Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has revealed new behind-the-scenes information regarding the creation of Midnight, the privacy-focused blockchain project based on the Cardano ecosystem. In the recent statement, he also outlined his plans for making the project’s native token accessible and interoperable across DeFi.
Hoskinson Reveals Personal Stake in Midnight
“No VCs were involved, $200M of my own money,” the Cardano founder said while on a podcast at Consensus Hong Kong. Crypto projects are often financed through venture capital rounds that grant early investors preferential token allocations. Hoskinson’s claim that Midnight was built without VC participation sets it apart from that structure.
By funding development personally, he maintains the project’s decentralized nature and prevents VCs from stacking up considerable amounts of supply only to dump on the rest of the community in time, a practice that has drawn criticism in the industry. The absence of venture capital involvement may thus influence how the NIGHT token is perceived once distribution begins, as the community already sees self-funding at this scale as a long-term commitment.
Hoskinson added that the plan is to “give NIGHT to everyone, everywhere, and just let people use it with the networks they want,” describing Midnight as infrastructure built for both legacy enterprises and decentralized finance businesses. In support of that statement, and despite his considerable personal investment, Hoskinson and the Midnight Foundation airdropped a substantial amount of NIGHT tokens via Kraken, Binance, and OKX to users across eight blockchains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, and XRPL.
Building Midnight and NIGHT for Legacy and DeFi
Midnight is a privacy-focused blockchain designed to complement Cardano’s existing infrastructure. Its goal is to enable confidential smart contracts and data protection features that traditional public blockchains do not natively provide. Thus, regulated industries, enterprise use cases, and decentralized applications that require selective disclosure can protect sensitive information while still benefiting from blockchain verification.
Privacy-enhancing technology is increasingly relevant for enterprises that must comply with data regulations while exploring blockchain integration. At the same time, DeFi protocols often require mechanisms that protect trade strategies, identity data, or transaction details. Midnight’s architecture aims to serve both segments without forcing users into a single-chain environment.
In the aforementioned statement, Hoskinson reiterated the Midnight blockchain’s interoperability angle. Users can interact with Midnight’s privacy features regardless of which blockchain ecosystem they primarily use, a necessary feature as the project targets both traditional institutions and decentralized applications.
NIGHT Price Action
Since its launch, NIGHT has seen almost constant growth in trading volume and valuation. The token currently has 8% more trading volume over the last 24 hours and is up 10% over the past week. Nevertheless, airdrop selling pressure and broader market conditions quickly dropped it from its launch price and ATH of $1.81. Nevertheless, NIGHT currently trades at $0.05591, almost 150% from its ATL.
The CoinRemark Team
Temitope Olajide
