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mlabs

Welcome to the first State of the Network blog, a monthly roundup of key developments across the Midnight universe covering technical updates, insights, and implementations.This edition highlights testnet performance improvements, insights from the Sea Battle Hackathon, a recap of ecosystem partnerships to date, resources for block producers, and key updates to the Compact language and compiler.<h2 style="margin-left:0px;">Network growth</h2>The past few months have seen significant growth for Midnight, with over 1 million blocks produced on testnet.Various issues were identified and resolved on testnet in January. A primary focus has been improving network performance and reliability through updates, community contributions, and stress testing. Increased developer activity and hackathon participation have helped identify key areas for improvement.The growing number of block producers has also helped identify improvements, such as updated configurations to prevent rapid and large memory spikes in the node's cache during operation.<img src="https://cdn.sanity.io/images/330xhmya/production/ecbd8c378e80afaed33785239924c8d49b00f72e-592x378.png?w=1200" alt="" srcset="https://cdn.sanity.io/images/330xhmya/production/ecbd8c378e80afaed33785239924c8d49b00f72e-592x378.png?w=640 1x, https://cdn.sanity.io/images/330xhmya/production/ecbd8c378e80afaed33785239924c8d49b00f72e-592x378.png?w=1200 2x" sizes="100vw" width="592" loading="lazy">Growing developer engagement and network usage are critical ahead of mainnet launch, as they enable issue resolution and performance optimization: the core purpose of the testnet.More updates are on the way. Stay up to date with the latest information, and if you have technical questions or need help troubleshooting, the best place to do that is the <a href="https://discord.com/invite/midnightnetwork">Midnight Discord</a>.<h2 style="margin-left:0px;">Infrastructure</h2><h3 style="margin-left:0px;">Becoming a Midnight block producer</h3>The community has shown interest and enthusiasm for recent resources demonstrating how to become a Midnight block producer.If you were thinking of running a node but didn’t know where to start, it’s a great time to try it out on testnet. Check out the <a href="https://midnight.network/blog/how-to-become-midnight-block-producer-testnet">latest blog</a> that summarizes the process and links to the key resources that are available.A detailed <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ9oUN2QknA">walkthrough video</a>, <a href="https://docs.midnight.network/validate/run-a-validator?utm_campaign=SPO%20Onboarding&amp;utm_source=midnight-block-producer-workshop&amp;utm_medium=YouTube">documentation resources</a>, and a supportive Discord community are available to guide you through the setup process.<img src="https://cdn.sanity.io/images/330xhmya/production/9bf8d80e45e8a3c1d706442c0cc7492273c72cfc-1200x627.png?w=3840" alt="How to become a Midnight block producer" srcset="https://cdn.sanity.io/images/330xhmya/production/9bf8d80e45e8a3c1d706442c0cc7492273c72cfc-1200x627.png?w=1200 1x, https://cdn.sanity.io/images/330xhmya/production/9bf8d80e45e8a3c1d706442c0cc7492273c72cfc-1200x627.png?w=3840 2x" sizes="100vw" width="1200" loading="lazy">How to become a Midnight block producer<h2 style="margin-left:0px;"> User &amp; developer insights</h2><h3 style="margin-left:0px;">Developer insights from the Sea Battle Challenge</h3>The <a href="https://midnight.network/blog/developers-navigate-public-and-private-states-in-the-midnight-sea-battle-challenge">recent Sea Battle Challenge</a> demonstrated how Midnight smart contracts manage information through public and private states through the lens of the popular turn-based strategy game. Using these mechanics in a familiar game format highlights their practical application on the Midnight network.Here’s how the Sea Battle Challenge brought these concepts to life:<ul><li>Game setup (public state): When players register, the game’s existence and participants are publicly visible, but ship placements remain private.