Charles Hoskinson has claimed that Cardano's Midnight network will eventually exceed Zcash in scale, pointing to technical features including selective disclosure, private agents, and a DeFi kernel designed to work across major blockchain networks.
In a September 28 post on X, Hoskinson quoted ratings provider Weiss Crypto, which had suggested that NIGHT has potential as "one of the best plays of the next 24 months." Midnight is developed by Input Output, the team behind Cardano.
Technical Capabilities
Hoskinson highlighted three privacy techniques Midnight is working on: zero-knowledge proofs, trusted execution environments, and multi-party computations. He also linked the network's planned architecture to Cardano's reported 24/7 network uptime and the Leios upgrade.
Market Position
NIGHT was trading near $0.027 at the time of the report, while Zcash traded around $1,600. NIGHT sits approximately 78% below its all-time high of close to $0.12 from December 9, 2025, whereas Zcash is roughly 51% below its record high of $3,191.
Trading volume for NIGHT stands at about $14 million, compared to roughly $1 billion for Zcash.
Recent Developments
NIGHT experienced a significant drop on July 21, falling more than 43% to near $0.016 after 290 million tokens were withdrawn from a Wanchain bridge contract. The Midnight Foundation stated the network was not hacked.
Zcash recently reached $1,600 for the first time since 2016 before declining with broader market movements.
