Midnight Token Distribution Revealed Before Airdrop
As the Cardano community prepares for the Midnight airdrop redemption event, on-chain data shows some interesting distribution patterns. The NIGHT token currently has a circulating supply of 24 billion tokens, and it looks like the distribution is quite concentrated.
What caught my attention is that just 26 wallets hold the entire supply. That’s not many, really. And one particular address, identified as “addr1w9,” holds 7.39 billion NIGHT tokens. That’s about 31% of the total supply in a single wallet.
Cardano SPO and DRep “Stake with Pride” suggested this might be the Midnight reserve address for staking rewards. I think that makes sense, but it’s still a significant concentration.
Major Holders and Upcoming Distribution
Another wallet, “addr1wx,” holds 4.5 billion NIGHT tokens, which is roughly 19% of the supply. Stake with Pride mentioned this wallet likely contains the NIGHT that will be distributed to Glacier Drop claimants and Scavenger Hunt participants.
Midnight Foundation CEO Fahmi Syed confirmed users claimed over 3.5 billion NIGHT tokens during the Glacier Drop. So that provides some context for these numbers.
Looking at the broader picture, 12 wallets hold 99.99% of the NIGHT tokens. The two wallets I mentioned earlier together hold 50% of the supply. The remaining 0.01% is distributed across 14 other wallets.
Token Movement and Launch Timeline
The Midnight team has completed 25 transactions so far, with most activity happening in the last couple of days. There’s been a gradual movement of NIGHT tokens to newer addresses, probably in preparation for the claim event.
Midnight has confirmed the redemption event for Glacier Drop and Scavenger Hunt participants will happen on December 8. That’s when the NIGHT tokens will officially launch, with trading opening across exchanges.
Here’s something important: claimants will only receive 25% of their total allocation initially. The tokens are being distributed over four phases spread across 12 months, with participants getting 25% at each stage.
Future Opportunities and Considerations
After this initial distribution, there will be a Lost-and-Found phase. This gives eligible users who didn’t participate in the Glacier Drop another chance to claim tokens. Though they’ll only get a fraction of what they might have originally been allocated.
The initial minting happened on October 14 at block height 12,517,624, with the final mint event occurring on November 25 at block height 12,696,233. So the tokens have been sitting there for a bit, waiting for distribution.
I’m curious how this distribution pattern will affect the token’s early trading. With such concentrated holdings initially, there might be some volatility as the tokens become more widely distributed. But that’s just speculation on my part.
The team seems to be taking a measured approach with the phased distribution. That could help prevent immediate sell pressure, which sometimes happens with airdrops. We’ll have to wait and see how it plays out in practice.
