Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson says Midnight’s rapid expansion should be viewed as growth for Cardano rather than competition against it, arguing that every current NIGHT holder is already connected to the Cardano ecosystem.
During a surprise AMA on Nov. 7, Hoskinson described Midnight as Cardano’s largest project and pushed back against the idea that resources devoted to the privacy-focused network somehow detract from ADA.
“Midnight is a Cardano native asset,” Hoskinson said, adding that NIGHT was distributed using Cardano technology and that holders currently need a Cardano wallet to hold the asset.
His broader argument was straightforward: Cardano was built as a platform on which major projects could launch and grow.
Hoskinson Says Midnight Is What Cardano Was Built For
Hoskinson questioned criticism of his work on Midnight by comparing it with other projects operating across Cardano.
“Didn’t we build Cardano to be the platform for things like Midnight?” he asked during the AMA.
He argued that a successful blockchain platform ultimately proves its capabilities through the applications and networks built around it.
Accordingly, a Midnight ecosystem worth billions of dollars would demonstrate that Cardano can support commercially significant projects while bringing new users, transactions and infrastructure demand into the wider ecosystem.
This relationship has already become increasingly visible. Midnight surpassed one million mainnet transactions in October, following a sharp increase in network activity.
NIGHT Could “Absolutely” Surpass Cardano
Hoskinson also addressed whether Midnight could eventually become larger than Cardano itself by market capitalization.
His answer was unequivocal: “It absolutely is” possible.
The gap remains substantial today. CoinMarketCap values Midnight at approximately $708 million, with NIGHT near $0.0426, compared with Cardano’s $6.58 billion market capitalization and ADA around $0.179.
Midnight therefore currently represents only about one-ninth of Cardano’s valuation.
The Crypto Basic recently calculated that NIGHT would need to approach roughly $0.40 to match Cardano’s market cap under the circulating-supply and valuation assumptions used at the time.
Hoskinson nevertheless emphasized that a NIGHT flip would not necessarily represent Cardano losing.
Midnight Targets Top-3 to Top-5 Privacy Status
Hoskinson described Midnight as “growing by leaps and bounds” and said demand for privacy and compliance is supporting the project even as the broader market struggles.
He also pointed to Midnight’s recent Ledger 9 hard fork. Midnight officially upgraded mainnet from Ledger 8 to Ledger 9 on Nov. 6, introducing expanded functionality and security improvements.
Hoskinson said the ecosystem is moving quickly enough to approach the conversation around the top three to top five privacy ecosystems.
That remains an ambition rather than an established ranking. Midnight’s future position will depend on developer activity, users, applications and sustained network demand.
A “Rising Tides” Relationship Between NIGHT and ADA
Hoskinson ultimately rejected the idea that Midnight would grow while Cardano stagnated.
He expects Midnight to attract new users into Cardano, creating additional transactions and demand for Cardano infrastructure. He described the relationship as a “rising tides effect.”
That argument provides a different way to interpret the possibility of NIGHT eventually surpassing ADA in market value.
Rather than treating the two assets as competing for the same fixed pool of value, Hoskinson expects Midnight’s success to expand the overall Cardano ecosystem.
Whether that translates directly into higher ADA demand is not established. However, his position is clear: Midnight becoming substantially larger would, in his view, demonstrate Cardano’s success as a platform rather than its failure.