The company Input Output Global (IOG) announced the launch of Midnight — a new blockchain network focused on privacy. This was stated by IOG founder and Cardano blockchain creator Charles Hoskinson during his speech at the Consensus Hong Kong conference.
Members of the Incrypted team attended the event and learned that the launch will be an important step towards uniting data protection and regulatory compliance in decentralized systems.
Hoskinson announced that the long-awaited project will launch on the mainnet in the last week of March 2026 and will operate as a partner network of Cardano.
«We have great partners who will help us launch it. Google is one of them. Telegram is another. We are very happy, and there is even more to come,» he said.
Midnight is built using zero-knowledge proofs (ZK), which allow for a selective disclosure mechanism. The network ensures transaction privacy by default but allows for specific data to be transmitted to authorized parties when necessary.
The project is positioned as infrastructure for decentralized applications (dApps), which combines privacy and regulatory compliance.
Hoskinson described the Midnight approach as a model of 'rational privacy,' where data remains closed by default but can be disclosed in certain scenarios. The balance between transparency and confidentiality is ensured through several access modes — public, auditing, and the so-called divine, each of which has a different level of rights.
Alongside the preparations for the mainnet launch, IOG introduced Midnight City Simulation — an interactive platform for testing the capabilities of the network. Public access to it will be opened on February 26.
The testing environment operates directly on the Midnight network and attracts AI-based agents that interact unpredictably, creating a constant flow of transactions. This allows for testing how effectively the blockchain can generate and process cryptographic proofs under conditions close to real-world scenarios.
IOG noted that this test demonstrates the network's ability to scale to create and process proofs, which is a key milestone in confirming Midnight's readiness for real-world use.
Let us remind you that recently Hoskinson reported personal losses of more than $3 billion due to the devaluation of crypto assets.