Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has predicted that privacy-focused blockchain project Midnight will eventually become bigger than Zcash.
Hoskinson believes that this will happen due to a potent combination of privacy technology, artificial intelligence, cross-chain functionality, and Cardano infrastructure.
"Midnight will be bigger than ZCash: selective disclosure, Private Agents, Abstraction with a DeFi Kernel for all major chains, ZK + TEE + MPC, and Cardano's 24/7 uptime combined with the magic of Leios. LFG 2027," Hoskinson wrote.
Weiss Crypto had earlier claimed that NIGHT had "a good chance of becoming one of the best plays of the next 24 months."
Hoskinson did not specify exactly what he meant by "bigger." The market cap of NIGHT currently stands at $437 million, which makes it the 122nd biggest cryptocurrency market capitalization, CoinGecko data shows. For comparison, ZEC has become a fixture within the top 10 with a market cap of $26.4 billion.
A specialized partner chain
The Midnight mainnet went live in March. It is somewhat different from what the description "Cardano privacy chain" might imply.
It is a specialized layer-1 partner chain operating alongside Cardano. It maintains its own ledger, and transactions are processed independently. At the same time, its architecture has important connections with Cardano.
During an extensive livestream on April 14, Hoskinson described Midnight as arguably the most exciting project Input Output was working on in 2026.
"Midnight is probably the most exciting project that we're working on this year," Hoskinson said.
The Cardano founder boasted about the sheer speed of Midnight's rollout.
"Usually it takes about two to three years for a token to go through all these trials and tribulations, but Midnight lives in fast mode," he said.
Cross-chain expansion is accelerating
An important part of Hoskinson's latest statement is his reference to a DeFi kernel "for all major chains."
In August, VIA Labs deployed its universal cross-chain messaging system on Midnight. According to the Midnight Foundation, the integration connects Midnight with more than 130 public and private networks
Hoskinson previously argued that Midnight's economics are explicitly designed around cooperation. "The capacity exchange will accept Bitcoin and Ether and Solana and Avalanche and BNB. So, what we found is a tokenomics of cooperation instead of a tokenomics of an adversarial nature," he said.
Hoskinson went as far as describing Midnight as effectively becoming a privacy layer available across the cryptocurrency industry.
"Everything a holder of Night wants is to be friends with everybody in the space and a layer two to everyone effectively. And that's different," he said.
