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FIGR_HELOC $1.06Cardano founder says Midnight will be bigger than Zcash
Charles Hoskinson points to privacy features, Private Agents and Leios, while NIGHT's market value stays far below ZEC's.
The short answer
Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, said Midnight will be bigger than Zcash, listing selective disclosure, Private Agents, a DeFi kernel, ZK, TEE and MPC, plus Cardano's uptime and the Leios upgrade. The comment followed a 20.65% weekly rise in NIGHT and a Weiss Crypto note. NIGHT's market cap sits far below ZEC's.
What happened
Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, has said the privacy-focused project Midnight will be bigger than Zcash. His post on X on September 28, 2026 listed selective disclosure, Private Agents, a DeFi kernel for major chains, and a mix of ZK, TEE and MPC. He also cited Cardano's continuous operation and the Leios scaling upgrade, and closed with the phrase LFG 2027.
The remarks followed a rally in NIGHT, the token of the Midnight sidechain. It climbed from around $0.023 to $0.02775 in a week, a 20.65% increase. Weiss Crypto then suggested NIGHT could become one of the best-performing crypto investments over the next 24 months, and Hoskinson praised that analysis.
Hoskinson has drawn the Zcash comparison before. During an April 14 livestream he described Midnight as arguably the most exciting project Input Output was working on in 2026, and said the project moves at a faster pace than typical token rollouts.
Why it matters
Hoskinson did not specify exactly what he meant by bigger, so the claim has no stated measure. The two networks differ sharply in size today. CoinGecko data put NIGHT's market cap at $437 million, the 122nd largest, while ZEC holds a place in the top 10 with a market cap of $26.4 billion.
Midnight's design is also different from what the phrase Cardano privacy chain might suggest. U.Today describes it as a specialized layer-1 partner chain operating alongside Cardano, with its own ledger and its own transaction processing. In August, VIA Labs deployed its universal cross-chain messaging system on Midnight, and the Midnight Foundation says the integration links it to more than 130 public and private networks.
Hoskinson has framed Midnight's economics around cooperation rather than competition, saying its capacity exchange will accept Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, Avalanche and BNB. He also called Midnight a privacy layer that wants to work with the rest of the industry.
What the data shows
NIGHT drew attention after its December launch, when its market cap quickly passed $1 billion. It has since given up ground. The Crypto Basic reported a market cap of $440.39 million, while U.Today, citing CoinGecko, put it at $437 million.
ZEC has moved the other way. It began 2025 at around $56 and surged toward $750 later that year, then climbed more than 100% in 2026 and reached $1,693 over the weekend. It retraced slightly to around $1,552 before press time, a price at which its market cap stood at $26.2 billion and made it the ninth-largest cryptocurrency.
What is still unclear
- Hoskinson did not specify exactly what he meant by "bigger," and no metric such as market cap or usage was given.
- The two reports give slightly different NIGHT market caps, $440.39 million in one and $437 million in the other.
- The two reports also differ on ZEC's market cap, listing $26.2 billion and $26.4 billion.
Questions readers ask
What did Charles Hoskinson say about Midnight?
He said Midnight will be bigger than Zcash, citing selective disclosure, Private Agents, a DeFi kernel for all major chains, ZK plus TEE and MPC, and Cardano's 24/7 uptime with the Leios upgrade. He also wrote LFG 2027.
Is Midnight bigger than Zcash?
By market value, no. CoinGecko data cited by U.Today put NIGHT's market cap at $437 million and ranked it 122nd, while ZEC held a top-10 place with a market cap of $26.4 billion.
What is Midnight?
Midnight is a privacy-focused project that runs as a specialized layer-1 partner chain alongside Cardano, with its own ledger and independent transaction processing. Its mainnet went live in March.
How has NIGHT performed recently?
NIGHT climbed from around $0.023 to $0.02775 in a week, a 20.65% increase. Its market cap, which passed $1 billion after its December launch, later fell to $440.39 million according to The Crypto Basic.
