Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson’s focus is currently not on ADA itself, but on Midnight (NIGHT), the privacy project that he believes will play a key role within the ecosystem. His latest hint at X has the community on edge.
Cardano founder is fully committed to Midnight
Hoskinson has his sights completely set on Midnight at the moment, as evidenced by a short but clear X-post. The developments surrounding this network are closely followed by many crypto investors, because it responds to crucial issues within the sector.
Wat is Midnight?
Midnight is a privacy-focused blockchain and is designed as a sidechain of Cardano. This means that the network runs separately, but can communicate with Cardano. As a result, it benefits from the security of the main network. The focus on privacy means that transactions can be settled without exposing sensitive data, something that happens with many other blockchains.
Privacy tokens have been in high demand in recent months, and NIGHT can take advantage of this at launch. Investors increasingly value privacy, especially now that global regulatory pressure is increasing.
Zcash (ZEC) is one of the projects that clearly benefits from this. Despite a recent decline, the currency is still up more than 1,500 percent in the past three months. This growth is partly driven by positive statements from influential names in the crypto world, such as BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes. Naval Ravikant, a well-known American tech investor, also recently spoke positively about Zcash.
In addition, other privacy tokens, such as Starknet (STRK) and Monero (XMR), are currently performing well. They are recording strong increases, against the trend of the broader crypto market. For example, STRK rose by 43.2 percent in the past week, while XMR showed a plus of 9.8 percent.
This is what Midnight’s schedule looks like
Midnight isn’t live yet, but the development path was revealed at the recent Midnight Summit. This roadmap consists of four phases. The first step, the airdrop registration, took place last summer. Users with crypto on select blockchains could then qualify for free NIGHT tokens. The first official phase will begin in the last quarter of this year, in which smart contracts will be activated and 4.5 billion NIGHT tokens will be mined on the Cardano network.
Phase two, Kūkolu, will follow around the first quarter of 2026, which marks the actual start with the first ‘Genesis’ block. Phase three, Mōhalu, will start in the second quarter, in which network participation will be further expanded, especially for developers. The fourth and final phase, Hua, is scheduled for the third quarter of 2026. That phase will introduce hybrid decentralized applications (dApps) that combine both privacy functions and public elements.
Source: https://newsbit.nl/wat-staat-cardano-te-wachten-hoskinson-licht-een-tipje-van-de-sluier-op/
