The Midnight network is officially live. This milestone marks the introduction of state continuity and permanence in the network and is a significant achievement for everyone involved. This launch follows years of research, development, and collaboration to develop the fourth generation of blockchain technology to deliver end-to-end privacy that is flexible and enforceable at the protocol level. Scientists, engineers, developers, partners, and the community all made substantial and ongoing contributions to the development of the network from its inception.
The genesis block marks both a culmination of building toward the network launch and the starting point for the next phase of on-chain network activity. Developers, partners, and institutions will be able to deploy applications and migrate assets on Midnight. This launch triggers the next stage of network and ecosystem expansion as more Midnight-native tools and services come online that will enable end-to-end programmable privacy.
Scaling real-world use with fourth-generation blockchain
Midnight, the world's first fourth generation of blockchain addresses the fundamental barriers that have prevented blockchain from supporting the real world at scale. Applications in the real world require the ability to protect sensitive data, execute compliance logic on-chain, and make blockchain as accessible as any other technology. Midnight is designed to solve all three.
Outlining the journey and roadmap from the first bitcoin transaction to Midnight’s fourth-generation technology, Founder of Input Output Charles Hoskinson explained how we got to the fourth generation of blockchain: "Satoshi gave us good money; Ethereum gave us programmability; Cardano brought the third generation of interoperability, scale and good governance. Midnight gives us our identity and privacy back”.
While the previous generations of blockchains achieved scale and programmability, and sparked waves of innovation, they did so on public ledgers. This is why the vast majority of the world’s value remains off-chain. Trillions in real estate, private equity, debt and currency cannot yet be digitized. The lack of privacy and unpredictability of the infrastructure makes digitizing and tokenising their assets an existential risk to institutions and the value they hold.
Midnight can remove the final hurdle to bringing the world’s economy on-chain. Midnight gives everyone the capability and opportunity to digitize all the world’s value.
Unlocking Real-world privacy
For blockchain to support regulated activity, on-chain privacy must be programmable. Midnight allows developers to determine when to apply privacy across both application and transaction layers. This is achieved through a technical architecture that prioritizes data sovereignty and cryptographic verification:
- Hybrid Ledger Architecture: Midnight uniquely combines both public and private data, enabling applications to process and verify sensitive personal, financial, and commercial information without the data ever being exposed to the network.
- Client-side proofs: Sensitive data stays on the user’s device where it belongs. Using a local proof server, zero-knowledge proofs are generated on the user's machine and submitted to the network for validation, meaning identity, eligibility, credit, and compliance verification can happen without the underlying data ever leaving the user's hands.
- Shielded & Unshielded Assets: Midnight introduces shielded and unshielded assets, giving developers flexibility over if information is shared on-chain. Shielded assets keep balances, counterparties, and transaction flows off the public ledger. Unshielded assets provide the tools for open collaboration and exchange. Confidentiality and auditability are not a choice between one or the other — on Midnight, you have both.
- Selective Disclosure: Compliance logic can be programmed directly into an application, defining exactly when transaction information must be revealed and to whom. Authorised participants including counterparties, auditors, regulators can be granted visibility into specific records without accessing the underlying data that initiated the transaction. This feature enables identity verification, regulatory checks, and eligibility conditions to be validated on-chain without exposing the underlying data. Abstracting away the underlying zero-knowledge cryptography, Midnight empowers developers to focus on application logic while providing users with real-world privacy.
Sustainable costs and predictability
Token volatility makes existing blockchain infrastructure commercially unworkable for many real-world use cases. Transaction fees paid in a network's native asset expose operational costs to market price movements, preventing businesses from accurately forecasting operational costs.
Midnight architecture resolves this through a dual-component economic model. Separating the asset used to govern and secure the network from the resource used to pay for transactions ensures operational costs remain predictable. The Midnight network opens up a path toward a future where users no longer need to hold or manage volatile crypto assets to use the network.
Aligning incentives with dual-component tokenomics
Midnight uses a dual-component economic model designed to align the incentives of users, builders, and validators.
NIGHT for utility and governance
NIGHT is the generator for the network’s operational resource, DUST. NIGHT is the unshielded ledger-native governance and utility token. NIGHT generates the DUST resource, which means NIGHT functions as a store of value for the ecosystem without being consumed by daily transactions. NIGHT is also intended to grant governance rights to holders.