</li><li>Placing ships (private state): Players position their ships privately, verified by zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) to ensure rule compliance without revealing exact locations.</li><li>Taking a turn (public &amp; private interactions): Players fire at coordinates (public action), but results (hit or miss) remain private initially. ZKPs validate the response without giving away private information.</li><li>Revealing hits and sunk ships (state change): When a ship is destroyed, its placement transitions to public state, ensuring fairness in gameplay without exposing unnecessary information.</li><li>Declaring a winner (public state finalization) Once all ships are sunk, the winner is publicly declared. If token stakes are involved, rewards are transferred privately.</li></ul><img src="https://cdn.sanity.io/images/330xhmya/production/ce0b7cf9b9df84e342de6d78360d0dd9fbff227e-696x533.png?w=1920" alt="Brick Towers Sea Battle game board" srcset="https://cdn.sanity.io/images/330xhmya/production/ce0b7cf9b9df84e342de6d78360d0dd9fbff227e-696x533.png?w=750 1x, https://cdn.sanity.io/images/330xhmya/production/ce0b7cf9b9df84e342de6d78360d0dd9fbff227e-696x533.png?w=1920 2x" sizes="100vw" width="696" loading="lazy">Brick Towers Sea Battle game boardThe hackathon presentations are available on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0ycj1lG2Bw">Midnight’s YouTube channel</a> and are a great resource for understanding how to build DApps on Midnight, and for high-quality examples of hackathon presentations in anticipation of <a href="https://midnight.network/hackathon/zk-identity-hackathon">Midnight’s ZK Identity Challenge</a>, the current virtual hackathon.<h2 style="margin-left:0px;">Ecosystem</h2>As mainnet launch approaches, Midnight ecosystem partnerships are laying the foundation for a robust, scalable, developer-friendly, and secure network. So far, Midnight has announced ten ecosystem partnerships across four major categories.<h3 style="margin-left:0px;">Infrastructure Support</h3><a href="https://www.cherryservers.com/">Cherry Servers</a> is a provider of high-performance, bare-metal servers tailored for blockchain workloads. Cherry Servers is committed to supporting Midnight network validators by offering scalable and secure infrastructure optimized for block production. This collaboration also simplifies the onboarding process for Cardano Stake Pool Operators (SPOs) to become Midnight block producers by reducing technical complexity, physical infrastructure requirements and security risks.<img src="https://cdn.sanity.io/images/330xhmya/production/f5486d5b84f9eb258d1904ed96732da58804e06a-3840x2160.png?w=3840" alt="" srcset="https://cdn.sanity.io/images/330xhmya/production/f5486d5b84f9eb258d1904ed96732da58804e06a-3840x2160.png?w=3840 1x" sizes="100vw" width="3840" loading="lazy">Learn how the partnership <a href="https://midnight.network/blog/midnight-welcomes-new-ecosystem-partner-cherry-servers">empowers node operators and block production</a>.<h3 style="margin-left:0px;">DeFi</h3>Ecosystem partners <a href="https://sundae.fi/">SundaeSwap</a>, <a href="https://www.nmkr.io/">NMKR</a>, and <a href="https://fluidtokens.com/">Fluid Tokens</a> will enhance privacy, regulatory compliance, and user experience within the DeFi ecosystem. These partnerships contribute to the development of a secure and compliant decentralized finance ecosystem, setting the stage for the next wave of innovation and accessibility with Midnight.