NIGHT Token Drop: Eligibility, Wallet Setup, and Claim Process

00:00
In this video, I’m going to go through a couple of the details about the Midnight airdrop. We’re going to have a look into potentially how much of the NIGHT token you could possibly get and also the idea and model around the distribution. This is a video of the president of the Midnight Foundation. And I’ve got some really interesting questions that have come up from the community on X and also on my YouTube channel as well. So I go through some of the most frequently asked questions here.

00:28
And hopefully it will answer some of your questions. I might have a few assumptions here, but we’ll get some clarity very soon. All right, let’s get into this one. Hey everyone, I’m Peter. If it’s your first time here, hit that thumbs up, like, subscribe and notification bell and I’ll keep you guys up to date with everything that’s happening in the Cardano space, Midnight space and in cryptocurrency in general. All right, let’s get into this one here. Now, first off, let me play you this video clip here.

00:55
This is a post from Lily and I believe this is at Permissionless. This is a clip of the president, Mees Seid of the Midnight Foundation talking about this token distribution and their goals around it. So let me just play this clip for you guys. There’ll be a GlacierDrop to eight major blockchains. We want all those blockchains to come and work with us. It’s not adversarial. We’re not dropping to friends and family, to insiders, to VCs. We’re dropping it to everybody.

01:24
And we want you to come and look at what we’re giving you and look at the tools that augment your blockchain, your services. And after the GlacierDrop, which will run for 60 days, everybody else who’s not part of that eight ecosystems can participate in the scavenger hunt. A proof of mine, a proof of work. Where everything that’s left, you can come and collect. We don’t want it. We want usage, we want adoption. So we’re going to give this away. And after that, if you haven’t come to claim it,

01:52
the original people who forgot to claim or were unable to claim will be given four years in the lost and found section to still come back and claim. We’re desperate to give it away. We really don’t want it. We like it. We love it. But we want you to have it. Right. So thank you so much, Lily, for posting up that video. I don’t have access to this kind of content. I’m just not at these events. But that really gives you an idea of the token distribution and what they’re trying to do with this particular token.

02:20
So how much will we be getting overall? Each one of the eight blockchains has a separate distribution level. The Cardano ecosystem has 12 billion of the supply, which is 50% of the total supply of NIGHT tokens. So there’s a total of 24 billion. Cardano is getting half of that. If you go back to the original X-post here where they talk about the airdrop, you can see this is the distribution for all the different blockchains: ADA,

02:49
Bitcoin, XRP, BNB, AVAX, Ethereum, Sol and BAT. So there’s a distribution—50% to ADA, 20% to Bitcoin, and then all these other chains get the remaining 30% of that particular allocation. So let me go through some of the questions people have had on X and also on my YouTube channel.

03:18
Now my first question here is around ETH holders. Someone asked: “Do you think staked ETH through LIDO will result in receiving these tokens?” That would come down to LIDO who hold the keys, but it would affect a lot of people. So you are right here, Robert, to think that because LIDO holds the keys, they are the ones that need to sign the transaction and claim those particular NIGHT tokens to their wallet address.

03:43
So I think it’s kind of unlikely that LIDO will go out of their way to claim it for their stakers—unless people put pressure on them. They would have to set up mechanisms for users to prove who they are and claim those particular NIGHT tokens. It could possibly happen, but only if centralised entities like LIDO or exchanges go through that process.

04:11
This next one here: “So I had ADA for seven years, a lot of ADA, but because I have not got it staked and it’s on my Trezor, I’m not eligible?” The Trezor is a hardware wallet, so that means it’s a self-custody wallet—not a centralised exchange. As long as you can go through the claiming process with your wallet, you should be able to claim those NIGHT tokens.

05:04
If it’s a self-custody wallet, I don’t see why it wouldn’t be included. There isn’t any info about ADA needing to be staked. I’m making assumptions here—it’s easier to snapshot staked ADA at stake pools. But we’ll get more clarity on that. That said, if you’re holding millions of ADA in a hardware wallet, personally I think it should be staked. You’d be earning thousands of ADA every epoch. Do it—just makes sense. Even if it comes down to tax, rewards are usually treated as income in many jurisdictions.

06:28
Now onto destination addresses. One question was: “Must the GlacierDrop destination address be a Cardano address and unused?” Yes. From the Midnight whitepaper (page 35): to protect personal data, users must provide a *brand new* Cardano address with no prior transaction history. That way, your identity isn’t easily linked to previous ADA transactions—enhancing privacy.

07:55
So when you start using that wallet for NIGHT-related transactions, it’s clean. No ties back to your older Cardano activity. This is important since Midnight is a privacy-focused blockchain.

08:25
Next question: “I’m using KuCoin. Can I claim the tokens?” I don’t think so. The exchange would have to handle distribution for you. From the whitepaper: users whose tokens are under third-party custody (like exchanges) cannot access the private keys and therefore cannot participate directly. You need to contact your custodian to see if they’ll support the claim.

09:45
This is the same for ETH staking through LIDO. They would need to build tools to support claims and distribution. That’s unlikely unless users apply pressure. Now, on exchange support: many exchanges don’t yet support Cardano native tokens. If your exchange supports SNEK, there’s a higher chance they’ll support NIGHT. SNEK was able to get listed due to help from the Cardano Foundation and updates to Rosetta integration (used by exchanges like Kraken).

11:40
The Midnight team is working with exchanges to bring more Cardano tokens to market. We may see a wave of new listings because of this.

12:07
Another great question: “What was the size of the ADA snapshot pool?” I’ve seen estimates of 14.7 billion ADA but no official confirmation yet. It matters because it affects your share of the NIGHT airdrop.

13:06
Based on the formula in the whitepaper:
– 12B NIGHT allocated to Cardano
– Snapshot estimate: 14.7B ADA
– If you held 1,000 ADA at snapshot, you’d receive about **816.44 NIGHT tokens**

14:28
Not bad, and the more ADA you had, the more NIGHT you’ll get. The rest of the unclaimed tokens will be distributed in a “scavenger hunt” over 30 days, using a proof-of-work-style model.

15:23
Now about claim mechanics: When the claim window opens, you’ll connect your wallet (e.g. Eternal or Lace) to a portal. You’ll prove wallet ownership by signing a transaction. No ADA is sent—just proof you own that address. If you’re still using Daedalus, you can restore it in a wallet like Eternal to participate.

19:39
They’ll likely favour Lace Wallet, which supports both Cardano and Midnight.

20:07
What about DeFi users? If your ADA is locked in a DEX like Minswap or a lending protocol, you’re probably not eligible—unless those platforms claim and distribute the tokens for you. Minswap *could* claim using the ADA they control and distribute to their LPs, but that’s not confirmed.

21:59
So DeFi participants might miss out unless platforms choose to support it. Pressure your DEX if you want that support.

22:26
Last question: “When is mainnet launching?” I don’t know. But with the airdrop announcements already happening, it must be soon. Likely timed with major events like Token2049 in September or Cardano Summit in November. That would make sense strategically.

23:22
Hope this answered your questions! If you’ve got more, leave a comment and I’ll try to get clarity from the teams or the documentation. This is a major airdrop—make sure you’re ready.