Within the Cardano ecosystem, Midnight’s long-trailed token distribution has moved from promise to manufacturing. At 13:00 UTC on August 5, the Midnight Foundation opened the Glacier Drop declare portal, kicking off a 60-day window for eligible addresses throughout eight ecosystems to redeem NIGHT, the community’s native token.
“The first step towards rational privateness on-line begins now,” the inspiration wrote in its launch observe, including that “practically 34 million eligible addresses throughout eight blockchain ecosystems” can take part through the official portal at declare.midnight.gd. The declare window, it mentioned, runs till 13:00 UTC on October 4.
Cardano Glacier Drop Goes Live
The rollout drew speedy site visitors. The Midnight Foundation reported “an exceptional response within the first few hours,” citing “shut to five,000 ecosystem members who’ve efficiently claimed over 80M NIGHT tokens.” A number of hours later, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson mentioned he was “blown away” by the tempo: “Already 11000 redemptions for 250,000,000 night time!”
Hoskinson additionally framed the infrastructure behind Glacier Drop as a technical first for large-scale distributions. “This utility might be probably the most advanced ever constructed within the historical past of distributions in crypto,” he wrote, describing “8 ecosystems… 7 blockchains all with totally different addresses and crypto, regulatory compliance, auditability, and an enormous sensible contract,” and including that “the tens of millions of claims are flowing first to a Hydra head. The GD is the Hydra utility working with Cardano principal web.” He cautioned that “there might be bugs, UX points, and a few folks should wait a bit bit,” which is why the declare part spans two months.
Midnight’s launch submit emphasizes that Glacier Drop is part one in every of a three-stage distribution (to be adopted by Scavenger Mine and a Lost-and-Found interval). The basis says eligibility was decided by a pre-announced snapshot throughout eight ecosystems, together with Cardano, Bitcoin, XRP, Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain, Avalanche, and BAT on Ethereum.
The basis’s breakdown for the Glacier Drop part allocates 12 billion NIGHT to Cardano addresses, 4.8 billion to Bitcoin, roughly 2.623 billion to XRPL, 2.3054 billion to Ethereum, 1.4291 billion to Solana, about 796.054 million to BNB Chain, 43.2753 million to Avalanche, and three.1813 million to BAT on Ethereum.
Midnight additionally underscores that the one declare URL is declare.midnight.gd and lists its verified X accounts to assist customers keep away from impersonators.
How To Claim Your Share
The declare mechanism itself is intentionally easy and auditable. According to the inspiration, members full two steps: first, “display custody” by cryptographically signing a message from the eligible tackle; second, present a brand new, unused Cardano tackle to obtain NIGHT. Midnight says detailed directions, an eligibility checker, and a set of verified suitable wallets are accessible from the portal.
Not every little thing labored out-of-the-box. On day one, customers of Ledger {hardware} wallets for ADA encountered an implementation restrict in Ledger’s help for Cardano’s CIP-8 message signing. “It apparently solely helps signing messages as much as 31 bytes whereas the GD payload is 251 bytes,” Hoskinson wrote, describing it as “a Cardano-specific difficulty with Ledger’s software program.”
He mentioned the group is deploying a short lived workaround “frequent within the NFT house” that indicators a null transaction carrying the 251-byte payload as metadata, and confused that “there is no such thing as a distinction redeeming as we speak or a couple of weeks from now,” because the declare part lasts two months. Third-party protection and Midnight’s personal updates echoed the 31-byte versus 251-byte mismatch and famous that Ledger has not but offered a timeline for an replace.
Midnight concurrently warned customers in opposition to improvising cryptographic proofs with opaque or hashed messages to “hack” round hardware-wallet limitations. “This technique of claiming introduces a possible and important safety danger to the pockets proprietor,” the inspiration mentioned, pointing customers to 2 explainers on signature-based assaults and blind-signing hazards. Those advisories present how a single, non-transparent signature could be sufficient to authorize malicious actions or expose keys.
The basis’s steering reduces to 3 imperatives. First, begin on the official portal—“the one official URL for the declare portal is declare.midnight.gd”—and confirm the deal with of any X account you depend on for updates.
Second, observe the portal’s course of to signal a human-verifiable message proving management of the eligible tackle and to submit a contemporary Cardano vacation spot tackle for NIGHT. Third, when you’re an ADA holder utilizing Ledger, look forward to the supported path to seem within the portal fairly than trying an unsupported signature movement.
As Hoskinson put it to affected customers: “If you’re one of many impacted folks, then come again in the direction of the top of the month and take a look at once more. No one misplaced their night time or place in line.”
Beyond token logistics, Midnight casts Glacier Drop as a check of Cardano’s scaling and programmability in manufacturing circumstances. Hoskinson mentioned the distribution “pushed the bounds of our ecosystem, its know-how, and the notion of Cardano as an entire,” highlighting Hydra because the execution layer for consumption earlier than on-chain settlement. The basis, for its half, positions NIGHT as the motivation layer for “rational privateness,” with the declare part designed for breadth and verifiable inclusion throughout chains.
At press time, the Cardano (ADA) token traded at $0.72.
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