
