Cardano Founder Says Everything is Going as Foreseen For Midnight

Charles Hoskinson, the Cardano founder, confirms that the Midnight development progress is proceeding as the team has planned.

The latest comment came on the back of a sneak peek shared by one of the developers working on the Devnet. Notably, Stevan Lohja, a Developer Relations Engineer at Input Output (IOHK), recently shared an image showing the ongoing development of Midnight. 

The image, posted on X, displayed technical logs from the “midnight-node-testnet,” showing processes such as syncing blocks and validating operations. These activities are important in ensuring the Midnight network’s stability, progress, and functionality.

In the image, Lohja reveals processes such as block syncing and session starts, calling the public’s attention to the network’s real-time activity. Essentially, this shows that Midnight is advancing towards a stable test environment. Consequently, the testing of the network could be on track to move to the next stage. 

Cardano Founder Responds

In response to Lohja’s post, Cardano founder and IOHK Chief, Charles Hoskinson, shared a lighthearted comment. He replied with a Star Wars meme of Emperor Palpatine, with the caption: “Everything is proceeding exactly as I have foreseen.” 

https://t.co/puTjnM7vaq pic.twitter.com/TlHQKjYvWY

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) September 25, 2024

The statement aimed to assure the Cardano and Midnight communities that the privacy sidechain’s development is progressing without any setbacks. 

Hoskinson, who has been vocal about Cardano’s layered approach to blockchain innovation, remains confident that Midnight will fulfill its promise of privacy and regulatory compliance through zero-knowledge cryptography.

Midnight to Prioritize Privacy and Compliance

For the uninitiated, Midnight is designed as a data-protection sidechain for Cardano. It seeks to combine privacy with regulatory compliance, making use of zero-knowledge cryptography to allow private transactions and decentralized applications without sacrificing security or transparency. 

The network’s native tokens, NIGHT and DUST, are important for this architecture. Specifically, the chain will leverage NIGHT for governance and utility, while DUST will serve as a gas token. Together, these tokens form the core of Midnight’s economic system.

The team behind Midnight recently released the whitepaper—dubbed Nightpaper—which details the technological framework, roadmap, and vision for the sidechain. 

Notably, the document outlined the network’s goal to bridge the gap between privacy and compliance. Nightpaper also laid out a development roadmap, revealing upcoming milestones as the project moves toward the mainnet in the future.

Currently, Midnight is in the Devnet phase, with the testnet set to go live soon. The upcoming testnet will give the public the ability to experiment in a secure, sandboxed environment.