In the latest Cardano news,Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson claimed on X that the new Midnight token, NIGHT, traded more in 24 hours than XRP and Solana combined, after volume hit around $4 billion. NIGHT changed hands near $0.0738 with about $1.2 billion in market cap, putting it in the top 60 coins by size but near the top 10 by trading activity. This spike plays into a larger 2025 story, which has seen retail investors downtrodden by institutional money finding fresh interest in privacy coins, cross-chain bridges. Now the question is whether Cardano is still a “ghost chain” or quietly awakening.
And that last bit is critical, long-suffering ADA holders have spent years being berrated for the price performance of their bags – perhaps at no time more so than when we all saw the ADA hate amid the meme coin mania of Winter 2024. But after all those hard years of holding on through the inevitable self-hatred, they might finally have something to show for it. After all, calling Cardano a ‘ghost chain’ while its sidechain is doing $6B in volume is becoming harder to justify. But as a trader, you still must ask: is this sustainable liquidity or just a highly efficient wash-trading engine fueled by airdrop farmers?
What Is NIGHT And Why Are Traders Suddenly Obsessed With It?
NIGHT is the native token of Midnight, Cardano’s new privacy-focused network that sits alongside the main Cardano (ADA) efforts led by Charles Hoskinson. Think of Midnight as a side room off the main Cardano hall where people can transact and use apps without broadcasting every detail to the world. NIGHT launched on December 8 after months of hype and quickly landed on major exchanges, including Binance, Bybit, Kraken, and OKX.
Gamza Khanzadaev, writing in U.Today, explained that NIGHT jumped into the top-10 coins by trading volume, despite its much smaller size, with volume occasionally more than three times its market capitalization. In plain English, traders flipped the token over and over like a hot new meme coin. That activity allowed Hoskinson to boast that a Cardano token outtraded both XRP and Solana, which typically sit near the top of the volume charts and even have their own futures products on CME, as we covered in our piece on XRP and Solana futures.
Midnight utilizes a “thawing” system for token distribution, where allocations are unlocked in waves over approximately 450 days. This setup keeps users coming back to claim and trade new chunks of NIGHT rather than receiving everything on day one. The project spread its airdrop across eight chains—including Cardano, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP—so you see NIGHT transactions not only on Cardano but across several large networks.
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How Could NIGHT’s Volume Spike Change The Cardano And Altcoin Story?
For years, critics have called Cardano a “ghost chain” because it has fewer active apps and less money locked in DeFi than its rivals, such as Solana. According to TradingView coverage, Hoskinson views NIGHT’s volume as evidence that traders still care about Cardano’s technology and that the chain can attract liquidity quickly when it launches new features. When a newer token briefly outtrades giants like XRP and SOL, it tells you where short‑term speculation flows.
But volume alone does not equal lasting value. XRP and Solana have years of history, live applications, and large communities, which we covered in our look at Solana’s growing mindshare and in our reporting on XRP’s price swings. NIGHT still ranks only around 54th by market cap, so a lot of that $4 billion in daily volume comes from fast traders rotating in and out, not long-term holders building on the network.
The bigger story lies under the hood: Midnight aims to offer “regulatory‑friendly” privacy using zero-knowledge proofs and a dual-ledger system that separates public and private data. Think of it like having a public bank statement for what regulators need to see and a private notebook for the rest. According to coverage from CoinDesk, the team wants to support private prediction markets, stablecoins, and decentralized exchanges so traders can place large bets without revealing identity or position size to the crowd while still showing enough to auditors.
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Is NIGHT Just Hype Or A Real Opportunity For Regular Investors?
This kind of turbo‑charged volume is exciting, but it carries real risk for regular buyers. When a token’s daily volume is several times its entire market cap, it behaves more like a casino chip than a slow‑and‑steady investment. Prices can fluctuate by 30–50% in a short period, especially early in a distribution schedule when new tokens continue to unlock.
Additionally, Midnight’s main privacy smart contracts are not yet live. The team targets Q1 2026 for full functionality, and until then, most of the story is speculation about the future. Cardano has seen similar waves before—2025 included volume spikes in ADA that faded as traders took profits, according to Cardano Feed. There is no guarantee Midnight will keep volume or user attention once the airdrop excitement cools.
If you want exposure to this theme, treat NIGHT like a high‑risk altcoin, not a savings account. Never use rent money or emergency funds. Size positions small, expect heavy volatility, and focus your main portfolio on more established assets like BTC and large caps. For most beginners, the smarter move is to observe how real apps and total value locked on Midnight evolve over the next 12–18 months, rather than chasing early-cycle FOMO.
Privacy and cross‑chain tools will stay hot topics as regulators tighten rules and more value flows between chains. Whether NIGHT becomes a lasting player or just a 2025 trading story will depend on what gets built on Midnight once the hype passes.
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The post Hoskinson Boasts NIGHT Volume Beats XRP and SOL: Should You Care? appeared first on 99Bitcoins.
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