Cardano’s Hoskinson Unveils Midnight Privacy Layer Roadmap
On November 21, 2025, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson revealed a four-stage Midnight roadmap for his new privacy-and-identity network. Stage 1 launches on December 8, 2025 with NIGHT token claims and market trading, backed by the Glacier Drop and Scavenger Mine funnels. Stage 2 targets Q1 2026 for a federated mainnet run by both IOG and external enterprises, including a Fortune 500 partner, to test real-world DApps. Stage 3 kicks off in Q2 2026 with an incentivized testnet to onboard stake pool operators and validate Midnight’s Substrate-based consensus at 5,000 TPS and sub-second blocks. Stage 4 completes with a hard fork into the final mainnet, enabling cross-chain privacy services interoperable with Ethereum, Solana, Bitcoin and XRP. The dual-token model uses NIGHT to generate DUST fuel, allowing frictionless user interactions via a capacity exchange. Governance moves to the Linux Foundation under a KPI-driven Midnight Foundation. Hoskinson positions the privacy network as crypto’s third layer alongside Bitcoin’s trust layer and Cardano’s computation layer.
Bullish
The clear four-stage Midnight roadmap provides a predictable timeline of catalysts—from NIGHT token launch to federated mainnet, incentivized testnet and final hard fork. Each milestone traditionally drives speculative trading volume and price discovery, as seen with previous token distributions and testnet rollouts in other ecosystems. The introduction of DUST fuel and cross-chain interoperability may attract developers and users, boosting network activity. Short-term, the December 8 NIGHT liquidity event is likely to spark buying interest. Long-term, successful deployment of privacy and identity services across Ethereum, Solana, Bitcoin and XRP could strengthen the Cardano ecosystem and support ADA stability. Overall, the strategic clarity and potential adoption of Midnight’s privacy layer make market sentiment around ADA and the new token bullish.