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Cardano (ADA) founder Charles Hoskinson has tasked the Midnight development with the responsibility of building the largest private smart contract. Hoskinson’s charge to the team comes after a Cardano developer advocate, Stevan Lohja, confirmed rapid technical growth on Midnight.
Midnight network is growing
For context, Lohja shared that the Midnight Foundation is pushing the team aggressively to ensure the growth of the ecosystem. He mentioned that Midnight’s activity is driving more usage on Cardano. More importantly, though, Lohja revealed some numbers on the progress made by the team.
He stated that the smart contract deployments on Midnight are up 44.6% in the third quarter (Q3). Meanwhile, the new contracts being created are up 45.4% in the weekly average deployments. This shows that Midnight is recording positive developer growth.
Despite that, Hoskinson is charging the team to intensify efforts and become more "aggressive" than they already are pushing. He wants Midnight to become the world’s leading privacy-oriented smart contract platform by the end of 2026.
This is a clear and bold goal. However, the challenge is that it is aiming to outperform all other privacy chains, such as Secret Network. Others are Oasis Network with approximately 13.6% of the market share and Aleph Zero, holding 6.1% of the market share.
Hoskinson is aware that these platforms will not just sit idle and watch Midnight take over, hence the charge to the team, "Every week more aggressive."
The Cardano privacy pursuit was first open to handpicked developers in late 2023 to test-run it. Eventually, in February 2024, it was opened to the public, which allows developers to experiment and innovate, thereby contributing to growing the space.
Can Midnight overcome its technical challenges?
According to Charles Hoskinson, the Midnight network, in collaboration with Brave Wallet, could transform the lives of millions. Starting with Brave Wallet’s 84 million users, they would enjoy advanced cryptographic protection, as Midnight serves as a privacy layer in the internet space.
He believes that Midnight could change the lives of billions of users by improving security and privacy for web users.
The Midnight development has not been without challenges. In August 2025, Bitcoin claims on the Ledger device produced error messages such as "No eligible addresses found or recognized."
The team had to quickly resolve the problem to retain users’ confidence in the platform. With a 2026 timeline now set, the broader crypto space will be looking forward to seeing how efficient the Midnight network could become.
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov
U.Today Editorial Team