Midnight (NIGHT) Airdrop by Cardano: How the Glacier Drop Worked and Why It’s Over

The Midnight (NIGHT) airdrop was one of the most ambitious cryptocurrency distributions of 2025. Unlike most airdrops that hand out tokens to a few thousand early adopters, this one targeted nearly 34 million wallet addresses across eight major blockchains. It wasn’t just a giveaway-it was a carefully engineered network launch. And now, it’s over.

What Was the Midnight Airdrop?

Midnight Network is a privacy-focused sidechain built on Cardano. Its goal? To let users transact privately without giving up the security or usability of public blockchains. The native token, NIGHT, powers this entire system. To kickstart the network, the team behind Midnight launched the Glacier Drop-an airdrop designed to distribute all 24 billion NIGHT tokens directly to real users, not investors.

This wasn’t a marketing stunt. It was a foundational move. The team wanted people who already held crypto to become part of the network from day one. They didn’t want speculators flipping tokens the second they got them. They wanted long-term participants-people who would help secure the network, build apps, and use it.

Who Was Eligible?

Eligibility was simple: if you held at least $100 worth of any supported cryptocurrency on June 11, 2025, you qualified. That snapshot was taken at a random, undisclosed time to stop people from buying crypto just before the cutoff.

The supported chains were:

• Bitcoin (BTC)
• Ethereum (ETH)
• Ripple (XRP)
• Solana (SOL)
• Avalanche (AVAX)
• BNB Chain (BNB)
• Brave (BAT)
• Cardano (ADA)

You didn’t need to hold all of them. Just one. And you had to hold it in your own wallet-not on an exchange. That’s key. If your Bitcoin or Cardano was sitting on Binance, Coinbase, or Kraken, you didn’t get anything unless your exchange decided to claim for you. And almost none did.

How Were Tokens Distributed?

The 24 billion NIGHT tokens weren’t split evenly. The allocation was weighted:

• 50% (12 billion) went to Cardano (ADA) holders
• 20% (4.8 billion) went to Bitcoin (BTC) holders
• 30% (7.2 billion) was split among Ethereum, XRP, Solana, Avalanche, BNB Chain, and BAT holders

The exact amount you got depended on how much you held in USD value at snapshot time. If you had $500 in ADA, you got five times more than someone with $100. If you held crypto on multiple chains, you qualified for each one. Someone with $200 in BTC and $300 in ADA could claim from both.

How to Claim (It’s Too Late Now)

The claim window opened on August 6, 2025, and closed on October 4, 2025. That’s a 60-day window. If you missed it, you missed your chance.

To claim, you had to:

1. Go to the official portal: midnight.gd or midnight.network
2. Connect your wallet from one of the supported chains (Eternl, Lace, Yoroi, MetaMask, etc.)
3. Sign a message to prove you owned the wallet at snapshot time
4. Provide a new, unused Cardano wallet address to receive your NIGHT tokens

You couldn’t use an existing Cardano wallet. It had to be fresh. And you couldn’t use an exchange wallet. You had to control the private keys. This was intentional. It kept bots and fake accounts out.

What Happens After You Claim?

Claiming didn’t mean you got access to all your tokens. NIGHT tokens are locked. They unlock slowly, in four equal parts over 360 days after Midnight’s mainnet launches.

Each 25% release happens at a randomized time within its 90-day window. That’s not a typo. The team didn’t want everyone selling their tokens on the same day. Randomized unlocks prevent coordinated dumps. This is called "gradual thawing." It’s rare in crypto. Most airdrops give you everything upfront.

You won’t know exactly when each unlock happens until it occurs. The mainnet launch date hasn’t been announced yet. So even if you claimed, you still don’t know when you’ll be able to trade your tokens.

What If You Didn’t Claim?

Unclaimed tokens didn’t vanish. They rolled into the next phase: the Scavenger Mine.

In this phase, users solve public-good computational puzzles. Think of it like mining, but instead of hashing for Bitcoin, you’re helping build Midnight’s infrastructure. Solve the puzzles, earn unclaimed NIGHT tokens.

Any tokens left after the Scavenger Mine go into the third phase: Lost-and-Found. This is the final chance for anyone who missed the first two phases. It opens after mainnet launches.

So if you didn’t claim during the Glacier Drop, you’re not completely out. But you’ll have to earn it now-by contributing to the network, not just holding.

Why This Airdrop Was Different

Most airdrops are lazy. They give tokens to people who retweeted a post or joined a Discord. Midnight didn’t do that.

It used:

• Dollar-value thresholds to filter out bots
• Self-custody requirements to ensure real users
• Multi-chain eligibility to build broad support
• Extended vesting to discourage flipping
• Three-phase distribution to keep people engaged

It treated airdrop recipients as future network participants-not just token holders. That’s a big shift.

Why Cardano Was the Centerpiece

Half of all NIGHT tokens went to ADA holders. That’s no accident. Midnight is a Cardano sidechain. It runs on Cardano’s security and infrastructure. The team wanted to reward the Cardano community for sticking with the ecosystem.

But they didn’t stop there. By allowing BTC, ETH, and others to claim, they invited users from outside Cardano to join. Everyone who claimed had to use a Cardano wallet to receive NIGHT. That forced cross-chain users to interact with Cardano’s ecosystem-something the network desperately needed.

What’s Next?

The Glacier Drop is done. The Scavenger Mine is active. Mainnet launch is coming-no official date yet. When it happens, the vesting schedule starts. That’s when the real test begins.

Will people actually use Midnight? Will developers build apps on it? Will the privacy features work at scale? Will regulators accept it?

The airdrop was just the beginning. The real challenge is making privacy useful, not just technical.

Common Mistakes People Made

Many people lost their tokens because they didn’t understand the process:

• They thought holding crypto on Binance or Coinbase was enough. It wasn’t.
• They used an old Cardano wallet instead of creating a new one.
• They waited until the last week and missed the deadline.
• They didn’t realize the tokens were locked for 360 days after mainnet launch.
• They assumed the airdrop would be repeated. It won’t be.

Final Thoughts

The Midnight airdrop wasn’t about getting free crypto. It was about building a new kind of blockchain-one where privacy isn’t an afterthought, but the foundation. The Glacier Drop was a bold experiment. It worked in scale, reaching millions. Whether it works in practice depends on what happens next.

If you claimed, you’re part of something bigger. If you didn’t, there’s still a path-but you’ll have to earn it.