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Midnight Network Unveils NIGHT Tokenomics, ‘Glacier Drop’ Airdrop Mechanism

Midnight Network, a privacy-focused blockchain leveraging zero-knowledge smart contracts, published its tokenomics paper and unveiled its 'Glacier Drop' airdrop mechanism in advance of claims for the native NIGHT token starting next month.

The project said Glacier Drop is a novel process that allocates all NIGHT tokens to users across eight major blockchain ecosystems and rolls out in three sequential phases. The tokens will be available on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, Solana, Binance Chain, Brave, Ripple and Avalanche, the company said in a press release Monday.

First, during a 60-day claim period starting in July, eligible wallets, those holding at least $100 in native tokens at the time of a pre-announced snapshot, can claim their full allocation.

That is followed by a 30-day Scavenger Mine phase, which redistributes any unclaimed tokens to participants who complete computational tasks using a proof-of-work-like mechanism.

After the network’s mainnet launch later this year, a four-year Lost-and-Found phase will allow original claimants who missed the initial window to recover part of their allocation through self-directed verification.

To avoid supply shocks, NIGHT tokens will unlock in four randomized installments over a 360-day period. This “thawing mechanism” is intended to damp volatility and promote long-term engagement with the network.

Fahmi Syed, president of the Cayman-based Midnight Foundation, which oversees the project, said the approach reflects the network’s broader vision of “rational privacy,” giving developers granular control over what data is shared on-chain.

The eligibility snapshot has already taken place, and more information is available at midnight.network.

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The Protocol: Polyhedra Promises Buyback Plan After Liquidity Attack

Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I'm Margaux Nijkerk, CoinDesk’s Tech & Protocols reporter.

In this issue:

  • Polyhedra Blames Liquidity Attacks for Sudden 80% Price Drop in ZKJ, Promises Buyback
  • UK Startup Optalysys Debuts Server for Blockchains
  • Kraken-Backed Ink Foundation to Airdrop INK Token, Starting With Aave-Powered Liquidity Protocol
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Network News

POLYHEDRA BLAMES LIQUIDITY ATTACKS FOR DROP IN TOKEN PRICE, RELEASES BUYBACK PLAN: Polyhedra, a crypto protocol, announced a buyback plan to restore trust after its token, ZKJ, plummeted over 80% in minutes. An initial post‑mortem released in Asian morning hours laid out various factors resulting in the collapse, including a supposed coordinated liquidity attack on PancakeSwap’s ZKJ/KOGE pool, substantial ZKJ deposits by market-making company Wintermute into centralized exchanges, and a cascade of liquidations on CEXs like Bybit. On-chain data reveals that several addresses had drained millions from the ZKJ/KOGE pool. One removed about $4.3 million in liquidity provider (LP) tokens and dumped 1.57 million ZKJ; others followed, unloading close to 1 million ZKJ each. When the shallow KOGE/USDT pool couldn’t absorb the sell pressure, activity spilled over into the deeper ZKJ/USDT pool, triggering a liquidity spiral, the team claimed. To stem the hemorrhage, Polyhedra’s team injected approximately $30 million in USDT, USDC, and BNB as DEX liquidity. It added that no ZKJ holdings belonging to the team were sold. Polyhedra affirms it’s conducting a full technical investigation, and its upcoming buyback initiative aims to both offset the attack’s impact and deter similar future exploits. — Shaurya Malwa Read more.

OPTALYSYS DEBUTS SERVERS FOR BLOCKCHAINS: Optalysys, a U.K.-based startup focused on secure computing, has introduced what it claims to be the world’s first server for blockchains that can process data at scale without decrypting it. The firm’s LightLocker node is a server that uses Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), a mathematical technique allowing computations to be performed on encrypted data without compromising the encryption. The last year has seen a couple of firms raising money and exploring applications of FHE within the cryptocurrency space. Optalysys says its server hardware is purpose-built for blockchain encryption, and offers a cheaper alternative to costly and inefficient GPU-based systems, using 40% less energy. — Ian Allison Read more.

INK FOUNDATION TO AIRDROP TOKEN: The Ink Foundation, the nonprofit behind layer 2 Ink, is launching its native token INK in an attempt to bootstrap on-chain capital markets through a liquidity-first strategy. The token will debut on a decentralized finance (DeFi) lending and trading protocol built on Aave, and distribution will begin via an airdrop to early users. There will be no governance gimmicks or fluctuating emissions schedules, the foundation said. INK has a hard cap of 1 billion tokens minted, with no recourse to change the supply via governance proposals. And unlike other Superchain members, Ink says its layer 2 governance will remain separate from the token. — Shaurya Malwa Read more.

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In Other News

  • A Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing posted Monday night outlines the relationship between Tron DAO, Justin Sun, and SRM Entertainment, a Nevada company in the process of changing its name to Tron Inc. The filing details a $100 million private investment in public equity (PIPE) deal, paid entirely in TRX tokens, that gives Sun’s father, Weike Sun, board control and positions Tron-aligned advisors in key governance roles. Weike was named chairman, while Zhihong Liu, also known as Steve Liu, a strategic adviser to Tron DAO and the CEO of stablecoin issuer Techteryx, and Zi Yang, a senior executive at Tronscan, joined the board’s audit, compensation, and nominating committees, according to the filing. — Sam Reynolds Read more.
  • U.S. banking giant JPMorgan has announced the pilot of a permissioned USD deposit token called JPMD on Base, the layer 2 Ethereum network built by listed exchange Coinbase (COIN). Earlier this week, the bank filed a trademark application for a crypto-focused platform named JPMD, designed to to offer services such as trading, exchange, transfer, and payment services for digital assets, as well as issuance of digital assets. The institution-focused JPMD, an alternative to stablecoins for the bank’s clients, marks the first deployment of JPMorgan’s Kinexys distributed ledger technology studio on a public blockchain, according to a press release. — Ian Allison Read more.
  • Iranian crypto exchange Nobitex has been hacked for $90 million by Israel-linked hacking activist group Gonjeshke Darande, according to a blog post from blockchain security firm Elliptic. The group said in an X post: “After Bank Sepah, it was Nobitex's turn,” referencing their Tuesday cyberattack on Iran’s state-owned lender. They warned that Nobitex’s internal data and source code would be released within a day, and any assets left on the exchange would be “at risk.” — Shaurya Malwa Read more.
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Regulatory and Policy

  • The overwhelming bipartisan passage of the U.S. Senate's stablecoin bill, with a 68-30 final vote that saw a huge surge of Democrats joining their Republican counterparts on Tuesday, sets a new high-water mark of crypto policy efforts in the U.S. as the legislation now heads to the House of Representatives. The major Democratic backing for the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins of 2025 (GENIUS) Act helps give it momentum as it lands in the other chamber, where House lawmakers can either vote on it as written or pursue changes that will require a final round in the Senate before it can head to President Donald Trump's desk. — Jesse Hamilton Read more.
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Calendar

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Binance Wallet Launches Alpha Earn Hub Amid Record $12.5B Daily Volume

Binance Wallet rolled out its Binance Alpha Earn Hub on Wednesday. The hub will reward users that provide liquidity on Alpha token token pools, offering a form of annual interest generated by trading fees generated from these pools.

The introduction of the hub comes as Binance Wallet surpassed $12.5 billion in daily on-chain volume, a record high spurred by increased activity around Binance Alpha, a platform that which hosts token launches and airdrops.

“Reaching a new all-time high of $12.5 billion in daily on-chain trading volume reflects the growing demand from users actively engaging with Binance Alpha on Binance Wallet,” said Winson Liu, Global Lead of Binance Wallet.

The recent release also means that liquidity providers will also earn points for managing positions on decentralized exchange PancakeSwap, which accessed via the Binance Alpha Earn Hub.

Points can be used to increase allocation of newly-issued tokens and will all eventually be converted into token airdrops.

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OpenSea Announces Upgraded Platform, Says SEA Token Airdrop to Come Later

OpenSea, a trading platform for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), officially introduced its OpenSea2 (OS2) upgrade to the wider public after a period in beta.

The revamped product now features token trading across 19 blockchains as it continues to pivot from NFTs to the wider crypto market.

“OS2 is the foundation for the next generation of OpenSea,” said Devin Finzer, co-founder and CEO of OpenSea, said in a statement. “We’ve rebuilt the platform from the ground up to become the best destination for everything on-chain, from NFTs to tokens, across chains and communities.”

The company also announced a revamp of its rewards system that recognizes on-chain activity with so-called XP points. The system, called Voyages, issues XP to users who complete basic activities like sharing a gallery, completing an on-chain swap or buying an NFT.

“Voyages are a clear step toward a more intentional kind of engagement on OpenSea,” said Finzer. “It’s about encouraging people to explore the full range of what the platform can do across chains, assets, and experiences.”

Users will eventually be able to use accrued XP to claims the highly anticipated airdrop of SEA, which will be the native OpenSea token.

OpenSea's chief marketing officer, Adam Hollander, said in a blog post that he “reads comments every day” in regards to when the token will be released, but insists that the OpenSea Foundation will issue the token in a token generation event (TGE) only once a series of releases are rolled out.

“As someone who’s spent the last four years trading in the trenches right next to you, I know what it’s like to want a $SEA airdrop,” Hollander said. “But I also know that this isn’t just another TGE — it’s the TGE. And getting it right won’t just be a W for the Foundation and OpenSea but for our entire space.”

The company has not set a date for when the token will be released.

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Coinbase-Backed Zora to Airdrop Token After a Week of Contentious Promotions

Onchain social media platform Zora said its ZORA token will go live on April 23, days after it gained viral traction on X after a push from the Base network team.

It outlined two snapshots for the drop in an X post, one covering activity from January 1, 2020, to March 3, 2025, and another from March 3 to April 20, 2025.

Snapshots are the ability to record the state of a blockchain at a specific point in time, often used to reward users in tokens based on their activity on that blockchain over a specific time period.

The Coinbase-backed Zora came into the spotlight last week after a push from Base creator Jesse Pollack on how the platform allowed the creation of “content coins” — or tokens that represented their underlying picture or word phrases in a tradeable form.

Pollack’s amplifications of several Zora-created tokens drew hype and activity to the platform, with user count and token creation setting records late last week. It attracted over 230,000 “new” traders (or wallets that interacted with the platform for the first time) on Sunday, data shows.

(Dune Analytics)

Base’s official X account posted about one such token, called “Base is for everyone,” which sent its market cap soaring from a few thousand to over $17 million within hours.

Blockchain sleuths later found three crypto wallets bought the tokens ahead of the official announcement — netting them a profit of $666,000, as reported.

Crypto exchange Coinbase, which develops and maintains Base, told CoinDesk at the time that is for everyone coin is not the official cryptocurrency of Base, and the layer 2 did not directly sell those.

Announcement of a token following such promotions has sent X users erupted with accusations of insider trading and poor communication.

“So it was literally an airdrop shill to create hype and liquidity for a dump of supply controlled by Coinbase Ventures? Got it,” snarked user @DCBcrypto.

Others, like @KienNguyen_NFT, predicted “Day 1 listing + insiders making 8 figs incoming,” while @blknoiz06 gave a backhanded compliment: “good marketing.”

Pollack has since squashed rumors of the Zora promotions being a marketing campaign, however.

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Interoperability Protocol Hyperlane Reveals Airdrop Details

The team behind interoperability protocol Hyperlane shared Thursday their upcoming token airdrop plans happening at the end of the month.

The airdrop will occur on April 22, and users can check their eligibility to receive $HYPER tokens via a portal provided by the Hyperlane Foundation by April 13, the team shared in a press release with CoinDesk.

The token distribution will mostly go to the community, with 57% of the supply going to users, while the remaining circulating tokens will be distributed to the core team (25%), investors (10.9%), and the foundation’s treasury (7.1%).

The team also shared that the airdrop will be fully unlocked for community recipients, while the core team and investors’ tokens will be locked for the first 12 months.

In addition to the token distribution to early users, Hyperlane is coming out with their “expansion rewards” program, which is based on developer and cross-chain end-user activity, and will be distributed to users each quarter proportional to their activity on the network.

