Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has made bold claims about the potential of the network's new privacy-focused sidechain, Midnight. In a series of statements, Hoskinson suggested that integrating Midnight into the XRP Ledger's DeFi ecosystem would "blow the legacy banks out of the water." He further asserted that adding Midnight to Bitcoin would realize the world Satoshi Nakamoto had originally imagined, by addressing Bitcoin's inherent privacy limitations.
Midnight, which launched earlier in December 2025 as a Cardano sidechain, utilizes zero-knowledge cryptography to enable selective data disclosure. Its popularity has surged post-launch, securing listings on tier-1 exchanges and decentralized exchanges (DEXs). Hoskinson emphasized that Midnight's impact extends beyond Cardano, potentially benefiting the entire blockchain ecosystem by making "what it touches better."
The proposal comes as DeFi on the XRP Ledger struggles to gain traction, with only $64 million in Total Value Locked (TVL) according to DeFiLlama. Similarly, while Cardano's own DeFi TVL stands at $182 million, it remains a fraction of larger rivals like Ethereum and Solana and is down sharply from its $700 million peak in late 2024.
Ripple's Chief Technology Officer, David Schwartz, offered a terse, ironic acknowledgment of Midnight's existence, simply stating "I hereby acknowledge midnight" on social media. This reaction followed Hoskinson's pitch, which highlighted the XRP Ledger as an example of a network operating at real-world scale. The protocol, nicknamed 'new Cardano', employs a public-private dual-state ledger and a dual-component token design to protect user data while allowing for necessary disclosure, principles that align with XRP's focus on utility and compliance.
Hoskinson also noted that Midnight's primary and most immediate impact would be on Cardano itself, where it is expected to "supercharge our DeFi ecosystem" and significantly increase monthly active users, transactions, and TVL by being first to market with private DeFi at scale. This promotion of Midnight is part of a broader pattern of Hoskinson advocating for cross-chain collaboration, following a recent proposal for a bridge between Cardano and Solana.
