Midnight Roadmap

Overview

Privacy lets more economic and digital activity move on-chain. Midnight is turning programmable privacy into infrastructure people can use, so institutions can protect transactions, individuals can prove who they are without exposing everything, and developers can build privacy in without being cryptography experts. Over the coming quarters, we'll ship updates across seven areas, all aimed at one goal: making privacy practical for those who need it.

Bringing Regulated Capital On-Chain
Our work will provide the infrastructure banks, asset managers and tokenization platforms need to issue and settle tokenized deposits, stablecoins and real-world assets while protecting sensitive financial and commercial data.
A bank can't issue a tokenized deposit if the balance sheet behind it is visible to every competitor watching the chain.
Over the coming quarters, we're building the rails to give banks, asset managers and tokenization platforms a way to bring deposits, stablecoins and real-world assets on-chain without broadcasting balances or commercial relationships.
Regulators, auditors and approved counterparties will still get exactly what they need to see.
Product Roadmap
Q4 2026
We're introducing a single, documented standard for how Midnight contracts encode and store their data. The standard will be versioned and enforced by the Compact compiler, so every contract follows it automatically. Auditors, data providers and integration partners will be able to read contract data by following a published specification, rather than having to work out the format themselves.
Midnight contracts will be able to verify approvals made with ed25519 and ECDSA P-256 keys, which are the cryptographic key types used by the hardware security modules (HSMs), passkeys and secure chips that banks and enterprises already rely on. This means an institution can authorize transactions on Midnight using the key management systems its security team has already vetted, instead of adopting new ones.
We're releasing independently audited token contracts in which balances and transfers are hidden from public view. Each transfer comes with a zero-knowledge proof, which is a mathematical guarantee that the transfer followed the rules without revealing the amounts or parties involved. Issuers can keep their holdings private while still giving everyone certainty that the token is behaving correctly.
We're providing audited contract templates that a bank can use to issue deposit tokens, redeem them for cash, and control how they move. A bank will be able to launch a deposit token using code that has already been reviewed, rather than paying to have its own contracts written and audited from scratch.
Q1 2027
Issuers will be able to apply compliance controls to private tokens, including freezing a holding, forcing a transfer when required by a court or regulator, restricting who is eligible to hold the token, and releasing tokens on a vesting schedule. These rules are enforced by the Midnight ledger itself, which means no individual app or wallet can bypass them.
Today, creating a private transaction requires the user's spending key to be shared with the software that generates the zero-knowledge proof. We're changing the design, using a technique called VRF nullifiers, so the spending key never has to leave the secure system where it is stored. Custodians will be able to keep their keys inside their HSM or multi-party computation (MPC) system at every step, which is what most institutional custody policies require.
Institutions will be able to issue tokenized versions of real-world assets on Midnight, starting with investment funds, credit products and property. Investors will be able to hold these assets on-chain without their positions being visible to the public.
We're introducing a common technical standard for real-world asset tokens on Midnight. Any wallet, custodian or app that supports the standard will be able to handle every token built on it in the same way, so they won't need to build a separate integration for each issuer.
Putting Private Capital To Work
Confidential financial infrastructure will allow developers and protocols to put capital to work across trading, lending, collateral, liquidity and payments while keeping positions, strategies and transaction histories shielded.
An issued asset only matters if someone can leverage it — as collateral for a loan, as liquidity in a pool, as a stake in a trade. Right now, doing any of that means exposing the amount and the counterparty to everyone watching the chain.
Over the coming quarters, we're building the infrastructure to let issued assets be lent, traded and posted as collateral while keeping sensitive transaction details shielded. Solvency will stay provable without the balance being public.
The same shielding extends to everyday wallets and payments, so using Midnight will feel as simple as any app people already use, minus the exposure.
Product Roadmap
Q4 2026
We're launching a lending market in which each user's loans and collateral are kept confidential. Borrowers will be able to access credit without revealing the size of their position or the price at which it would be liquidated, which is information other traders could otherwise use against them.
Users will be able to exchange one token for another privately, either directly on Midnight or through private liquidity pools connected to other blockchains. Because the details of a trade are hidden until it is complete, automated bots will not be able to see the order in advance and place their own trades ahead of it to profit at the user's expense.
