Midnight Protocol Aims to Transform Cardano: Charles Hoskinson reveals plans to connect Cardano, Bitcoin, and other chains via secure, cross-chain DeFi.

ADA Airdrop and Institutional Talks Heat Up: ADA holders are set for a major Midnight token airdrop as talks with Franklin Templeton signal rising adoption.

Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, has revealed plans to connect Cardano, Bitcoin, and other chains via secure, cross-chain DeFi.

What Happened: Cardano’s ADA surged 5.2% to $0.70, and trading volume spiked 40% in the last 24 hours.

While the price action alone turned heads, something bigger is brewing behind the scenes, and it could reshape the Cardano ecosystem entirely.

During a recent AMA, Hoskinson referred to the Midnight protocol as the most significant economic development in Cardano’s history. Designed to enable cross-chain DeFi and confidential smart contracts, Midnight aims to connect Cardano, Bitcoin, and other blockchains through a novel infrastructure powered by zero-knowledge cryptography.

He described the trio of Cardano, Bitcoin, and Midnight as a potential “triumvirate” capable of solving complex financial problems. By combining Bitcoin-grade security with Cardano’s smart contract flexibility, Midnight could create a new standard for scalable and secure blockchain interoperability.

“If Midnight is successful, it’s the single biggest economic event in the history of Cardano, and one of the biggest economic events in crypto, and it's going to pour over into the real world in a big way,” deadlined Hoskinson.

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Midnight’s infrastructure will be supported by Fairgate, a modular stack that combines Cardano-native tools like Hydra and Blockfrost, as well as experimental efforts such as Thundercloud. Anyone running a full node or light client with the right stack can become an operator, facilitating transactions with either high speed or deep security, depending on user preference.

The Midnight Foundation plans to launch a Token Generation Event in the coming weeks, with ADA holders receiving the largest airdrop share. Other chains, including Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), Solana (CRYPTO: SOL), and XRP Ledger, will also participate.

The airdrop is set for 2025 with the Midnight Foundation set to use the HEAT token to bootstrap liquidity and attract operator nodes.

Top institutional interest in Cardano is also heating up, with confirmed discussions between the Midnight Foundation and global asset manager Franklin Templeton now underway.

As the Midnight Foundation becomes operational, Cardano’s vision of secure, interoperable finance may be closer than ever.

Price Action: At the time of writing, ADA was trading at $0.69, up 0.75% in the 24-hour period, according to Benzinga Pro.