I just looked back and saw how massive that Midnight airdrop was back then. Cardano really did something special—24 billion NIGHT tokens were distributed across multiple blockchains. It was one of the biggest airdrops of 2025.

What’s interesting is that the distribution was tiered. 50 percent went to ADA holders, 20 percent to Bitcoin owners, and the rest was split among Ethereum, XRP, Solana, Avalanche, and BNB. If you held assets across multiple chains back then, you could benefit multiple times. The tokens weren’t released all at once—instead, 25 percent were released every 90 days over a total of 360 days.

But what makes Midnight so special, exactly? It’s not just another sidechain in the Cardano ecosystem. The underlying technology uses zero-knowledge proofs to enable on-chain privacy. That means you can use smart contracts and carry out transactions, while still maintaining full control over which data is public. This is practical for sensitive applications like health data or personal finances.

This is what sets Midnight apart from classic Privacy-Coins like Monero. Here, it’s about selective transparency—you decide what you share and with whom.

The NIGHT token has multiple functions within the Midnight-Netzwerk. Governance, of course—token holders can vote on network changes. And you can also use it to mint DUST, which acts as a gas token for smart contracts, similar to ETH or ADA.

I found the XRP ledger integration particularly interesting. XRP, by default, doesn’t have smart contract functionality, but Midnight closes that gap. Through the bridge, XRP holders can use staking, lending, and liquidity provisioning without needing to move their XRP. The bridge itself uses privacy smart contracts. According to reports, there were also discussions between Charles Hoskinson and Ripple executives about deeper collaboration, including RLUSD support and wallet compatibility.

Overall, it was an ambitious project—Cardano created a real privacy layer that goes beyond traditional privacy coins.