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Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson stated that Midnight will strengthen the network and expand its DeFi ecosystem by ten times current levels. The founder addressed concerns during a recent livestream that Midnight could weaken Cardano’s core blockchain infrastructure.
Hoskinson argued that simply improving Cardano’s speed, cost structure and scalability will not drive mass adoption. Competing with networks like Ethereum and Solana requires more than incremental technical enhancements, according to the founder.
BREAKING NEWS:
— Mintern (@MinswapIntern) December 21, 2025
NIGHT WILL 10X CARDANO DEFI@IOHK_Charles says $NIGHT will 10x the Cardano DeFi ecosystem. What reason does someone have to leave Solana or Ethereum? They don't have to leave. They can go through Midnight to Cardano and get privacy. They do something new… pic.twitter.com/LNawCViRZb
He emphasized that major upgrades including Leios and Hydra may deliver only marginal user incentives such as reduced transaction fees and throughput improvements.
These features alone remain insufficient to convince users to migrate from established ecosystems like Ethereum and Solana to Cardano. Hoskinson stated that users only switch platforms when offered something fundamentally different. Midnight addresses this requirement through its privacy-focused architecture.
The privacy sidechain offers programmable privacy capabilities largely absent from mainstream DeFi today. Rather than requiring users to abandon existing ecosystems entirely, Midnight allows continued interaction with those platforms while accessing privacy-preserving features that Ethereum and Solana do not provide natively.
This privacy functionality could establish a new value proposition for Cardano DeFi, potentially boosting activity by up to tenfold. While Cardano has achieved progress in security and decentralization, the network still lags in DeFi activity metrics.
Data from DeFiLlama shows Cardano’s total value locked at $178.98 million. This trails Ethereum’s approximately $70.09 billion and Solana’s $8.57 billion by considerable margins. A tenfold increase would bring Cardano’s TVL to roughly $1.78 billion, still below current Solana and Ethereum levels but marking substantial growth.
Hoskinson expects Cardano’s DeFi activity to accelerate next year, coinciding with Midnight’s mainnet launch. Beyond the privacy sidechain, the founder believes introducing a Tier-1 stablecoin to ADA could further drive DeFi expansion.
He confirmed ongoing discussions with Ripple about bringing RLUSD stablecoin to the ADA ecosystem. The Midnight Foundation recently disclosed that it is finalizing a partnership to launch a privacy stablecoin on its platform, creating another potential catalyst for DeFi growth.
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