Cardano's privacy sidechain Midnight enters live trading today as its native token NIGHT begins launching on major exchanges. The launch begins on Binance's Alpha platform and KuCoin's spot market. On December ninth, several other centralized exchanges will join.
Source: X
Cardano's Hoskinson hints on the launch after the announcement of Binance Alpha
On December eighth, Binance Wallet confirmed that Binance Alpha might be the primary platform to launch Midnight's NIGHT token on December ninth. The team described the move as an alpha stage listing with an airdrop for eligible users.
Binance Alpha acts as a discovery and education layer for early-stage tokens throughout the Binance Wallet. It allows users to access assets ahead of a possible listing on Binance's major spot or derivatives markets. Binance has not announced a spot or futures listing for NIGHT on the core exchange.
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson responded to the launch with a post that directed followers to the Midnight homepage and signaled that he sees the exchange integrations as a significant milestone for Cardano's privacy stack.
Source: X
Binance Alpha offers airdrop through points system
In addition to trading, Binance Alpha is conducting a points-based airdrop for NIGHT. According to Alpha event details shared by regional aggregators, users who hold at the very least 230 Alpha Points can claim 600 NIGHT when trading begins on December ninth at 5:00 p.m. (UTC+8).
The points threshold will mechanically decrease through the event, decreasing by 10 points every five minutes while the airdrop is live. Claiming will eat 15 Alpha Points and users must confirm on the Alpha Activity page inside 24 hours or the allocation might be forfeited.
This design makes Binance Alpha each a pre-listing venue and an airdrop funnel, channeling existing Binance Wallet users into Midnight's token distribution without using a conventional Launchpad format.
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KuCoin, Bybit, OKX, Gate.io and others are participating within the launch of the NIGHT token
The launch of NIGHT goes far beyond Binance. KuCoin calls its listing a “world first” because it immediately opens deposits on the Cardano network and runs a call auction from 9:00 to 10:00 UTC, with NIGHT/USDT spot trading happening survive December ninth from 10:00 UTC. Withdrawals begin the subsequent day at 8:00 UTC.
KuCoin also launched a separate listing campaign with a reward pool of two.5 million NIGHT and a GemPool farming program that can allocate 12 million NIGHT to users who stake KCS, USD1 or NIGHT between December ninth and sixteenth. Bybit, OKX, Gate.io, HTX and MEXC have also confirmed parallel listings.
OKX can also be running a “Flash Earn” campaign that gives access to multiple prize pools that can distribute a combined NIGHT 400 million as a mix of recent coin airdrops and earnings rewards, in addition to an extra NIGHT 20 million “Christmas Surprise” pool for longer-term participants.
The market response was immediate. After Binance confirmed the Midnight listing via Alpha, Cardano's ADA price rose by about 4% and traded at around $0.43 to $0.44.
ADA/USD every day price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
In the last 24 hours, ADA traded between around $0.42 and $0.45, with a market cap of nearly $16 billion.
