How To Get Involved In Catalyst Fund15’s Midnight Category
Project Catalyst serves as Cardano’s decentralized grant mechanism, transforming community concepts into funded initiatives.
It’s a decentralized grants program where anyone can propose ideas that strengthen the ecosystem, and the Cardano community votes on which ones get funded. Catalyst runs in recurring funding rounds, each organized into challenge categories. Builders submit proposals, community reviewers provide structured feedback, and ADA holders decide which projects receive support from Cardano’s on-chain treasury.
Introducing a dedicated Midnight category
Fund15 is the current round, and for the first time, Catalyst includes a dedicated category for Midnight Compact DApps.
The introduction of the Midnight Compact DApps category in Catalyst Fund15 establishes a direct pipeline for community-led growth. Specific funding is available for builders to create open-source, privacy-enhancing applications on the Midnight network.
These early projects act as blueprints. As the network expands, new entrants will look to these funded projects to understand how to implement Compact smart contracts and zero-knowledge proofs. Consequently, builders participating in this round establish the technical foundations that will shape how privacy applications function on Midnight.
Having a dedicated Midnight category means builders can now apply for funding specifically to create open-source, privacy-enhancing Reference DApps on Midnight.
There are three paths for the Midnight community to participate:
- submit a proposal
- become a community reviewer
- register to vote
Whether you’re experimenting with Compact, joining hackathons, or simply want to help shape the future of privacy-preserving applications, Fund 15 is your chance to take part.
This post explains how to do that in practice.
1. Write a proposal for the Midnight category
Developers who have experimented with Compact, participated in hackathons, or completed Academy modules can now translate those concepts into funded projects. This funding round specifically targets technical builders capable of delivering functional, open-source proofs-of-concept.
The Fund15 Midnight category supports only open-source Reference DApps. It excludes commercial products, developer tooling, educational materials, and community programs. A Reference DApp serves as a self-contained demonstration, illustrating how to implement specific privacy-preserving patterns using Compact. These projects establish the technical blueprints that future developers will use to understand and build upon the network.
To qualify for funding, a proposal must commit to producing a specific set of technical assets. If the primary output is not functional code, the proposal is ineligible. Every project must deliver:
- A Compact smart contract demonstrating programmable privacy or selective disclosure
- A demo UI showing the contract in action
- Wallet integration using Lace (Midnight)
- A public GitHub repo under MIT or Apache 2.0
- A complete README that explains how to run, extend, or fork the project
- A test suite
- A deliverable timeline of three milestones over three months
Areas of interest
Your DApp should demonstrate Midnight’s privacy capabilities in one of these areas:
- Governance – privacy-enhancing voting, delegation, or civic coordination
- AI – selective disclosure or protected data flows in AI workflows
- Health – patient controlled data, private verification, secure sharing models
- Finance – compliant privacy preserving financial flows, private credit, DeFi primitives
- Novel Concepts – any real world use case that demonstrates Midnight’s privacy model in a meaningful way
These are not categories for theory or narratives, they must result in a working, open source reference application.
How to submit a proposal for the Midnight category
1. Go to the Catalyst Fund15 app
2. Log in or create a Catalyst account
3. Navigate to Midnight Compact DApps
4. Read the full category brief
5. Draft your proposal
6. Describe and document how you plan to build out all required technical deliverables:
- compact contract
- UI
- wallet integration
- tests
- README
- milestones
- permissive open source license
7. Submit and mark as final before the deadline
Proposal Deadline: November 27, 6 AM UTC: all proposals must be submitted and marked Final.
Who is eligible to apply
This category is strictly for technical builders.
Eligible:
- Developers with verifiable GitHub profiles
- Teams who have built DApps or technical prototypes before
- Builders who can deliver all required components within three months
- Anyone able to demonstrate real competency with smart contract development
Not eligible:
- Anonymous or unverifiable teams
- Content creators, educators, marketers
- Agencies building on behalf of someone else
- Non technical proposals
- Broad ecosystem initiatives
- Tooling, infrastructure, SDKs, docs only
- Events, workshops, or hackathons
- Narrative or research proposals
If you cannot produce a working, testable Compact DApp, you should not apply in this category.
2. Become a Community Reviewer
Participation in Fund15 extends beyond software development. Community reviewers evaluate proposals, providing the data that informs the final vote. Reviewers score submissions based on four criteria: impact, feasibility, value for money, and team capability.
While reviewers do not unilaterally select winners, their assessments heavily influence which projects capture voter attention. For the Midnight category, reviewers with specific knowledge of the network are necessary to assess technical validity. A general Cardano reviewer may not detect specific issues, whereas a Midnight-focused reviewer can determine:
- If the proposed DApp is technically feasible on the current network.
- Whether the privacy rationale is valid and necessary.
- If the Compact pattern is applied correctly.
- Whether the scope of work is realistically achievable within the three-month timeline.
Registration Requirement During the registration process, participants must explicitly select the Midnight category. Failure to do so will prevent access to Midnight-specific proposals.
Deadline: Registration remains open until November 27 at 6 AM UTC.
3. Register to Vote
The final decision on funding allocation rests with ADA holders. Voting requires registration and a minimum balance, but the act of voting itself is free of charge (excluding the initial transaction fee to register).
To participate, a user must:
- Register via a supported Cardano wallet.
- Hold a minimum balance of 25 ADA.
- Generate a voting QR code and PIN.
- Scan the QR code into the Catalyst Voting app.
Snapshot and Deadlines Registration must be completed before the snapshot occurs. If a wallet is not registered by this specific time, it will not possess voting power for this round.
- Snapshot: January 4 at 9:45 PM UTC.
- Voting Opens: January 13.
Both are high impact ways to support the ecosystem, even if you’re not building a DApp yourself.
Useful links
- Check out the funding timeline
- Submit a proposal in the Catalyst app
- Register as a community reviewer
- Register to vote