Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has shed new gentle on the intensive cross-chain collaboration behind Midnight’s Glacier Drop, highlighting his direct engagement with Ripple’s CTO.
NIGHT, the native token of Cardano’s privateness sidechain Midnight, has emerged as one of the talked-about tokens this month. Because it started trading on December 9, it has reached a valuation of about $1.59 billion, with every token priced round $0.096.
Cross-Collaboration Made Glacier Drop a Success
Following its launch, Hoskinson has continued to discuss the venture publicly. In a latest commentary, he detailed the broad cross-chain coordination that made the Glacier Drop, the primary section of NIGHT’s airdrop, potential.
Launched in August 2025, the Glacier Drop spanned eight ecosystems throughout seven blockchains, together with the XRP Ledger (XRPL), Cardano, Solana, Bitcoin, and Ethereum. Though roughly 33 million customers certified for the airdrop, Hoskinson revealed that solely about 1.5 million members finally claimed their NIGHT allocation.
He emphasised that the distribution intentionally averted normal crypto launch mechanisms resembling insider allocations or preliminary coin choices (ICOs). As an alternative, each eligible participant had an equal proper of refusal, reinforcing the aim of equity and decentralization.
In accordance with him, the Midnight Basis took roughly 18 months to design the Glacier Drop. The prolonged timeline stemmed from the technical complexity of working throughout a number of blockchain architectures, every with its personal guidelines, tooling, and limitations.
To execute the airdrop accurately, Hoskinson mentioned he and his group needed to perceive how every supporting chain functioned. In some circumstances, this meant tackling challenges that had by no means been addressed earlier than.
Working Straight with Ripple CTO
Notably, Hoskinson cited the XRP Ledger (XRPL) as one of the difficult ecosystems his group needed to research for the Glacier Drop. He defined that XRPL had by no means supported a distribution of this scale, which compelled the event group to hunt direct technical steerage.
In consequence, they reached out to Ripple CTO David Schwartz, the unique architect of the XRP Ledger. Hoskinson recounted sitting down with Schwartz to realize a deeper understanding of how XRPL capabilities and find out how to implement an airdrop of that magnitude.
During these discussions, each groups brainstormed sensible options that finally made the NIGHT airdrop potential on the XRP Ledger.
UPDATE: #Cardano $ADA Founder Charles Hoskinson says $NIGHT‘s Glacier Drop “took 18 months to design. We needed to name David Schwartz for $XRP. My engineers need to know the way Solana, Ethereum, Avalanche, BNB Chain, XRP, and Cardano works. You discover stuff you want in every ecosystem.” pic.twitter.com/lBJZgBJAyl
— Offended Crypto Present (@angrycryptoshow) December 29, 2025
A Shift in Mindset
Past the technical breakthrough, Hoskinson mentioned the collaboration reshaped his group’s mindset. He famous that many crypto builders fall into maximalism, focusing solely on their very own networks whereas dismissing others.
Nevertheless, constructing Midnight required Cardano engineers to run nodes and develop throughout a number of ecosystems, together with XRPL, Solana, and Ethereum. By working with completely different blockchains, Hoskinson emphasised that it turns into tough to stay a maximalist, as every community reveals distinctive strengths.
As reported earlier, Hoskinson reaffirmed that the Glacier Drop framework extends past Midnight and serves as a mannequin for launching future initiatives. However, he acknowledged that additional refinement is required, including that the group expects to fine-tune the protocol over the subsequent six months.
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