Token NIGHT ready for launch: Midnight enters Cardano mainstream

On the eve of the announcement, Midnight Foundation confirmed that the final version of NIGHT has already been minted on the Cardano blockchain. The supply consists of 24 billion tokens, first created last month at block height 12,517,624. The second and final mint took place on November 25 at block 12,696,233, locking in the asset’s final parameters.

For now, the entire NIGHT supply remains at a single address, which can be seen in blockchain explorers such as AdaStat. This is a technical step ahead of the start of distribution: the team is preparing infrastructure, integrations with wallets and exchanges, and double-checking that the issuance went smoothly.

The official token launch is scheduled for December 8, 2025. On that date, NIGHT buybacks based on earlier airdrops are expected to start, along with the first listings on centralized exchanges. Regardless of allocation size, users will be able to claim only 25% of their tokens at launch. The remaining 75% will unlock gradually over a year in four additional stages. According to the developers, this schedule is meant to reduce sell pressure and give the project time to build out its ecosystem.

Midnight has already run the Glacier Drop and Scavenger Mine campaigns. Next comes the final Lost and Found phase, during which participants who missed the first wave will have a chance to recover part of their allocation.

Midnight is positioned as a Cardano sidechain focused on data protection and what the team calls “rational privacy.” The protocol uses zero-knowledge proofs and makes it possible to build applications where users decide which information to disclose and which to keep hidden, even while staying compliant with regulators.

For Charles Hoskinson, the launch of Midnight looks like a natural next step. He has previously said that he left the Ethereum team because of disagreements over its future roadmap and instead bet on Cardano as a more formally designed blockchain that is better equipped to handle regulatory pressure. A dedicated network for confidential data and a native NIGHT token strengthens that bet and gives Cardano extra arguments in its competition with Ethereum and other smart-contract platforms.