The Cardano founder has continued to reiterate the broad scale of the Midnight airdrop, recently confirming it could reach 37 million people, including XRP holders.
He made the latest disclosure to the blockchain community during his keynote at the Paris Blockchain Week 2025, confirming that the upcoming Midnight airdrop will target 37 million users across multiple blockchain networks.
Hoskinson: Fourth Crypto Generation Focuses on Privacy
Notably, this latest comment came on Day 2 of the Paris event, where Hoskinson also presented his perspective on the ongoing evolution of the cryptocurrency industry. For context, he broke down the development of the blockchain sector into four generational phases.
Specifically, the Cardano founder explained that the first generation centered on decentralization, laying the foundation with networks like Bitcoin. Meanwhile, the second generation introduced smart contracts and programmable blockchains, with Ethereum’s rise beginning in 2015.
Further, in the third phase, the emphasis moved to interoperability and scalability. This looks to address the need for networks to communicate and grow efficiently.
However, according to Hoskinson, the industry is now transitioning into a fourth generation, one that prioritizes privacy. He noted that privacy is not just an optional feature but an important factor necessary for the growth of decentralized technology.
Midnight Airdrop is for XRP Holders and Others
According to him, this is the motivation behind Cardano’s development of Midnight, a privacy-oriented sidechain that allows secure and compliant data management using advanced cryptographic techniques.
Highlighting the scope of the upcoming airdrop, Hoskinson revealed that users holding assets on major blockchains such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, and XRP will be eligible. Notably, other supported networks include Solana, Binance Smart Chain, Avalanche, and Polygon.
Interestingly, XRP’s inclusion is not surprising, given the newfound “bromance” between the XRP and Cardano communities in recent times. In a recent video promoting tokenization, Ripple opened with a Cardano logo, indicating this friendly relationship between both ecosystems.
In his statement, Hoskinson stressed that Midnight will present a cross-chain experience by enabling XRP holders and other users to interact with the protocol using the native assets of their respective chains.
They call this feature chain abstraction. For the uninitiated, this means users won’t need to convert their assets to interact with Midnight. Whether they hold ADA, ETH, BTC, or XRP, they can easily use them on the platform.
Midnight Seeing Recent Developments
The upcoming Midnight airdrop, known as the “Glacier Drop,” is a move through which the Cardano Midnight team seeks to promote widespread adoption and cross-chain engagement.
It will involve the distribution of two tokens: NIGHT, which is the primary governance token of the Midnight ecosystem, and DUST, a non-transferable token used within the privacy layer for shielded transactions.
According to the Midnight team, NIGHT has a fixed supply and has a central role in governance and network participation, while DUST focuses on enabling private transactions without sacrificing compliance.
Meanwhile, Midnight‘s development roadmap has gained momentum in recent months. The project has launched a series of upgrades on its testnet to improve developer experience, network scalability, and integration readiness. Earlier this week, the team confirmed an imminent upgrade to the testnet.
Midnight testnet is getting an upgrade. 🛠️
More efficient nodes, simpler setup, a faster proving system, and more.If you’re a block producer or developer, you’ll need to know what’s new.
➡️ Details + next steps:https://t.co/c86sfRerg4
— Midnight (@MidnightNtwrk) April 8, 2025
Also, they have added a release overview page and a compatibility matrix to assist developers building on the network. In addition, they formed a partnership with OpenZeppelin to develop a secure, privacy-focused DeFi framework.
