Glacier Drop
Here’s the key information about the NIGHT token distribution:
- A snapshot of eligible addresses was taken by 00:00 UTC on June 11, 2025 (exact block times vary slightly across different networks).
- Holders of tokens from eight ecosystems are eligible to participate in Phase 1, Glacier Drop: ADA, BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, BNB, AVAX, and BAT.
- Everyone can participate in Phase 2, Scavenger Mine; specialized computing equipment is not required.
- Glacier Drop runs for 60 days, followed by Scavenger Mine for 30 days.
Phase 1: Glacier Drop
Glacier Drop invites participants across eight Web3 communities to claim a stake in the future of the Midnight network. This community-first distribution model aims to ensure fairness and accessibility from the network’s inception.
Claiming NIGHT is free for every eligible address and involves cryptographically signing a message to prove ownership of a qualifying wallet. For further details on Glacier Drop eligibility and the claiming process, read the recent distribution model blog post.
Phase 2: Scavenger Mine
Following Glacier Drop, the Scavenger Mine phase opens up participation to everyone. This 30-day interactive phase rewards active engagement, allowing individuals to claim a portion of previously unclaimed NIGHT tokens by completing a computational task or puzzle. These puzzles are designed to be accessible from any computer. Participants do not need specialized hardware.
Phase 3: Lost & Found
The Lost-and-Found phase offers a final opportunity for eligible participants who missed the initial Glacier Drop claim window. To qualify, participants must have met all Glacier Drop eligibility criteria but not claimed their tokens during that period. Allocations in this phase are based on the original Glacier Drop entitlement.
To read more about phases 2 and 3, check out the recent blog, Digging into Scavenger Mine and beyond.
More FAQs are available on the TGE site and for a complete overview of Midnight’s tokenomics and incentives, read the Midnight tokenomics and incentives whitepaper.
Ecosystem
Beyond token distribution, July brings significant developments across the Midnight ecosystem. New ecosystem partnerships, hackathon projects, and developer resources pave the way for builders in the run-up to mainnet.
Ecosystem Tooling Challenge
The Midnight Ecosystem Tooling Challenge recently wrapped up, focusing on building for builders. The event challenged developers to create tools that make building on Midnight easier, faster, and more powerful. Submissions aimed to reduce friction and improve workflow, showcasing innovative solutions that enhance the network's core architecture and lay the groundwork for a stronger developer ecosystem.
For a comprehensive overview of the winning projects and insights from the Midnight Ecosystem Tooling Challenge, along with tips and tricks about how to win a hackathon read the latest blog post.
Now Active: Mini DApp Virtual Hackathon
The next opportunity for builders is the Mini DApp Virtual Hackathon. This event focuses on creating small, polished prototypes that highlight a single, clear, and creative slice of a dApp. Submissions are open until August 18, 2025, with winners announced on August 25, 2025.
Developer education and resources
Midnight Block Producers (MBPs) are critical to the security and integrity of the Midnight network, generating and validating new blocks. As the ecosystem expands, the role of MBPs becomes increasingly important for resilience and moving toward decentralization. For Cardano Stake Pool Operators and other interested developers, understanding the infrastructure and setup process to become a Midnight block producer on the testnet is a crucial first step. This introduction provides a high-level overview, quick access to key information, and essential documentation to help you navigate the process.
To gain a deeper understanding with a step-by-step walkthrough, watch the recently released playlist:
Ecosystem partners
This month, new collaborations are set to expand the Midnight ecosystem across RPC nodes, prediction markets, and data storage. Additionally, further releases from current ecosystem partners are included in the Releases and Documentation section.
Ankr
Ankr, a provider of streamlined access to a global network of nodes, is partnering with the Midnight Foundation to provide vital Remote Procedure Call (RPC) services for network infrastructure.
This ecosystem partnership will unlock powerful new use cases for enterprises and developers who need to protect sensitive data on-chain. Developers will be able to create applications that keep personal and business information secure without sacrificing decentralization or compliance. As part of this collaboration, Ankr will provide high-performance RPC services, enabling builders to access fast, reliable connections to deploy and interact with Midnight smart contracts.
Bodega Market
Bodega Market, a leading prediction markets platform, has partnered with the Midnight Foundation to bring its activity to the Midnight ecosystem. Predictive markets allow users to trade contracts based on the outcomes of future events, such as election results, sports outcomes, or financial trends. These markets leverage the collective intelligence of participants, aggregating opinions and knowledge into a single price point that reflects the probability of an event occurring.
Bodega Market will expand the Midnight ecosystem by introducing a powerful tool for crowdsourced data prediction and economic activity.
Ar.io
Ar.io, a permanent storage solution, has partnered with the Midnight Foundation to offer users and developers confidential smart contract storage with selective disclosure, without sacrificing decentralization or security. Ar.io is dedicated to cultivating products and protocols for sustaining access to digital permanence and increasing accessibility to censorship-resistant data storage. The objective of this ecosystem partnership is to create robust access to data with a better privacy-enhancing experience across both the Midnight and Arweave ecosystems.
Releases and documentation
Open sourcing initiatives across the Midnight ecosystem continue to advance. The first open-source repository was released in April 2025, and the tenth followed in May 2025. Now, the open-source momentum is increasing with many new repositories available this month to guide builders through Midnight's privacy-enhancing technology.
Example DApps
Two open-source example DApps highlight how developers can build on top of Midnight's foundation with versioned code and public visibility:
- Example-counter is a minimal dApp that introduces fundamental Midnight development flows. It demonstrates writing and compiling a Compact smart contract, running it locally, using public state, deploying to the Midnight testnet, and sending transactions.
- Example-bboard simulates a public bulletin board where users can post messages, and only the original author can remove their post. This DApp illustrates how Midnight enables identity-aware rules without revealing identity. It covers combining public and private state in a Compact contract, using zero-knowledge proofs to enforce permissions, validating ownership locally without exposing identity, and designing privacy-respecting UI flows.
OpenZeppelin Compact Contracts
Ecosystem partner OpenZeppelin is developing a dedicated smart contract library and application starter pack for Compact. This collaboration marks a significant step toward introducing programmable privacy to Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and Real-World Assets (RWA) on Midnight. These new contracts cover essential functionalities like fungible tokens, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and Unshielded Multi-Tokens.
Initial OpenZeppelin Compact Contracts for Midnight are now live for public testing. This offers a capability for privacy-preserving smart contracts previously unavailable on UTXO chains for DeFi and RWA applications, paving the way for developers from the wider EVM community.
Explore the OpenZeppelin Compact Contracts on GitHub.
NFT Minting Capabilities
Ecosystem partner NMKR is implementing NFT minting capabilities on the Midnight Network, providing creators and developers with tools to mint NFTs natively on its confidential smart contract model. As part of this effort, NMKR has released an open NFT standard specifically tailored for Midnight's privacy-preserving architecture. NMKR has also shared a demonstration of the process on X.
The developer community is invited to review, discuss, and contribute to this new standard via the GitHub repository.
Lace Wallet Updates
For developers building on testnet-02 using the Lace Alpha wallet, please be aware this version has been deprecated on July 11. To continue using Lace, you will now need to download Lace Beta and restore your existing wallet.
Lace Beta is now available and is the officially supported wallet for developers on testnet-02.
Due to the recently introduced HD Hierarchical Deterministic (HD) wallet derivation, please be aware that Midnight addresses will change in Lace Beta. This is a necessary update for enhanced security and functionality.
For any questions, discussion and all the latest updates: