CardanoPress

The @MidnightNtwrk team had a massive #Token2049 week, and many updates are starting to feel less like future roadmap talk and more like things going live. In this video, I go through what changed, what was announced, and what I saw on the ground in Singapore. Timestamps: 0:00 Midnight mainnet opens up 1:39 Solana privacy support 3:26 NIGHT access in Japan 4:48 Collateral warehouse use case 8:12 Midnight Ambassador network 12:16 Midnight City and AI agents 15:14 Token2049 side events 17:32 Startup pitches on Midnight 19:56 Tokyo activation 21:07 Hokan escrow plans 22:10 Chatsoon event CRM 23:43 Wrap up and next updates The big one for builders is permissionless smart contract deployment. Before this, deploying on the Midnight mainnet required extra checks and gates. Sensible early on, but also a bottleneck. Now builders can deploy directly, and we’re already seeing mainnet activity pick up. There's also the @solana angle. Making Midnight privacy available through existing Solana wallets is interesting because it lowers friction. Users should not have to install a whole new stack just to access private swaps or private DeFi flows. Then there's Japan. NIGHT access through @OKCoinJapan is a useful step, especially given how much long-term Cardano support Japan has provided over the years. The Collateral Warehouse example was probably the most practical enterprise-style use case from the week. ✅ Private asset movement. ✅ Private trading flows. ✅ Compliance proofs when needed. That is the difference I keep coming back to with Midnight. It is not just "hide everything". It is programmable privacy, with selective proof where it actually makes sense. The @MidnightCitySim stuff was a bit more theatrical, but I think that was the point. AI agents, passports, rentable trading strategies, agents "hiring" humans to walk Token2049. Some of it looks gimmicky at first, but underneath it is a useful way to show how agents, identity, private execution and payments could fit together. I also talk about the ambassador side of the event, the Singapore activations, the Tokyo follow-up, and a few teams building around Midnight that caught my attention. And at the end, I give a quick update on what I’m building with @UseHokan and @ChatSoonApp after testing a few ideas at the event.

Midnight just flipped the switch on permissionless smart contract deployment. Builders can now deploy directly on mainnet without gatekeepers. That changes how fast teams can ship privacy-focused apps. Which contract are you deploying first?

After years of going to events and workshops with @IOHK_Charles this is my first selfie with the guy Good to see you again Charles. Hope you can rest for a bit before the next event.

New @AnthropicAI Opus 5.5 is truely impressive. 👏 Asked it to generate a 15sec explainer animation of my new app @ChatSoonApp. Pure HTML/CSS/JS. Retained 100 page speed score and web accessibility. One shot prompt on ultracode. Brilliant job.

Submitted for User acquisition and community engagement. 💪

I'm working on a networking app @ChatSoonApp that will help you capture your connections, provide context and remind you to follow up for @token2049. I'd love for people to test the iOS app in TestFlight. If you're interested, please leave a comment and I'll DM you an invite.

DRep delegation is not a set-and-forget thing. Too much voting power around the same familiar names is not healthy for Cardano governance. If you have not reviewed yours lately, use my DRep matcher on Learn Cardano. It helps you find active DReps that better match your views. Decentralisation is user behaviour too.

I went into @draper_u thinking I was refining a Cardano startup idea. I came out thinking very differently about how I build companies. For four weeks in Silicon Valley, the Genesis program forced me to question market size, customer validation, fundraising, go-to-market, trust, security, and whether what I was building was actually a business. The original idea was a Web3 bounty platform. That eventually led me somewhere much more interesting: programmable escrow and stablecoin payment infrastructure. In this video, I go through the full experience, including pitching @TimDraper, getting the pitch wrong before getting it right, learning to validate before building, and how those lessons are now shaping @MoshiConcepts and Hokan. A huge thank you to everyone who shared their time and experience throughout the program: @draper_u @TimDraper @aalicbarker @AsraNadeem @TechRebelWorld @sfjmorris @Andytang @joevezz @lorenzoxbt @rodventures @1stNoL @c00v @LuchangArcanum And also David Bland, George Northup, Azan Haider, Tessalou Velera @OrionFund @Cometa_Labs and @samizb This one packs a lot of lessons. Chapters: 0:00 Intro 1:23 The Genesis programme 2:16 Building something isn't enough 4:22 The first pitches 5:54 Talking to real customers 7:25 The idea starts changing 8:40 Pitch practice and getting it wrong 10:53 Pitching in front of Tim Draper 12:32 The question from Tim Draper 14:10 Catalyst, grants and automation 15:37 Trust is the real product 17:01 After the pitch, the programme changed 18:27 Go to market 19:32 Blockchain should become boring 21:10 Not everything needs a token 22:09 Networking was probably my weakest area 23:36 The people were a massive part of it 24:40 The Cardano community came to Draper 25:35 The final week 27:14 Resilience 28:19 Stablecoins and payments kept coming back 29:11 The final days 29:57 What actually changed for me 31:07 What I'm building now 32:15 Conclusion The biggest lesson? Being able to build something doesn't mean it's the right thing to build. Validate. Listen. Adjust. Then keep building. 👊

First time I drop a video in over a month and the price of cardano:native absolutely pumps. Direct causal relation there. 🤝 youtu.be/peo2dghMdbY

Dear Cardano Community🫂, I need your help. 🙏 I’m building an escrow layer on Cardano. The idea: make escrow a LEGO piece that developers and businesses can plug into their products. Before I spend the next 6–12 months building it out, I want to know: Would you actually use it? If so, what for? 🤔 The long-term vision is a full SaaS platform with an API, SDK, payment rails, on- and off-ramps, and flexible escrow flows for both human and agentic transactions. There are a huge number of potential applications: ✅ Auctions and marketplaces ✅ Freelancer and job platforms ✅Car, boat and property sales ✅Import and export ✅Insurance and claims ✅Conditional payments ✅Agent-to-agent transactions ✅Dispute resolution ✅High-value peer-to-peer transactions, And plenty more Rather than having every project build its own escrow infrastructure, I want this to be infrastructure they can simply integrate. But I don’t want to spend a year building based purely on assumptions. If you were building a product that needed escrow, what would you need from this? What workflows would you have? What payment methods? What dispute scenarios? What edge cases am I missing? This is the point where I want to gather as much real-world feedback as possible and piece the requirements together before going too far down the build path.

Finding investors feels a lot like dating. 😅 Day 15 at @draper_u included dinner with @Andytang from Draper Associates/Draper Dragon and plenty of conversations with investors. Building the product is one skill. Finding the right people who believe in it is another. As a developer, networking is definitely another muscle I need to build. What part of fundraising pushed you furthest outside your comfort zone? For me, it's now networking with investors.

Day 14 at @draper_u was one of the most practical sessions yet. 🎯 Gary Coover @c00v from @superlayerio broke down how founders should approach VCs, research cheque sizes, find the right investors and actually start the conversation. Big token lesson: if your project doesn’t have a compelling reason to have a token, don’t force one. Tomorrow our Genesis cohort pitches go live. 👀

This really has been a once in a life time opportunity with @draper_u @TimDraper What I’ve learnt from the program will have long lasting cascading effects in Cardano. If you’re building, join the program. Special thanks @OrionFund @Cardano_CF and @samizb @DraperDragon – at San Mateo, CA

Hey, all SPOs 📢 We need a few more pools to vote on the changeover with the constitutional committee. These guys and girls have already voted in; this is just the stamp of approval to keep things going. Not much time left, so please vote and keep Governance moving on Cardano.

🎤 First pitch practice on stage at @draper_u and I swore within the first minute. 😅 Day 10 of the Genesis program was all about getting uncomfortable, getting critiqued and figuring out what needs fixing. The script isn't flowing; the slides & delivery need work. But that's why we're practising. Two more days before recording.

This is an interesting announcement and development. What it means for Cardano? I’m not sure. Will it impact price and usage? I’m not sure. This is something I have to investigate.

$6 in crypto now creates a compliance headache in Australia. AUSTRAC's travel rule has no minimum threshold, which means even tiny exchange transfers can trigger sender and receiver identity checks. That is fine in theory. In practice, it gets messy very quickly.

🔐 Security release: @CardanoPress 1.36.1 Fixes a critical authentication flaw in Cardano wallet login. Update as soon as you can — existing accounts and settings are unaffected. Grateful to @CullahMusic for the responsible disclosure. 🙏 github.com/CardanoPress/card…

The six great gemstones are finally assembled. Forged by @InputOutputHK, @Cardano_CF, @emurgo_io, @IntersectMBO, @midnightfdn, and the @Cardano Tribe itself. With their power combined, a new seal trembles… The next stage of the Cardano realm is ready to awaken. Tier-one stablecoins. Bridges. Oracles. Institutional vaults. Analytics that see beyond the veil. The Critical Integrations Budget is the key. adastat.net/governances/8f54… If the community wills it, 2026 becomes the year the ecosystem unlocks its full magic.