“The retroactive token allocation at TGE is just the first of many over the coming several years, as protocol ownership begins moving into the hands of the developers and end-users who rely on Hyperlane to send assets and other critical messages across chains,” said Nam Chu Hoai, a co-founder of Hyperlane.

Read more: Blockchain Startup Hyperlane Raises $18.5M Round Led by Crypto Investor Variant

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OpenSea Confirms Upcoming Token Airdrop, Expands to Crypto Trading

Popular non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea said Thursday that it is expanding its platform to crypto trading and confirmed it is planning to distribute SEA tokens to users.

The trading platform called OS2 has launched today, and aggregates marketplaces, allows cross-chain purchasing and offers lower fees in the beginning, according to the protocol’s press release.

“This represents an expansion of OpenSea from an NFT marketplace to a much broader platform for trading all types of digital assets,” said Devin Finzer, Co-founder and CEO of OpenSea. “We think tokens and NFTs belong together in a single, powerful, delightful experience.”

OpenSea Foundation, the Cayman Islands-based development organization behind the protocol, will also distribute SEA tokens offering utility on the OS2 platform.

While details and date of the airdrop remain undisclosed, OpenSea has confirmed that SEA will recognize both active users and those who have been part of the platform since its early days. US users will be included in the airdrop.

OpenSea has said that SEA’s utility will be focused on long-term engagement rather than short-term speculation.

The platform’s monthly trading volume is down significantly from a $5 billion peak in early 2021, having facilitated trading of $190 million worth of NFTs last month. The platform’s annualized revenue stands at $33 million, according to Dune Analytics data.

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OpenSea Confirms Upcoming Token Airdrop, Expands to Crypto Trading

Popular non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea said Thursday that it is expanding its platform to crypto trading and confirmed it is planning to distribute SEA tokens to users.

The trading platform called OS2 has launched today, and aggregates marketplaces, allows cross-chain purchasing and offers lower fees in the beginning, according to the protocol’s press release.

“This represents an expansion of OpenSea from an NFT marketplace to a much broader platform for trading all types of digital assets,” said Devin Finzer, Co-founder and CEO of OpenSea. “We think tokens and NFTs belong together in a single, powerful, delightful experience.”

OpenSea Foundation, the Cayman Islands-based development organization behind the protocol, will also distribute SEA tokens offering utility on the OS2 platform.

While details and date of the airdrop remain undisclosed, OpenSea has confirmed that SEA will recognize both active users and those who have been part of the platform since its early days. US users will be included in the airdrop.

OpenSea has said that SEA’s utility will be focused on long-term engagement rather than short-term speculation.

The platform’s monthly trading volume is down significantly from a $5 billion peak in early 2021, having facilitated trading of $190 million worth of NFTs last month. The platform’s annualized revenue stands at $33 million, according to Dune Analytics data.

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OpenSea Denies Airdrop-Related Talk of Enforced Customer Identification

Non-fungible token (NFT) platform OpenSea denied reports that users claiming a potential airdrop will be forced to complete detailed identification, or know-your-customer (KYC), checks.

“This is all completely false,” OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer wrote on X in response to a post that referred to the terms and conditions on the OpenSea Foundation website.

The terms and conditions also said users would be restricted from using VPNs and users in the U.S. would not be able to claim. The page contained “boilerplate language” and was “on a test website for a short period of time,” Finzer said.

Speculation over an OpenSea airdrop has been swirling since December after it registered an entity named OpenSea Foundation in the Cayman Islands, coinciding with the release of a new version of the platform dubbed “OS2.”

X user Adam Hollander said that he had a conversation with the OpenSea chief and “folks in the USA will be happy with the Foundation’s actual announcement when they make it,” seemingly confirming an airdrop will take place.

Polymarket odds weighing whether OpenSea would issue an airdrop before April spiked from 25% to 45% following Finzer’s tweets.

Trading volume on OpenSea has experienced a significant drop since the previous bull run in 2022, when it notched a record $2.7 billion of volume in a single day. Volume for all of January this year was just $194 million, according to Dune.

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Jupiter to Issue $612M JUP Tokens in Wednesday Airdrop

Jupiter, a Solana-based decentralized exchange, will airdrop 700 million JUP tokens to its community on Wednesday in what it is calling the “largest airdrop in history.”

