NIGHT Investment Research and Valuation Logic Deep Dive: How is the value of Midnight Network's privacy public chain priced?

As of December 16, according to Gate行情, NIGHT (Midnight Network) is currently priced at $0.059, down 10.44% in the past 24 hours, with a high of $0.069 and a low of $0.054, and a 24-hour trading volume of $13.15 million.

In the context of increasingly fierce competition among public blockchains, privacy is no longer just an “additional attribute” but is becoming a core requirement in compliant finance, enterprise applications, and identity verification scenarios. Midnight Network is a privacy-first Layer-1 blockchain born under this trend, and its native token NIGHT’s valuation logic also fundamentally differs from traditional public chain tokens.

Understanding the value of NIGHT requires more than just looking at trading activity or short-term price fluctuations; it necessitates returning to Midnight Network’s own network positioning, resource model, and its potential role in the privacy infrastructure track.

Midnight Network’s Network Positioning and Market Space

Midnight Network is driven by the Cardano ecosystem. Its goal is not to become a high-frequency trading or general-purpose computing public chain, but to focus on solving a long-standing yet difficult problem: balancing data privacy and compliance needs while ensuring on-chain verifiability.

In traditional blockchains, all transaction and behavioral metadata are publicly accessible by default, which is often impractical in finance, identity, and enterprise data scenarios. Midnight employs zero-knowledge proofs and selective disclosure mechanisms, enabling users to verify specific attributes or states without exposing underlying data. This design makes it inherently more suitable as the underlying infrastructure for privacy finance, compliant DeFi, and on-chain identity systems.

From an industry segmentation perspective, Midnight is not competing head-to-head with other high-performance public chains but is seeking a long-term position in the niche of privacy computing and compliance verification. This also determines that the value capture method for its token NIGHT will not rely entirely on traditional gas consumption models.

Economic Attributes of NIGHT and Value Capture Methods

NIGHT is not a token used directly for paying transaction fees on Midnight Network. Instead, Midnight adopts a dual-asset structure, comprising NIGHT and DUST, forming the network’s economic system.

NIGHT is more akin to a capital asset. Users holding NIGHT will continuously generate DUST, which is the consumable resource used to pay transaction fees and execute privacy smart contracts. This design separates long-term value from short-term usage costs, preventing NIGHT’s price from being passively diluted with each on-chain operation.

From a valuation perspective, the value anchor of NIGHT is not based on single transaction fee income but on whether it becomes the core asset generating privacy computing resources. As the network scales and privacy applications increase, demand for DUST will rise, indirectly boosting the long-term demand for NIGHT.

Supply Structure and Explanation of Early Price Volatility

The total supply of NIGHT is fixed at 24 billion tokens, with no inflationary issuance mechanism. This design favors long-term value stability but makes the token distribution structure particularly influential on early-stage prices.

Large-scale airdrops via multi-chain Glacier Drop resulted in highly decentralized initial distribution of NIGHT, but also meant that holders with different costs and time preferences entered the market simultaneously. Such a structure often causes significant price volatility in the early stages, as supply is redistributing toward long-term holders.

From an investment research perspective, this phase’s price movements more reflect a market reallocation process rather than the full pricing of the network’s fundamentals.

Long-term Value Drivers for NIGHT

In the medium to long term, the core value of NIGHT depends on whether Midnight Network can promote the real implementation of privacy smart contracts and compliant privacy applications. If more applications require verification, settlement, or compliance auditing without exposing user data, the ongoing demand for DUST will become normal, and NIGHT, as a resource-generating asset, will have a gradually solidified value foundation.

Additionally, as the network becomes more decentralized, the governance rights carried by NIGHT will become more meaningful. Governance influences not only protocol parameters and upgrade schedules but also ecosystem incentive distribution and long-term strategic direction. This part of the value is often not fully priced by the market in the early stages of a project.

Valuation Perspective: Opportunities and Risks for NIGHT

From a valuation standpoint, NIGHT is still in a relatively inefficient pricing stage. Short-term prices are easily affected by unlocking schedules, sentiment fluctuations, and liquidity changes, while long-term value depends more on whether the demand for privacy infrastructure continues to grow.

If privacy compliance becomes a key pathway connecting Web3 with traditional finance, Midnight Network’s strategic position may be reassessed, and the valuation model for NIGHT could shift from “newly launched tokens” to “infrastructure assets.” Conversely, if ecosystem development stalls or privacy needs are overestimated by the market, the realization cycle for NIGHT’s value may be significantly extended.

Conclusion

Overall, NIGHT is not suitable for simple short-term trading based on metrics. It is more like a long-term asset built around privacy computing infrastructure, with its core value depending on whether Midnight Network can establish an irreplaceable network effect in the compliant privacy track.

In the short term, prices may continue to fluctuate due to supply and sentiment; but in the longer cycle, the true ceiling of NIGHT will be determined by the genuine demand for privacy applications and whether its dual-asset resource model is continuously recognized by the market.