DUST is the renewable network resource
DUST is the resource required to power transactions. Unlike traditional gas models where tokens are burned or paid out, DUST operates on a recharge model similar to a battery.
- Generation: DUST is generated proportionally to NIGHT holdings. A NIGHT holder can register NIGHT to generate DUST and designate a recipient to power transactions on the network. That gives NIGHT holders flexibility to choose how to designate their DUST resources.
- Sustainability: DUST regenerates over time until it reaches capacity based on the amount of NIGHT held. It takes seven days for a DUST address to reach full charge, whereas partial recharges take proportionally less time.
- Self-funding applications: Developers can hold NIGHT to generate the DUST required to cover transaction costs for their users. This allows for applications where the end-user does not need to own or even be aware of the underlying tokens to interact with the service.
Abstracting away complexity with Compact programming language
To make advanced cryptography accessible, Midnight uses Compact, a statically-typed domain-specific language (DSL) based on TypeScript. Compact allows developers to manage both private and public states within a single contract. By using familiar syntax, the language removes the requirement for specialized expertise in ZK proof cryptography, enabling more efficient development of sophisticated logic.
The design of Compact focuses on lowering the technical barrier to building privacy-enhancing technology. Learn more about Compact in the Midnight documentation.
Launching alongside leading institutions
The Midnight network launch represents the primary milestone of the current development phase, which focuses on strengthening infrastructure and achieving operational stability and security. During this stage, the network expands to include distinct federated node operators that collectively operate the protocol under explicit rules for participation and coordination.
While these operators already support the Midnight Preprod network, their participation in the Midnight network launch provides the secure, enterprise-grade foundation necessary for live applications to function. By involving leading global institutions, the Midnight Foundation ensures that infrastructure is managed by operators with proven experience handling high-volume, mission-critical data.
Charles Hoskinson explains, “Midnight is the first public blockchain that gives the world the infrastructure it needs to come on-chain — without sacrificing privacy or compliance. Launching alongside partners like Google Cloud and MoneyGram is a monumental step. For the first time, organisations of this scale have committed not only to running critical infrastructure but also to building and deploying live applications on a public network.”
Learn more about the federated node partners supporting the network including Worldpay, Bullish, MoneyGram, Pairpoint by Vodafone, eToro, AlphaTON Capital, Google Cloud, Blockdaemon, and Shielded Technologies.
Multiphase roll-out strategy for stability and security
The rollout of the Midnight network from genesis block follows a structured multi-phase path to decentralization, and will begin with an initial phased application deployment rollout period to ensure operational stability and security. This is essentially an early phase where developers and applications can access the network’s functionality within a protected environment.
This structured approach allows users to have more confidence that the early DApps and services launching on the network are from developers who have met rigorous readiness criteria.
To maintain this security during the initial phase:
- Development best practices: The Midnight Preprod environment is a mirror of the Midnight network. As is common development best practice, all developers should test and deploy to the Preprod environment first to ensure application logic is fully optimized before moving to production.
- Infrastructure resilience: Federated node operators are protected by a private protected network. This architecture creates a secure, encrypted communication layer, making the network's core infrastructure resilient against potential external attacks. Fahmi Syed, President of the Midnight Foundation explains the multiphase strategy: “This rollout will be phased, reflecting the importance of introducing privacy-enhancing infrastructure in a deliberate and resilient way. More importantly, this creates the foundations for an entirely new class of on-chain activity. When privacy is built into the system itself, it becomes possible to bring real-world activity and assets on-chain without exposing the underlying data — unlocking entirely new forms of economic value that were previously impossible on transparent infrastructure.”
Progressive decentralization
As stewards of the network, the Midnight Foundation intends to transition from this federated model to a fully decentralized network. This path to decentralization is designed to be managed thoughtfully and responsibly, ensuring the network maintains security and stability as it matures. This planned evolution allows the ecosystem to scale while moving toward a fully decentralized and permissionless state in subsequent phases of the roadmap.
What to do next…
The Midnight network launch is a significant milestone that initiates the next phase of ecosystem growth. This release provides the foundation for a wide range of privacy-preserving applications and institutional integrations.
See live network metrics at Midnight Explorer.
Join the community on Discord.
Check the Midnight blog regularly for more news and information.
Top comments (3)
Really interested to see what folks build
🌒
Woohoo! Congrats @lolocoding! It's been such a privilege to see all the work that the Midnight team has been doing behind the scenes to get here. Can't wait to see what everyone builds next! 🎉