- Charles Hoskinson claimed on September 28, 2026 that Midnight will become bigger than Zcash, without defining whether that means price, market cap, or adoption.
- NIGHT's market cap has been around $400 million to $455 million, while Zcash has traded near $24 billion to $27.5 billion, leaving a massive valuation gap.
- Midnight is pushing a technical roadmap for private smart contracts, with Node 1.0.3 live, Node 1.0.4 expected, v8 for private contracts, and v9 for composability.
- Governance questions and regulatory scrutiny over shielded pools remain key risks for both Midnight and Zcash.
On September 28, 2026, Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, used a post on X to argue that Midnight would eventually outgrow Zcash. He did not spell out whether that meant price, market value, users, or activity, which left plenty of room for interpretation. The comment came as a reply to a bullish note from Weiss Crypto that had described NIGHT as a potentially strong performer over the next two years.
That single sentence turned a quiet comparison into a wider discussion about privacy coins. Midnight is still much smaller than Zcash, and its token, NIGHT, trades in a different league by market capitalization. Even so, the gap is exactly what makes the debate interesting, because supporters see room for growth while skeptics see a project that has a long way to go.
What Hoskinson Actually Said
Hoskinson framed his prediction around a mix of features: selective disclosure, private agents, a DeFi kernel for major chains, zero-knowledge proofs, trusted execution environments, multi-party computation, and Cardano’s continuous uptime combined with Leios. He also added LFG 2027, which some readers took as a rough timeline, though it was not a formal deadline. The phrasing suggested ambition rather than a precise forecast.
He later pushed back against criticism that Midnight was becoming closed-source and that founding entities controlled too much of the NIGHT supply. Calling those claims FUD, he said Midnight is not closed source and that founding entities do not control the supply. That exchange matters because governance and transparency are central to how investors judge privacy networks.
NIGHT and Zcash by the Numbers
At the time of Hoskinson’s remark, NIGHT had a market cap of about $443 million, while Zcash sat near $26 billion. To catch up, NIGHT would have needed to grow roughly 59 times, assuming Zcash stayed still. Other snapshots in the same period put NIGHT between roughly $400 million and $455 million, with a fully diluted valuation near $600 million to $653 million.
Zcash, by contrast, has been valued around $24 billion to $27.5 billion across recent reports. Its price has traded near $1,402, and it has ranked among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap. Cardano itself, meanwhile, has been around $9.3 billion in market value at a price near $0.25, and it remains about 92% below its all-time high, reflecting how ADA faces critical crossroads in the current market.
NIGHT’s price has moved around $0.027, though one report noted a sharp rally from $0.022 on September 24 to about $0.048 before pulling back to roughly $0.044. That kind of volatility is common in smaller tokens. The token has about 16.6 billion to 17 billion NIGHT circulating from a maximum supply of 24 billion, and its 24-hour trading volume has been reported near $28.8 million.
Interestingly, NIGHT and ZEC showed a close correlation over a 20-day stretch, with one measure putting it at 0.87. That does not mean Zcash drives NIGHT’s price. It may simply mean traders are treating both as part of the same privacy narrative, even as they compete for attention.
Privacy Models: Different by Design
Zcash is known for shielded transactions that hide the sender, receiver, and amount by moving coins into an encrypted pool. That feature has helped it stay ahead of rivals such as Monero, but it has also drawn regulatory attention. After hackers stole $387.5 million from Bitget on September 24, they moved 2,746 ZEC, worth about $3.9 million, into Zcash shielded pools by September 30. That incident renewed concerns about privacy coins and how easily they can be used to obscure illicit funds.
Midnight takes a different route. Its NIGHT token is described as an unshielded native and governance asset, while the network uses zero-knowledge smart contracts to offer programmable privacy. NIGHT holders generate DUST, a separate non-transferable resource used for fees and smart-contract execution. That design separates governance from the resource consumed by transactions, which is not how most privacy coins work.
Midnight is not simply a Cardano privacy sidecar. It is a specialized layer-1 partner chain that runs its own ledger and processes transactions independently, while still keeping architectural links to Cardano. NIGHT officially launched on Cardano in December 2025, and the project began redeeming more than 4.5 billion tokens claimed during distribution programs. ADA holders do not get direct exposure to NIGHT just by holding Cardano, though delegating to stake pools that validate for Midnight may earn NIGHT rewards.
Roadmap, Governance, and Market Reaction
Sebastien Guillemot, chief technology officer at the Midnight Foundation, has been publicly outlining an accelerated technical roadmap. On September 19, he signaled that mainnet support for smart contract deployment was approaching. On September 26, Midnight Node 1.0.3 arrived, which he called the final major technical update before private contracts go live. A Node 1.0.4 update is expected soon.
The v8 release is set to enable private contracts, while v9 is meant to add composability, letting different smart contracts and decentralized applications interact more easily. Guillemot said v9 could also arrive within the year, thanks to progress with audit partners, though no confirmed date was given. Developers are being encouraged to use the v8 window to prepare for v9. Each step is meant to move Midnight from an experimental sidechain toward a network with functional private smart contract capabilities.
Governance remains a sticking point. Justin Bons, founder of Cyber Capital, raised concerns about Midnight’s validators moving toward closed-source code and about two founding entities holding roughly 50% of the NIGHT supply without binding lock-ups. Hoskinson rejected those claims, but the questions have not disappeared. For a network that sells privacy and credible neutrality, how control is distributed will matter as much as the technology itself.
Market performance has been mixed. While NIGHT rallied at times, Zcash and Monero posted declines in some of the same windows. That suggests capital may be rotating toward newer, development-active privacy projects rather than lifting the entire sector. At the same time, Zcash remains a fully operational privacy coin with far more market value, while Midnight is still in its early stages with limited validator participation.
What Could Shift the Balance
If Midnight opens its validator system, releases transparent code, and locks the founding entities’ NIGHT supply, Hoskinson’s claim could gain more weight. If regulators take action against shielded pools after the Bitget incident, Zcash’s lead could shrink quickly. The outcome is not predetermined, and both networks face technical, regulatory, and governance risks that could change the story.
For now, the next reported milestones are the Node 1.0.4 update, the v8 private contract deployment, and the v9 composability release. Further product launches are expected through the rest of the year as Midnight tries to build a broader smart contract ecosystem. Investors and developers will be watching whether those updates translate into real usage, not just price moves.
Hoskinson’s prediction has done one thing clearly: it has forced a closer comparison between an established privacy coin and a newer network that wants to do more than simple shielded transfers. Midnight’s pitch is programmable privacy, cross-chain ambitions, and a connection to Cardano. Zcash’s advantage is time, liquidity, and a working product that already dominates privacy-focused market value. The debate is really about whether a smaller, more flexible network can catch up before regulation or execution risk changes the game.