Cardano Founder Says Midnight Could Outgrow Zcash

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has predicted that privacy-focused blockchain Midnight could eventually surpass Zcash, citing its combination of privacy technology, artificial intelligence, cross-chain capabilities and Cardano infrastructure.

Hoskinson said Midnight’s potential rests on features including selective disclosure, private AI agents, zero-knowledge proofs, trusted execution environments and multi-party computation. He also highlighted plans for a decentralized finance kernel designed to work across major blockchain networks.

“Midnight will be bigger than ZCash,” Hoskinson wrote, pointing to Cardano’s infrastructure and future scalability improvements through Leios. However, he did not define what metric he was using to determine whether Midnight could become “bigger.”

Midnight’s NIGHT token currently has a market capitalization of about $437 million, ranking it around 122nd among cryptocurrencies, according to CoinGecko data cited in the original report. By comparison, Zcash’s ZEC has a market value of approximately $26.4 billion and ranks among the largest cryptocurrencies.

Midnight launched its mainnet in March as a specialized layer-1 partner chain operating alongside Cardano. Rather than functioning simply as a Cardano privacy chain, Midnight maintains an independent ledger and processes its own transactions while retaining architectural connections to the Cardano ecosystem.

Hoskinson previously described Midnight as one of Input Output’s most important projects of 2026, emphasizing the speed of its development and rollout.

Cross-chain interoperability is also becoming a major part of Midnight’s strategy. VIA Labs integrated its universal cross-chain messaging system with Midnight in August, giving the privacy blockchain connectivity to more than 130 public and private networks, according to the Midnight Foundation.

Hoskinson has argued that Midnight’s tokenomics are designed to encourage cooperation between blockchain ecosystems. Its planned capacity exchange is expected to support assets including Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, Avalanche and BNB.

The Cardano founder ultimately envisions Midnight becoming a broader privacy layer for the cryptocurrency industry rather than serving only Cardano users, potentially extending privacy-focused applications and decentralized finance functionality across multiple major blockchain networks.