<img src="https://cdn.sanity.io/images/330xhmya/production/1e93a13ad2c084deacc5c6b60334f04d9286dc8c-3840x2160.png?w=3840" alt="" srcset="https://cdn.sanity.io/images/330xhmya/production/1e93a13ad2c084deacc5c6b60334f04d9286dc8c-3840x2160.png?w=3840 1x" sizes="100vw" width="3840" loading="lazy">Learn how each collaboration is <a href="https://midnight.network/blog/defi-partnerships">expanding Midnight’s DeFi ecosystem</a>.<h3 style="margin-left:0px;">DApp Development Support</h3>Partnerships with <a href="https://www.checkitlabs.com/">CheckIT Labs</a>, <a href="https://www.fiwork.co/">FIWORK</a>, and <a href="https://vacuumlabs.com/">Vacuumlabs</a> expand the network’s capabilities and drive ongoing development. These partners will collaborate closely with the community to identify new use cases, improve network utility, and ensure a continuous feedback loop between Midnight’s core team and third-party developers.<img src="https://cdn.sanity.io/images/330xhmya/production/3ed027c814aa8740363ed8273ee2d592b8e83abb-3840x2160.png?w=3840" alt="" srcset="https://cdn.sanity.io/images/330xhmya/production/3ed027c814aa8740363ed8273ee2d592b8e83abb-3840x2160.png?w=3840 1x" sizes="100vw" width="3840" loading="lazy">Find out how these supercharge <a href="https://midnight.network/blog/midnight-expands-ecosystem-partnerships-system-integrators">capabilities for developers and DApps</a>.<h3 style="margin-left:0px;">ZK Tooling</h3>Collaborations with blockchain tooling and infrastructure providers <a href="https://www.gomaestro.org/">Maestro</a>, <a href="https://www.paimastudios.com/">Paima Studios</a>, and <a href="https://sindri.app/">Sindri</a> will empower developers and facilitate the integration of zero-knowledge technology into decentralized applications. These ecosystem partnerships enable developers to build privacy-enhanced applications more efficiently. &nbsp;<img src="https://cdn.sanity.io/images/330xhmya/production/bb872574da64b95b83d8ef58f8ae68ca39cc64db-3840x2160.png?w=3840" alt="" srcset="https://cdn.sanity.io/images/330xhmya/production/bb872574da64b95b83d8ef58f8ae68ca39cc64db-3840x2160.png?w=3840 1x" sizes="100vw" width="3840" loading="lazy">Discover how <a href="https://midnight.network/blog/midnight-announces-strategic-partnerships">Midnight accelerates zero-knowledge DApp</a> development.<h2 style="margin-left:0px;">Releases &amp; documentation</h2><h3 style="margin-left:0px;">Compact updates and release notes</h3>The latest release of Compact compiler 0.21.0, which updates the Compact language to 0.14.0, bringing key enhancements to improve flexibility, security, and overall usability for development on Midnight.Compact language 0.14 highlightsThe release of Compact 0.14.0 has introduced significant improvements broadening the language's capabilities and improving usability. Two key updates include:<ul><li>Tuples and destructuring: Compact now supports fixed-length tuples with elements of differing static types, expanding on its previous use of fixed-length arrays (vectors). Destructuring, or pattern-matching, has been introduced for tuples, vectors, and structures, offering greater flexibility.</li><li>Explicit disclosure: To prevent unintended private data leaks, the compiler now tracks private data accessed by witness functions. Programmers must explicitly disclose private values to write them on-chain, reducing risks associated with data exposure. This is an essential improvement for strengthening data protection with Midnight.</li></ul>These are just two updates of many improvements which can be <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BcffgAW6b1w3ntrRz1VGSZOHYHpp6xdF1qelDosNymk/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.uc9icj6beb6o">explored in the latest release notes</a>.Ian MacRae Copywriter

