Hoskinson Says Cardano’s NIGHT Could Surpass Zcash
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson said Midnight’s NIGHT token could eventually become bigger than Zcash (ZEC), citing the network’s focus on privacy, selective disclosure, private agents and a cross-chain DeFi kernel. Midnight is also developing zero-knowledge proofs, trusted execution environments and multi-party computation tools.
NIGHT traded near $0.027, up more than 2% in 24 hours and over 36% in 30 days, but remained about 77.5% below its December 2025 all-time high. Its daily trading volume was roughly $14 million. ZEC traded near $1,600 after a 7% daily decline, while remaining up about 93% over one month and 2,660% over one year. ZEC’s volume was close to $1 billion, highlighting its much deeper liquidity.
NIGHT fell more than 43% in July after 290 million tokens entered the market following a Wanchain bridge withdrawal. The Midnight Foundation said the incident was not a hack. Meanwhile, analyst Crypto Patel warned that ZEC’s recent rally could face a correction, with the $1,600–$2,000 range potentially acting as a local top.
Hoskinson’s NIGHT forecast is a long-term development and adoption claim, not evidence of immediate market parity with ZEC.
Neutral
The immediate market impact is likely neutral. Hoskinson’s statement may attract speculative interest to NIGHT and support short-term buying, especially because NIGHT has recently gained more than 36% in 30 days. However, the claim is promotional and provides no new adoption data, partnerships or revenue metrics. NIGHT remains about 77.5% below its all-time high and has only around $14 million in daily volume, leaving it vulnerable to sharp price swings and limited liquidity.
ZEC currently has a much larger trading market, with roughly $1 billion in daily volume, and has substantially outperformed NIGHT over the past year. That liquidity could reduce volatility compared with NIGHT, although ZEC’s rapid rally and analyst warnings of a possible correction may encourage profit-taking. The July NIGHT sell-off after the Wanchain bridge-related token release also remains a risk factor for traders.
In the short term, traders may treat the comments as a narrative catalyst for NIGHT, but the token could underperform if volume fades or if the wider crypto market weakens. In the long term, Midnight’s cross-chain DeFi design and privacy technologies could improve its investment case if developers and users adopt the network. Similar crypto market rallies driven mainly by prominent founders’ forecasts have often produced temporary speculative gains unless followed by measurable ecosystem growth. Traders should therefore monitor liquidity, token unlocks, network activity, technical development and broader privacy-coin sentiment rather than relying on the prediction alone.