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- Cardano’s Midnight sidechain will airdrop tokens to 37 million wallets across 8 major blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, Bitcoin, and Cardano.
- Midnight enables developers to build dApps using native tokens (ETH, SOL, BTC, etc.) for fees, promoting interoperability.
- Midnight testnet is live now, with mainnet launch set for Q4 2025, targeting privacy, scalability, and cross-chain collaboration.
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has announced an ambitious plan to bridge the divide in the crypto world with a multi-chain token airdrop designed to promote unity and decentralization. Unveiled at Consensus 2025 in Toronto, the initiative called the Glacier Drop is part of Midnight, a new privacy-focused sidechain built on Cardano.
Hoskinson revealed that the Glacier Drop will distribute Midnight tokens to 37 million wallets across eight major blockchain ecosystems, including Ethereum, Solana, Bitcoin, and Cardano. This massive token distribution is designed to directly reach retail users across the crypto landscape. It bypasses traditional routes that typically benefit venture capitalists and early insiders.
Unlike most token launches, Midnight’s drop is 100% VC-free, with no allocations reserved for institutional investors. “I have no f-ing time for your Ponzi,” Hoskinson said on stage, referring to venture capital interest in the launch. “Get the hell out.”
Cardano Midnight Gives Full Token Control to Users
According to Hoskinson, recipients of Midnight tokens, including NIGHT, the governance token, and DUST, a token focused on private transactions, will have complete control. They can hold, trade, or discard their tokens as they see fit. “You already have it. Congratulations. It’s yours. It’s your property,” he told the Consensus audience.
This approach marks a major departure from the typical airdrop model. The usual model often rewards insiders, early adopters, or whitelisted wallets while excluding the broader crypto community. Hoskinson believes this inclusive strategy reflects Midnight’s values of decentralization, fairness, and cross-chain cooperation.
More than just a token distribution, the Glacier Drop is part of a broader vision Hoskinson calls “cooperative economics.” This economic model will allow developers from different blockchain ecosystems to build hybrid decentralized applications (dApps) on Midnight. These applications will be able to operate seamlessly across multiple blockchains.
Importantly, developers can pay network fees in their native tokens, ETH for Ethereum, SOL for Solana, and BTC for Bitcoin while still building on Midnight’s infrastructure. Additionally, validators from any of the supported chains can earn rewards while helping maintain the Midnight network, regardless of their blockchain affiliation.
Cardano Midnight Testnet Live Mainnet Coming in 2025
Midnight is currently in its testnet phase, with a mainnet launch planned for Q4 2025. The project aims to solve some of the most pressing challenges in the blockchain space, including interoperability, user privacy, and economic fragmentation.
With the arrival of Big Tech into Web3, Hoskinson emphasized the need for scalable and inclusive infrastructure. “This is the project I’m having the most fun with right now,” he said. “Because it’s the project where I get to be friends with everybody.”
As the crypto industry continues to grapple with infighting, fragmentation, and competition between ecosystems, Charles Hoskinson’s Glacier Drop could mark a turning point. By giving away Midnight tokens to users across multiple blockchains and doing so without VC involvement, Hoskinson is making a bold statement: the future of crypto lies not in tribalism but in collaboration.
With Midnight, the Cardano founder is planting the seeds for a more unified blockchain world, one where developers, users, and validators from all corners of Web3 can thrive together.
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