Midnight

Midnight - State of the Network February 2025

Intersect

Intersect Development Update #26 - August 9th

Messari

State of Cardano Q1 2024

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<ul>
<li>The Cardano Plutus team finalized guardrail scripts for Conway governance actions and optimized the PlutusV3 cost model.</li>
<li>The Mithril team focused on certifying Cardano transactions, scaling proof generation for the mainnet, and enhancing low-latency certification processes.</li>
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<hr />
Last week the Cardano Foundation released a report highlighting the key developments taking place with respect to its core technology as well as smart contracts. The ledger team made significant strides in conformance testing this week, completing tests for the CERT and RATIFY rules and advancing other tests.
These efforts led to improvements in the constraint-generators framework. Additionally, the team addressed the stake pool operator stake distribution calculation for voting by incorporating proposal deposits currently locked in the system.
On the other hand, the Plutus team finalized the development of guardrail scripts for Conway governance actions and refined the PlutusV3 cost model parameters for optimal performance. The team also collaborated with MLabs to implement new bitwise primitives.
<h3>Cardano’s developments on the Scaling and Education Front</h3>
The Mithril team continued their work on certifying Cardano transactions within Mithril networks. They focused on scaling proof generation for the mainnet, prototyping optimizations, and benchmarking performance improvements.
Progress was made on low-latency certification, including retrieving the chain tip and importing transactions from the Cardano mini-protocol with Pallas. Additionally, a new explorer page was developed to display newly registered and deregistered SPOs for the latest Cardano epochs.
The team also upgraded the testing-sanchonet network following the SanchoNet network respin, created a module for building test transactions, and began removing the deprecated snapshot command from the client CLI.
Work on SanchoNet documentation is ongoing, with builders collaborating with Intersect on the new DRep Pioneer program. This program aims to equip participants with the skills and knowledge to serve as Delegate Representatives (DReps) in Cardano’s proposed governance structure.
The Education team is planning the next Cardano Developer course and making progress on the Mastering Cardano series. They are also preparing an educational video about the constitutional committee in collaboration with the Voltaire tribe, <a href="https://www.essentialcardano.io/development-update/weekly-development-report-as-of-2024-05-24" target="_blank">reported</a> the Cardano Foundation.
<h3>ADA Price Action</h3>
Cardano’s native cryptocurrency ADA has been struggling to stay above $0.50. The ADA price has seen strong selling pressure and is currently trading at a market cap of $16.439 billion, <a href="https://www.crypto-news-flash.com/cardanos-ada-price-analysis-signals-super-bullish-momentum-to-050/" target="_blank">reported Crypto News Flash</a>.
The recent double-digit decline in ADA’s price over the past week is due to reduced demand for the altcoin. On-chain data shows that the daily count of active addresses engaging in transactions involving ADA fell by 17% during this period.
Additionally, new demand for the altcoin plummeted, dropping by 22% over the same timeframe. Last week’s decline in ADA demand mirrors the broader downtrend in the cryptocurrency market, contributing to the coin’s falling prices. The global cryptocurrency market capitalization has decreased by 2% over the past seven days.
<hr /><h6>Recommended for you:</h6>
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This article is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. The content does not constitute a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any securities or financial instruments. Readers should conduct their own research and consult with financial advisors before making investment decisions. The information presented may not be current and could become outdated.			</article><section>
		<img src="https://www.crypto-news-flash.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Bushan-96x96.jpg" alt srcset="https://www.crypto-news-flash.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Bushan-96x96.jpg 96w, https://www.crypto-news-flash.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Bushan-300x300.jpg 300w, https://www.crypto-news-flash.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Bushan-150x150.jpg 150w, https://www.crypto-news-flash.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Bushan-24x24.jpg 24w, https://www.crypto-news-flash.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Bushan-48x48.jpg 48w, https://www.crypto-news-flash.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Bushan.jpg 640w" />		
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			Bhushan is a FinTech enthusiast and possesses a strong aptitude for understanding financial markets. His interest in economics and finance has drawn his attention to the emerging Blockchain Technology and Cryptocurrency markets. He holds a Bachelor of Technology in Electrical, Electronics, and Communications Engineering.
He is continually engaged in a learning process, keeping himself motivated by sharing his acquired knowledge. In his free time, he enjoys reading thriller fiction novels and occasionally explores his culinary skills.
Business Email: info@crypto-news-flash.com 
Phone: +49 160 92211628
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Crypto News Flash (EN)

Cardano Development Update: Plutus and Mithril Drive Smart Contracts and Scaling Upgrades - Can it Propel Price to $0,55?

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We are a Haskell, Rust, Blockchain, and AI consultancy. Most of our work is in Haskell and Rust, and in the fintech, payments, and blockchain space.

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