The $NIGHT token rose 8.2% in 24 hours to about $0.04 on Friday, even as the broader crypto market sold off. CoinGecko data showed it was the strongest performer among the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation at the time. It was also trading at its daily high when the report was written.

NIGHT now has a market capitalisation of roughly $662 million. That puts it at 89th on CoinGecko. The total crypto market value slipped to around $2.7 trillion over the same period. Bitcoin and Ether both traded lower on the day.

Binance incident hits market mood

The wider decline followed a security incident at Binance. NBC News reported that the exchange said it was the target of a $6.3 billion heist on Thursday. That would make it the largest such incident on record, based on the report. Binance said it had frozen about $3 billion of the assets.

In a video address on Friday, Binance CEO Richard Teng said the exchange had set aside more than $6.34 billion of company funds to cover losses, according to Decrypt. He said Binance aims to restore withdrawals by Sunday and plans to publish a full Proof of Reserves report by Monday. I think those deadlines will be watched closely, not just by Binance users but by the wider market.

What NIGHT does on Midnight

Midnight is a privacy-focused blockchain. According to Midnight’s own tokenomics blog, NIGHT is the network’s utility token, with a supply of 24 billion tokens. The same post says holding NIGHT generates DUST, the network’s capacity resource used to power transactions and smart contract execution.

Midnight’s State of the Network update describes NIGHT as granting governance rights and acting as the generator of DUST. DUST is described as a renewable resource that regenerates over time based on NIGHT holdings. That design ties token ownership to network use, though the market reaction on Friday seemed driven more by the Binance news than by token mechanics.

The jump stood out because most large coins were down. It may not last, and one day of price action is not much to go on. Still, NIGHT’s move was notable against a market that was reacting to a major exchange incident.

Sources

NBC News reported the Binance incident. Decrypt reported Teng’s comments and the recovery plan. Midnight Network’s tokenomics blog and State of the Network update provided details on NIGHT and DUST.