The Cardano network is showing signs of activity as on-chain data reveals a sharp increase in transactions tied to the movement of $NIGHT tokens.
Transaction data surrounding $NIGHT tokens has now grown into new milestones in just a few weeks after launch. Although the entire market conditions are far from bullish, the surge in transaction count points to a structural increase in real activity on the Cardano blockchain.
NIGHT Token Activity Sparks A Transaction Surge On Cardano
The momentum traces back to data highlighted by blockchain explorer Cexplorer.io on the social media platform X. On Wednesday, the platform flagged that Cardano had processed over 122,000 transactions that contained the $NIGHT token, the native asset of the Midnight network. That figure has since adjusted, and transaction activity has been increasing since then.
At the time of writing, the number of recorded transactions containing $NIGHT stands at 141,363, which indicates continued movement across wallets since their launch. This pattern shows that users are actively interacting with the token following its launch and that Cardano’s base layer is handling meaningful throughput tied directly to user engagement.
What The Data Says About The Network’s Health
The recent transaction data paints a more encouraging picture for Cardano, particularly in light of the long-standing narrative that the network lacks organic on-chain activity. For years, the network has often been dismissed as a so-called ghost chain, with critics arguing about its organic usage.
This perception has also carried over into Cardano’s DeFi metrics, where co-founder Charles Hoskinson has previously pointed to a gap between on-chain application usage and the roughly 1.3 million users actively participating in Cardano’s staking system.
Furthermore, the creation of Midnight and its native token NIGHT is positive for Cardano as a deliberate expansion of its ecosystem. Midnight was designed as a privacy-focused blockchain that works alongside the network to address long-standing concerns around confidential computation and data protection while still aligning with regulatory and compliance expectations.
The Midnight sidechain uses zero-knowledge cryptography, and developers can build applications where sensitive information can still be private while allowing selective disclosure when needed. This approach positions Midnight as a practical privacy layer that fits into real-world use cases.
The design and launch mechanics for Midnight and NIGHT make it so that community members needed to claim their token allocations through an official redemption portal and wait for them to thaw or unlock according to a predetermined schedule before they could be moved or fully utilized.
On-chain activity tied to $NIGHT is one positive to look at amidst the current state of the Cardano network and its price action, which has been under persistent bearish pressure. ADA is trading at a 2025 low around the mid-$0.30s, which is indicative of the selling pressure across the entire crypto market.
Featured image from Adobe Stock, chart from Tradingview.com
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