At present, when one Midnight contract calls another, the address of that second contract is fixed when the first one is deployed. We're changing this so a contract can look up the current version of the contract it needs from a registry at the moment it makes the call. Developers will be able to upgrade parts of their application or connect new partners without redeploying every contract that depends on them.
NightMode will allow Midnight users and contracts to authorize transactions that Ethereum and other EVM-compatible blockchains accept as valid. It is the technology behind NightMode's cross-chain pools, which let Midnight users trade against liquidity on those networks while keeping their activity private.
Users will be able to package a trade offer as a simple text file and share it through any channel, including email, a messaging app or a forum. When a counterparty accepts the offer, both sides of the trade are completed on-chain in a single step, so neither party can receive their side without the other receiving theirs.
Q1 2027
We're building a private, global vault for collateral. Traders will be able to deposit collateral once and use it as margin on any blockchain connected to Midnight, without moving funds across bridges and without the market being able to see the price at which their positions would be liquidated.
We're extending NightMode to additional blockchains, which will give users on those networks access to private transactions on Midnight and give Midnight users access to the liquidity held there.
Midnight contracts will be able to call one another while each keeps its own data private. This will let developers combine private applications into larger products, in the same way that public DeFi applications are combined today.
We're extending offer files to work across blockchains. A user will be able to describe the outcome they want, and the trade will be carried out across multiple networks without revealing the strategy behind it.
Proving Eligibility Without Risk
Identity and disclosure infrastructure will allow applications to verify eligibility, authority and compliance while limiting access to the personal or commercial information behind those proofs.
Proving you're allowed to do something usually means handing over far more than the fact that matters.
Over the coming quarters, we're building more verifiable credential and selective disclosure tooling to enable people confirm eligibility, authority and compliance without exposing their sensitive data.
Developers will be able to set exactly what needs to be shared, who's allowed to see it, and when.
Product Roadmap
Q4 2026
We're releasing Passport, an SDK any Midnight app can use to let people create an account without having to write down and safeguard a seed phrase. Passport will allow users to own their data, identity and money, then delegate to agents.
We're giving contracts a way to confirm who is interacting with them while learning only the information they actually need. Apps will be able to enforce access rules, such as allowing only verified customers, without collecting personal data that they would then be responsible for protecting.
Contracts written in Compact will be able to check zero-knowledge proofs directly, including proofs that contain other proofs within them. This allows a contract to accept the result of work done elsewhere, or a claim made by a third party, as verified input it can rely on.
When one contract receives a request from another, it will be able to confirm with certainty which contract sent the request and which specific function within that contract made the call. This allows applications to trust requests from partner applications without relying on any intermediary.
Q1 2027
We're adding a feature called discloseTo, which lets a user reveal one specific piece of private information to one named party and no one else.
Apps will be able to send notifications on-chain that only the intended recipient can locate and read. A business will be able to alert a customer or counterparty about activity on their account without making that activity public.
Institutions will be able to issue viewing keys, which give an auditor or regulator read-only access to specific private records. Each key can be limited to particular data, set to expire on a chosen date, and revoked at any time, so the reviewer sees exactly what the engagement requires and nothing more.
The second version of Passport will add decentralized identifiers, which are digital identities the user owns and controls, along with verifiable credentials and a registry of trusted credential issuers. Users will also get a simple interface for deciding which apps can see which of their credentials.
Enhanced Performance And Decentralization
Continued development across performance, consensus, security and resilience will provide the network capacity and operational control required for institutions, developers and increasingly demanding applications.
A network that can't handle volume can't carry institutional activity.
Our focus here is pushing performance, consensus, security and resilience so Midnight can handle real growth.
Institutions and developers will also gain more control over their own systems and data, without losing connection to the wider network.
Product Roadmap
Q4 2026
We're beginning a phased transition from Midnight's current consensus system, Aura, to a new one called BABE. Consensus is the process the network uses to decide who produces each new block.
Stake pool operators, who run the servers that produce new blocks, will begin earning NIGHT for that work. We're also giving them tools to forecast their rewards, monitor their performance and withdraw what they have earned, so they can run Midnight infrastructure as a predictable business.