The airdrop is a part of the project’s annual “Jupuary” event, which was voted into existence alongside another event in 2026 in a governance vote in December. It is scheduled to start at 15:30 UTC.

Initial concerns were raised about the sustainability of supply increase, prompting the proposal to be amended to include a token audit and burn schedule over the next month.

At the time of writing JUP is trading at $0.87 after sliding by 2% over the past 24 hours. The total value of the airdrop is set to be $612 million.

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Magic Eden’s $5B Token Airdrop Raises Crypto Wallet Security Questions

Early traders of NFT marketplace Magic Eden's new token ME had a lot to be thankful for – if they could access their airdrops, that is.

In the first minutes of trading Tuesday, the token's fully diluted valuation hit $15 billion. But as more claimants managed to process their airdrops – and in some lucky cases, sell – that valuation began to crater. It eventually settled at an FDV around $5 billion.

ME's rocky rollout stood in sharp contrast to other recent token launches. Hyperliquid's HYPE <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/11/29/hyper-liquids-native-token-debuts-at-fully-diluted-4-2-b-market-cap" target="_blank">token</a> immediately went parabolic after launching in late November. And Move's days-old <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/12/09/movement-networks-move-will-be-listed-on-binance-upbit-and-bithumb-amid-airdrop" target="_blank">MOVE</a> token had a far more stable rollout – even shooting up at times.

Some observers saw ME's down-only price action as comeuppance for a crypto project whose airdrop processing procedure was highly atypical, and, according to three industry insiders, threatened to breach security best practices.

Magic Eden did not respond to CoinDesk's questions.

Traders who managed to claim thousands of dollars-worth of ME publicly <a href="https://x.com/SolJakey/status/1866492373259419778" target="_blank">shunned</a> anyone badmouthing their "free money." Others bemoaned <a href="https://x.com/DegenJhoLow/status/1866492283543335291" target="_blank">apparently</a> getting their wallets drained while wading through Magic Eden's convoluted process.

It was a mixed day for Solana's best-known NFT trading platform, which has partly weathered the hollowing-out of crypto's digital collectibles economy by supporting newer, flashier and more highly-traded NFTs on the Bitcoin blockchain too.

Security concerns

The same wallet issues that complicated ME's launch also could threaten user privacy, according to one industry source who asked not to be named.

Magic Eden earmarked ME tokens for NFT traders as a reward for their past business. To get their airdrop, those traders had to either import the private keys from their qualifying wallets into Magic Eden's wallet app or create a new wallet on Magic Eden's app and link it to their old ones. The latter action potentially creates a privacy-busting link between previously unaffiliated wallets.

Usually, crypto apps are content to let their users claim airdrops within their wallet of preference. Of course, most apps don't pair their token launch with an in-house wallet. The process doubtless boosted adoption of Magic Eden's new wallet.

Nevertheless, CoinDesk found a number of atypical security practices within the Magic Eden wallet. It keeps a backup of users' recovery phrases and private keys on-app with no clear route to delete that information. While this makes the service more user-friendly, it also goes against established norms in wallet design and security.

"It's a very bad idea to store this stuff" anywhere digitally, be it locally on one's own device or – even worse – remotely on a company's servers, said Ogle, a pseudonymous crypto-security sleuth. It's not clear exactly where Magic Eden is storing the wallet recovery information.

The process also opened up airdrop claimants to attack from bad actors who might pretend to be Magic Eden.

Wallets created within Magic Eden's app cannot easily be transferred to other wallet applications. CoinDesk attempted to recover a Magic Eden-created wallet on Phantom by using the Magic Eden-provided 12-word recovery phrase. This process resulted in the control of a completely different address.

An industry source said it had to do with Magic Eden's reliance on a different tech setup than other leading wallets. It can be overcome by importing the private key, which is nestled deeper in Magic Eden's app settings.

Not-so-savvy users might attempt to move their Magic Eden wallets to a different app using the 12 word recovery phrase alone.

"They are not going to be finding any money in there," the insider said, predicting such users would panic, and perhaps incorrectly assume their money was gone for good.