Midnight Token Distribution Details Emerge
With the Glacier Drop redemption event just days away, on-chain data reveals some interesting patterns in how NIGHT tokens are currently distributed across the Cardano network. According to AdaStat, the circulating supply sits at 24 billion tokens, which were minted in two phases back in October and November.
What’s particularly striking is the concentration. Only 26 wallets hold the entire supply right now. That’s a pretty small number when you think about it. The most significant holder is address “addr1w9,” which controls 7.39 billion NIGHT tokens. That works out to about 31% of the total supply.
Cardano SPO and DRep “Stake with Pride” suggested this might be the Midnight reserve address for staking rewards. I’m not entirely sure about that, but it makes some sense given the timing and amounts involved.
Secondary Holdings and Distribution Plans
Another address, “addr1wx,” holds 4.5 billion tokens, which is roughly 19% of the supply. Stake with Pride thinks this wallet likely contains the NIGHT tokens that will be distributed to Glacier Drop claimants and Scavenger Hunt participants.
Midnight Foundation CEO Fahmi Syed confirmed that users claimed over 3.5 billion NIGHT tokens during the Glacier Drop, which gives some context to these numbers. Honestly, I find the distribution pattern interesting—12 wallets hold 99.99% of the tokens, with those two main wallets accounting for half of everything.
The remaining 0.01% is spread across 14 other wallets. It’s a pretty concentrated distribution at this stage, but that’s probably to be expected before the official launch.
Token Movement and Upcoming Events
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, which seems like preparation for the claim event.
Midnight has confirmed that the redemption event for Glacier Drop and Scavenger Hunt participants will happen on December 8. That’s also when NIGHT tokens will officially launch and trading will begin 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. I think this gradual approach might help with price stability, but we’ll have to see how it plays out.
What Comes Next
After this initial distribution, there’s a Lost-and-Found phase planned. This will give eligible users who didn’t participate in the Glacier Drop another chance to claim tokens. They’ll only get a fraction of what they might have originally been allocated, but it’s better than nothing.
The whole thing feels like it’s building toward something significant for the Cardano ecosystem. The concentration in a few wallets before distribution makes sense from a logistical standpoint, but it does raise questions about how decentralized things will become after the full distribution.
I’m curious to see how the market reacts when trading opens. The phased distribution approach is somewhat unusual, but perhaps it will prevent the kind of volatility we often see with new token launches. We’ll know more in a few days when everything goes live.
