Midnight plans to activate private smart contracts on its mainnet, opening deployment beyond the small group of whitelisted decentralized applications that previously operated in a gated environment. The blockchain runs as a Cardano sidechain and uses zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs, a cryptographic method for proving information without revealing it, as the foundation of its privacy architecture. Its planned capabilities also include private token minting, similar to the privacy-focused design associated with Zcash. Midnight Foundation CTO Sebastien Guillemo said the next smart-contract version will add events and composability, allowing decentralized finance (DeFi) applications to interact and potentially support more complex products such as the Aave lending protocol. Midnight went live in Q1 2026 and is now moving toward open deployment and decentralization. The announcement comes as privacy assets remain a strong market theme alongside perpetual futures, prediction markets and stablecoins. NIGHT, Midnight's native token, rose 30% this week before reaching the upper boundary of its ascending channel. Whether that momentum extends from the broader privacy-token trend to NIGHT remains uncertain.