Altcoin Spotlight: What is Midnight (NIGHT)?
Here at MintDice.com we are committed to customer education. As such, we created our Altcoin Spotlight series, which contains a write-up of every token to break into the top 60 on CoinMarketCap.com.
Midnight is a governance token on the Midnight network and is most well-known for its expanded use of ZK (zero-knowledge) proofs. Read on to learn everything you need to know about Midnight and whether or not you should invest.
What is Midnight?
Midnight is a utility and governance token on the similarly named Midnight Network. The Midnight Network is a type of expansion on the Cardano network with a bridge enabled to allow funds to move between the two networks seamlessly.
Midnight was created to bring more privacy to the Cardano blockchain, by creating a similar project using zero-knowledge proofs to create the utility and governance token. This means that the identity and names of the holders of these tokens is kept more private than they would be on a similar blockchain. But, despite this increased privacy, Midnight also promotes transparency with all transactions being recorded to a public ledger.
How Does Midnight Work?
As we mentioned above, Midnight is attached to Cardano (ADA) with a bridge, and though they are two separate platforms, they have complete interoperability—making it easy for people to move funds and information from one to the other.
As for the privacy, Midnight works thanks to a counterpart, a token by the name of Dust. Unlike Midnight, Dust is non-transferrable and decays (lowers in value) if not used. It can also not be used for purchases. Basically, creators generate Dust, based on their Midnight holdings, and then they can delegate this Dust to others if they do not want to use it themselves.
Individuals and developers can use Dust for transactions on the network, but these tokens have no value on their own. The main benefit of the Midnight networks is for companies, as they can purchase and hold enough Midnight to generate Dust for all of their employees, without the financial stress of having to record every financial transaction—again, Dust is not a financial asset. It is simply a tool used on the confirmation layer which is generated thanks to holding a financial product.
The benefit of this is that it incentivizes governance holders to use the system—as their hold doesn’t diminish as they spend Dust. This is something that has caused other blockchains to struggle, as investors only want to hold and don’t want to utilize the token for fear of losing their investment. Midnight holders have no such concern.
One of the coolest things about Midnight is that investors can choose what information to disclose when using the platform. While full anonymity is an option, there is also an option to disclose information for audits and regulators—making Midnight attractive for large corporations to consider for integration.
In the future, Cardano stakers can easily transition to also holding Midnight tokens.
What is NIGHT?
NIGHT is the trading symbol for the Midnight token, though it is much more common to see individuals referring to Midnight as just NIGHT to help differentiate between the platform and the token.
Who Created Midnight?
Midnight was created by Charles Hoskinson, the same man behind the Cardano blockchain, who also contributed to Ethereum. While this project is currently considered a centralized one (with a launch on March 11th, 2026), the whitepaper includes plans for the blockchain to become fully decentralized in the future.
Should You Buy Midnight?
Midnight is a brand new token, only launching a few days ago, as such, all platforms have listed it as a highly risky asset, which is our observation as well.
Backing a new project in cryptocurrency is always a risk, as it is impossible to know what will be successful and what will fail. While we trust Charles Hoskinson more than most people who start cryptocurrency tokens, this doesn’t mean it will be a success on the market.
That being said, we don’t think this is a scam, and we do believe it might be something to look into for institutions looking to adapt blockchain. While blockchain is always a risk, we like all of the options Midnight offers to users, we especially like its implementations in large environments—freeing the developers themselves from the need to hold tokens and transact.
However, before you get too excited, know that new projects often have kinks that need to be worked out before they can work as seamlessly as promised, and Midnight is no exception. While we would love it if everything worked right away, that is not likely to be the case. As such, it might be better to wait a while until all features are up and running.
Of course, the final decision is yours, just proceed with caution if you decide to make an investment in Midnight or utilize their platform. Just keep in mind that while we think Midnight is an amazing program for developers and financial institutions, we aren’t sure if it is investment-grade yet.
Where Can You Buy Midnight?
Midnight is widely available on centralized exchanges and may be available on some decentralized exchanges. As always, it is easiest to buy Midnight on an exchange you already have an account on and use frequently.
Below are some of the places where you can buy Midnight:
· Binance
· BitPanda
· Bitcoin Suisse
· MEXC
· OKX
· Bitrue
· HTX
· ByBit
· Gate.io
· Blockchain.Com
· Kraken
· KuCoin
There may be more platforms where Midnight is available that aren’t listed here, so please check the exchange you know and trust before opening a new account.
Overall, we like the idea behind the Midnight token; we just aren’t sure whether or not the execution will do it justice. But if anyone can, it would be a man like Charles Hoskinson. So, while we don’t recommend an investment just yet, Midnight is definitely one of those projects to watch and consider in the future!
