Midnight Gains Momentum with March Mainnet Launch and Google, Telegram Partnerships

The privacy-focused blockchain Midnight is drawing renewed attention after Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson unveiled major updates at the Consensus Hong Kong conference, including a confirmed mainnet launch timeline and high-profile collaborations.

Midnight mainnet is coming.

On the #ConsensusHK stage, we shared that Midnight mainnet will officially go live before the end of March. This marks a major milestone and the beginning of a live, production network designed to support early applications built around selective… pic.twitter.com/FTZOggTo0Y

— Midnight (@MidnightNtwrk) February 12, 2026

Speaking during a Q&A session on Thursday, Hoskinson revealed that Midnight’s mainnet is scheduled to go live in late March. He also disclosed that global tech firms Google and Telegram are among the collaborators supporting the project’s infrastructure rollout.

“We have some great collaborations to help us run it,”

Hoskinson said.

“Google is one of them. Telegram is another. We’re really excited, there’s more that will come.”

Mainnet launch and selective disclosure vision

Midnight is positioning itself as a privacy-focused partner chain within the Cardano ecosystem, designed to integrate zero-knowledge proofs with what Hoskinson describes as “selective disclosure” or “rational privacy.”

The concept aims to strike a balance between user confidentiality and regulatory compliance, a key challenge facing blockchain networks globally. Instead of offering absolute anonymity, Midnight aims to give users control over what information is disclosed and to whom, potentially making it better suited to real-world enterprise and regulatory frameworks.

As part of its preparations, the team introduced the Midnight City Simulation, a testing environment built to stress-test the network’s proof-generation systems using AI agents ahead of the full mainnet deployment.

NIGHT token sees price rebound

The updates have translated into renewed market interest. Midnight’s native token, NIGHT, was trading between $0.048 and $0.051 at press time, reflecting a roughly 3–4% gain over the past 24 hours, according to live market data.

Investors appear to be reacting positively to both the mainnet timeline and the reported infrastructure backing.

However, Hoskinson clarified that Midnight will not focus on directly onboarding communities from established privacy coins such as Monero or ZCash. Instead, the strategy centres on attracting broader mainstream adoption. Additionally, Cardano integrates LayerZero as part of its major multichain expansion.

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