Glacier Drop claims have surpassed two billion NIGHT tokens, representing more than 8% of the total 24 billion supply. The response from participants across eight major blockchain ecosystems demonstrates a clear engagement with a network built to encourage collaboration from inception.
This milestone marks a significant step in forging a diverse and decentralized Midnight community. With the initial claim period now more than halfway complete, participants from over 100,000 eligible addresses have claimed their NIGHT allocation.
The distribution of Glacier Drop is built on four pillars:
- Rational privacy: DUST is a shielded resource that enables private transactions without leaving a trail of metadata. The design allows for this privacy while remaining compatible with regulatory compliance.
- Cooperative tokenomics: The network’s multichain architecture will allow users to pay for transactions with other tokens or even fiat currencies. This will foster cross-chain cooperation and allow application operators to sponsor user fees.
- Operational predictability: Midnight's native token, NIGHT, generates DUST, a resource used to pay for transactions. This dual-component tokenomics design provides predictable operating costs that are not directly linked to the price volatility of the native token.
- Fair by design: A free, multi-phase, and transparent token distribution process aims to bootstrap a diverse community of engaged participants from the network's inception.
A new architecture for collaboration
This token distribution is the first step in a plan to address foundational barriers to blockchain adoption. A recent report by The Block commissioned by the Midnight Foundation examines how ideological tribalism and unconditional transparency have limited the industry's potential. This fragmentation imposes a real economic cost, creating a "patchwork liquidity architecture" and an "engineering tax" that slows innovation. The consequences include significant security risks, evidenced by the billions of dollars lost to cross-chain bridge exploits.
Midnight’s architecture is designed to resolve these challenges. By combining selective disclosure privacy with a chain-agnostic framework, it will function as a coordination layer that can reduce friction between ecosystems. This approach draws a parallel to the internet’s evolution, where open standards enabled a transition from fragmented networks to unified global infrastructure.
This focus on privacy is essential for institutional and enterprise adoption. As Paul Brody from EY notes, "The number one issue for enterprise users... is privacy". Midnight enables selective disclosure, allowing enterprises to leverage blockchain’s benefits while protecting sensitive commercial data. This unlocks tangible, high-value use cases, such as proving eligibility for on-chain governance without revealing identity, or tokenizing funds with built-in compliance checks and jurisdictional controls.
Improving the claim experience
To support this growing community, the claim process is receiving continuous enhancements for accessibility without compromising security. Recent updates to the NIGHT claim portal have introduced multiple improvements. These include a new verification method for Cardano-based claims that improves hardware wallet compatibility and a key fix that resolves an issue with Bitcoin-based claims made via Ledger devices. These changes are part of an ongoing commitment to making the Glacier Drop as seamless as possible.
Technical notes are published periodically with new information, the first Glacier Drop portal technical updates were shared last week. For support or questions about the claim process, visit the official FAQs page at midnight.gd.
What’s next
The Midnight token distribution is a multiphase event. Following the initial Glacier Drop, the Glacier Drop Mine will open the doors for anyone to participate, where users solve computational puzzles to claim remaining tokens. The final Lost-and-Found phase offers a final opportunity for eligible participants who missed the initial Glacier Drop claim window.
This is an opportunity to become a founding participant in the network built for utility, collaboration, and rational privacy with a fair distribution from its beginning.
Glacier Drop claims are open
The Glacier Drop claim period continues until October 4, 2025, at 13:00 UTC. The official portal contains an eligibility checker, step-by-step instructions, and a verified list of compatible wallets.
Access the official claim portal at: claim.midnight.gd