Cardano’s Hoskinson Rejects Crypto Tribalism, Reveals Fresh Details on Massive ‘Glacier Drop’

What to know:

• Charles Hoskinson plans to distribute Midnight tokens to 37 million wallets across eight blockchains to foster cooperation in the crypto community.
• The Glacier Drop airdrop will exclude venture capitalists, focusing entirely on retail users.
• Midnight's economic model aims to enable cross-chain collaboration, allowing developers to pay fees in their native tokens while validators earn rewards across different networks.

ADA's Charles Hoskinson wants crypto’s tribal warfare to end, and he’s prepared to drop tokens on 37 million wallets across eight different blockchains to make peace.

"Every Consensus, there's a new token... running around saying, 'my thing is better than your thing,'" Hoskinson said on stage at Consensus 2025 in Toronto. “The Nash equilibria is competitive, not cooperative.”

Using Midnight's upcoming airdrop, called Glacier Drop, for Cardano’s privacy-focused sidechain that's currently under construction, Hoskinson thinks he can do his part to bring peace to the crypto galaxy.

Glacier Drop was first teased in late 2024, Hoskinson revealed key new details during his speech at Consensus 2025, including Midnight’s expansive multi-chain approach.

Hoskinson confirmed that Midnight tokens, both the NIGHT governance token and the DUST privacy-focused transaction token, will be distributed to approximately 37 million users across eight major blockchains.

Unlike typical token launches, Midnight's tokens will be distributed entirely to the retail community with zero allocation to venture capitalists or early insiders, Hoskinson said.

The Cardano founder said on stage that he dismissed venture capital interest in Midnight’s token launch, saying he had “no f-ing time for your ponzi” and told them to “get the hell out,” opting instead to give the tokens away in what he pitched as a principled, VC-free airdrop.

Recipients of Midnight tokens from the upcoming Glacier Drop can freely keep, trade, or discard them, Hoskinson explained, a departure from traditional crypto airdrops that typically reward insiders or early adopters exclusively.

"You already have it, congratulations," Hoskinson said. "It's yours. It's your property."

Glacier Drop underscores Hoskinson’s vision of "cooperative economics," another core concept introduced during his speech.

Midnight’s new economic model will enable developers from different blockchain networks to seamlessly build hybrid decentralized applications, allowing users to pay fees in their native tokens.

Ethereum developers pay in ETH, Solana developers in SOL, and Bitcoin developers in BTC, Hoskinson explained.

Validators across different chains can collaboratively maintain the network, earning rewards regardless of their blockchain affiliation.

Midnight is currently in testnet, with a mainnet launch expected by late 2025.

Hoskinson sees the Glacier Drop, cooperative economics, and rational privacy as essential ingredients for welcoming billions of mainstream users expected as Big Tech companies finally enter crypto.

"This is the project that I'm having the most fun with right now," Hoskinson said, “because it's the project where I get to be friends with everybody.”

Sam Reynolds

Sam Reynolds is a senior reporter based in Asia. Sam was part of the CoinDesk team that won the 2023 Gerald Loeb award in the breaking news category for coverage of FTX's collapse. Prior to CoinDesk, he was a reporter with Blockworks and a semiconductor analyst with IDC.