Hop on board the privacy bus
The Midnight privacy bus stopped at Consensus in Toronto last month alongside the official launches of the Midnight Foundation and Shielded Technologies.
Privacy in Motion, a new video series filmed on-site at Consensus with CoinDesk, tackles a core challenge in Web3: how to make privacy intuitive, automatic, and part of the flow. The first episode makes the case for building tools that protect users without asking them to opt in or slow down. It’s essential viewing for anyone rethinking how privacy should be implemented at scale.
Next, the Midnight ecosystem is shifting into a higher gear and the privacy bus will be crossing the border to appear at Permissionless in New York alongside the release of the tokenomics and incentives whitepaper.
With the release of the tokenomics paper, the Midnight Token Generation Entity (TGE) is now live. The Midnight TGE is a token generation entity responsible for the initial distribution of NIGHT to network participants. Established to support the launch and decentralization of the Midnight ecosystem, the company ensures tokens are allocated transparently and in accordance with the project’s tokenomics and distribution schedule.
To follow the activities and announcements, follow Midnight Foundation and Shielded Technologies on X for live updates, and check the Midnight blog for a post-Permissionless recap of all the news and announcements.
Developer education and resources
Looking for a structured learning pathway for developers new to Web3 or Midnight? The Learning Web3 from the Ground Up series in Dev Diaries explains Web3 concepts sequentially, leading to an understanding of selective disclosure and rational privacy with Midnight.
The series covers foundational topics starting with decentralization, moves to hash functions and digital signatures, then builds through public key encryption, token utility, and real-world architecture like Merkle trees and DAOs.
Each post follows a learner’s journey from first principles to applied privacy technology. The most recent post explains selective disclosure, a core feature of Midnight that enables rational privacy: allowing developers to share only necessary data and protect the rest. The series is a practical guide to the concepts and functionality behind Midnight’s privacy-enhancing design.
Midnight Developer Academy
For developers who are looking to sharpen their skills with Midnight and build real privacy-enhancing applications, The Developer Academy is a launchpad for developing with ZK technology. It’s designed to take developers from foundational knowledge to deployable, on-chain solutions.
The Academy now features five modules covering concepts that are central to developing with Midnight, and more are on the way. All eight modules will be available soon, along with a Midnight quests system, and trackable progress tied to points, achievements, and on-chain rewards: NFTs developed in collaboration with NMKR.
Each quest will challenge developers to apply core concepts in practice. Completing them will unlock NFTs that mark progress and reflect actual contributions to the ecosystem. The quests will be designed to help any developer build more effective DApps by providing a clear path to advance their skills, whether they are just starting with zero-knowledge proofs or are experienced with Compact-based contracts.
Ecosystem partners
Ecosystem partnerships with Midnight focus on building real-world impact. From accelerators supporting early-stage startups to community teams launching production-ready apps, these collaborations are turning Midnight’s privacy-enhancing infrastructure into practical tools and applications.
Privacy accelerator with Outlier Ventures
Outlier Ventures, a leading Web3 accelerator, has partnered with the Midnight Foundation to launch a dedicated Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) track within its Post Web Base Camp program. The initiative will support up to six teams building real-world applications with technologies like zero-knowledge proofs and trusted execution environments.
This collaboration combines Midnight’s privacy-enhancing infrastructure with Outlier’s founder-focused accelerator, offering early-stage startups technical mentorship, compliance guidance, go-to-market support, and access to capital. Selected teams will receive initial seed funding, potential developer grants from Midnight, and strategic introductions to privacy-aligned investors.
The program is designed to close the gap between advanced PET infrastructure and real adoption. Learn more about the ecosystem partnership and how to apply to the PET track in Post Web Base Camp.
SheFi
SheFi, a fast-growing platform for Web3 education, has partnered with the Midnight Foundation to bring ZK privacy education to thousands of women entering the crypto space. Through SheFi’s structured 8-week boot camp, participants will explore core Midnight concepts through guided lessons, technical workshops, and social content.
This partnership is designed to reach new developers at the very start of their crypto journey. By embedding Midnight content directly into the SheFi curriculum, this initiative will help shape foundational understanding of privacy, ZK proofs, and secure computation. Participants will also gain access to real-world examples, technical demos, and beginner-friendly quests showcasing Midnight’s capabilities.
The new season of SheFi starts in July.
SurancePlus
SurancePlus, the tokenized reinsurance platform from Nasdaq-listed Oxbridge Re, has partnered with the Midnight Foundation to bring real-world financial products onto the Midnight blockchain. This move positions SurancePlus to deliver high-yield, fully collateralized digital securities with enhanced privacy features for institutional investors.
Community-led finance with Brick Towers
Brick Towers, a full-stack development studio specializing in privacy-focused financial systems, is joining the Midnight ecosystem. After winning two Midnight hackathons, the team is now launching urble, a mobile-first, privacy-enhanced finance app built entirely on Midnight.
This partnership highlights how community-driven innovation is evolving into production-grade solutions within the Midnight network.
Releases and documentation
With each release, Midnight is getting faster and more robust. These upgrades are designed to support more complex applications and heavier on-chain activity without compromising stability.
Network upgrades
The recent rollout of the testnet-02 upgrade is complete, introducing significant performance improvements and greater stability. The update is designed to lower storage and operational costs for users running the network nodes.
This improvement to testnet-02 has significantly reduced storage and operational costs by making memory and CPU usage more efficient through a new state storage mechanism. The system now stores all data in a more optimized Merkle tree format which allows it to reuse any parts of the tree that remain unchanged between blocks. As a result, only state changes require new disk space.
Testnet-02 is now built to scale and handle more transactions. Developers are strongly encouraged to build, deploy, and actively test on the network. This phase is critical: real-world usage and stress testing will provide essential feedback on how the system performs, and will provide core protocol development teams with usage data in the run-up to mainnet. The more activity, the better. This is the moment to push the limits and help validate the infrastructure for improved performance and test readiness for broader adoption.
Compact Compiler improvements
The Midnight Compiler 0.24.0 has now been released and includes a Compact language change from version 0.15.0 to 0.16.0. This upgrade brings significant changes to enhance the Compact Compiler functionality, optimize the Compact Language, along with many bug fixes to further improve the development experience. The latest release contains multiple changes that may require developers to redeploy, recompile, and update contracts. More information about the release and actions required are detailed in the latest compiler release notes.
Already familiar with Compact and want to learn more? A new series in Dev Diaries provides a deep dive into how Compact contracts work on the Midnight network. It walks through top-level contract structure using real contract examples compiled with the latest release.
New documents feature: Ask AI
The new Ask AI feature lets anyone search and summarize Midnight documentation using a built-in large language model. Just type a question, and get direct, conversational answers pulled from the docs. It’s a fast way to find information, understand key concepts, or troubleshoot while building. Try it out and share feedback.