We're launching a public bug bounty that pays security researchers who find vulnerabilities in Midnight's protocol, contracts and developer tools. This gives anyone who discovers a flaw a financial reason to report it to us rather than exploit it.
When a new node joins the network, it has to download and verify the history of the chain before it can participate. We're making that process significantly faster, which will reduce the time and cost of running independent infrastructure on Midnight.
Q1 2027
NIGHT holders will be able to delegate their tokens to a stake pool and earn rewards in return. This lets holders contribute to securing the network without having to run any servers themselves.
Cardano stake pool operators will be able to join Midnight as block producers. This brings a large, experienced group of independent operators onto the network and reduces reliance on any single party.
Following the staged rollout, the BABE consensus system will begin going live on Midnight's main network.
We're working to reduce the time it takes to generate the zero-knowledge proofs behind each private transaction, and to increase the number of transactions the network can process. We will report these improvements against published benchmarks based on real-world usage.
Extending Privacy Cross-Chain
Cross-chain infrastructure and developer tooling will extend Midnight’s privacy capabilities to more networks, giving developers access to a wider base of assets, liquidity and users.
Users and liquidity shouldn't have to leave the chains they already use to get access to what Midnight offers.
Over the coming quarters, we're building connections to more chains to bring new liquidity and users into reach, backed by the tooling, standards and docs developers need to ship without getting stuck in the cryptography.
Product Roadmap
Q4 2026
We're building new bridges between Midnight and other blockchains, which will allow users to move assets into and out of Midnight from a wider range of ecosystems.
We're releasing a toolkit that lets developers build mobile wallets and apps capable of creating private transactions entirely on the user's phone. Users will be able to transact privately without needing a computer or sending their data to an outside server to generate proofs.
We're giving developers AI tools that understand Compact, Midnight's smart contract language, and can help them write and debug their contracts. This will make it considerably easier for developers who are new to the language to start building on Midnight.
Offer files will also allow people to make private transactions on Midnight using the wallets they already have on other blockchains, so they will not need to install a new wallet before getting started.
Q1 2027
We're extending NightMode to more blockchains, and transactions will remain private on each of them.
We're launching a production MCP server, which is a standard way for AI tools to connect to external systems, together with AI agents trained on Midnight. Coding assistants such as Claude Code and Cursor will be able to build, test and deploy Midnight applications using accurate and current knowledge of the platform.
People without programming experience will be able to create Midnight applications. Product, compliance and operations teams will be able to build the tools they need without waiting for engineering resources.
We're expanding support so that wallets from other blockchains can authorize private Midnight transactions. This will allow funds held in those wallets to flow directly into applications on Midnight.
Programmable Privacy Across State Models
Starstream will provide the language and runtime for application logic to operate across different blockchain environments without requiring a separate implementation for every chain.
Smart contract logic locked to one chain limits what can be built.
Over the coming quarters, we're developing a language and runtime for building decentralized applications that can eventually operate across different blockchain environments.
Product Roadmap
Q4 2026
The runtime decision with mock ledger will finalize Starstream’s execution model for bringing programmable privacy to UTXO chains such as Bitcoin and Cardano, validating the runtime against a simulated ledger before moving toward live-chain integration.
Securing Applications Against Future Threats
Nightstream will provide post-quantum zero-knowledge proving infrastructure designed to protect private computation as computing power and cryptographic threats evolve.
Zero-knowledge proofs built to resist today's computing power are not guaranteed to resist tomorrow's, including the quantum computing power expected in the years ahead.
Over the coming quarters, we're developing zero-knowledge proving systems designed to remain secure against quantum attacks, so private state and computation stay protected well beyond current cryptographic standards.
Product Roadmap
Q4 2026
Proof generation time optimization will reduce the time needed to generate quantum-secure zero-knowledge proofs, making post-quantum privacy faster and more practical for real applications.
Proof size optimization will make quantum-secure zero-knowledge proofs smaller, reducing bandwidth and storage costs and making them easier to use at scale.

Midnight Roadmap

Overview

Bringing Regulated Capital On-Chain

Product Roadmap

Q4 2026

Q1 2027

Putting Private Capital To Work

Product Roadmap

Q4 2026

Q1 2027

Proving Eligibility Without Risk

Product Roadmap

Q4 2026

Q1 2027

Enhanced Performance And Decentralization

Product Roadmap

Q4 2026

Q1 2027

Extending Privacy Cross-Chain

Product Roadmap

Q4 2026

Q1 2027

Programmable Privacy Across State Models

Product Roadmap

Q4 2026

Securing Applications Against Future Threats

Product Roadmap

Q4 2026

Developers

Ecosystem

Insights

About

Support

Follow us

subscribe to our newsletter