Rays of Sunshine in 2026

Hi, this is Charles Hoskinson broadcasting live from warm, sunny Colorado. Always warm, always sunny. Sometimes Colorado. Today is December 18th, 2025. We’re seven days from Christmas, and we’re looking to a new year.

We’re reflecting upon this year, and I made some videos recently from a position of frustration and disappointment, especially in the industry as a whole. A lot of stuff has happened; it’s been probably the toughest year of my life. But I didn’t want to make a video just to say how tough it is. I wanted to talk about the good stuff and the fact that we’re leading the market for the first time in a long time, and it feels right. This time really does.

The Midnight Project is a little bit of everything to everyone. We said, let’s do something a little different. I’ll tell you the tale of two projects to give you some context. Back in the day, there was a project called ALEO. Perfectly reasonable, lots of good people there, very smart people.

They even poached one or two of our people, Eduardo and a few others. They did a proof of work, proof of stake privacy coin, implemented Zexe, and had much fanfare—$300 million from Coinbase and A16Z. All these super smart people, all these built-in advantages, all the friends, all this other stuff. And look how smart we are. [laughter] Let me show you a little something.

The market cap is $77 million, and they have about $5.8 million of trading volume. It’s not a bad project; there are a lot of cool and interesting things they’re doing. It’s just tough markets, right? Then there’s Ellie Ben Sassan.

He’s a super good guy, a very good friend, very smart, very technical, a wonderful professor. Starks are revolutionary; they’ve really pushed the state-of-the-art. Their market cap is $410 million with $72 million in volume. ZKYNC, they’re the OGs in the Ethereum scalability and rollup side of things, with a market cap of $279 million and $29 million in volume because it’s been tough. Mina, these guys were the recursive snark project.

I remember that. In fact, they want to implement or Prow and all the other stuff. Their market cap is $97 million, with trading volume around $10 million to $15 million. They got Binance spot and Coinbase listings. Now, Midnight has a $1 billion market cap and $1.

8 billion in trading volume, and it doesn’t even have Binance spot yet. When you look at all these things as a reference, you have Angel List, Naval Ravikant, A16Z, Vitalik Buterin, all of his friends, Intel Ventures, and God knows how many investors. Why is Midnight where it sits? Because people know it’s different. when you add up all those capitalizations together, guess what?

We’re larger than that, and we just started as an ecosystem. We have unprecedented volume because deep down inside, people know what’s happening. They know that a new generation is starting. We need a new paradigm, and we have to reset and launch things differently. They’re just tired of the way things have happened before.

They want something new. Midnight is not just a privacy coin. Midnight will enable rational privacy and selective disclosure, but it’s so much more. It’s the platform for intents, hybrid applications, capacity exchange, dual tokenomics, and multi-resource consensus. Yes, there are snarks, rollups, recursion, and folding, but it’s never been about those from a scalability perspective.

It’s about real-world applications. People know that Midnight is one of those few projects that has the potential to run trillions of dollars worth of transactions on it. That’s why they’re excited. They asked, “Can I believe in it? Is there an ICO?

Is there an insider? Who’s going to dump on me?” They just gave it away—eight different ecosystems, seven chains. All the VCs wanted in, but they got nothing. It was just given to the people.

Let the people have it, let them think about it, and build up the ecosystem and community. what? Japan hasn’t even turned on yet. That’s where they love me the most. Then we got Hong Kong, with so many amazing announcements coming.

All the integrations are coming—tier one stable coins and integrations with bridges and oracles. We just announced Pith, and many more are to come. It will be connected to the entire space. But really, the core of all of this is that we’re doing something different and new, and we’re changing things. It’s a new generation.

I’ve been fortunate enough to be here for the first generation, the second generation, the third generation, and now we’re in the fourth generation. This is the last generation that’s going to solve the cryptocurrency problem. It’s going to bring retail in, unify the marketplaces, and get rid of DeFi and Trafi. There’s just going to be FI. I believe that in my heart because all the pieces are there.

We have all the relationships and partnerships, the pragmatism, and the hybridization of the technology. All the stacks of these various things are here. We figured it out; we know how to put all the pieces together. Every day, we talk about how to bring more people to the table because Midnight is not just about Midnight. It’s about bringing the industry together, doing things differently, and returning to first principles.

Every person who touches it gets better. People say, “Oh, well, won’t this kill Cardano?” No, this is what’s going to 10x the Cardano DeFi ecosystem. At the end of the day, let’s do the thought experiment. Let’s say Leo ships and Hydra ships, and we’re better, faster, and cheaper.

Great. What reason does someone have to leave Solana? What reason does someone have to leave Ethereum? Because the transaction fee is 3% less? That’s really going to get migration.

That’s going to get users to come over. They’re going to leave because they don’t have to leave. They could go through Midnight to Cardano and get privacy. They do something new and different. Midnight, in my view, will be through hybrid applications.

If Cardano’s first to upgrade, Cardano applications utilizing Midnight will be able to get all kinds of new users and experiences—private prediction markets, private DEXs, private stable coins. And maybe, just maybe, when you look at Bitcoin DeFi, all those Bitcoin people will want to trade on a private DEX instead of a public DEX. Maybe they care about that. Maybe that’s something significant and meaningful to them. We could have volumes in the billions of dollars of turnover every single day.

That is the market opportunity. It’s not about better, faster, cheaper, because that’s commoditization. Even if you’re better, faster, cheaper, there’s always a way to be better, faster, cheaper in 18 months. It’s about doing new things that people have never seen before. You don’t compete with the BlackBerry by building a better hardware keyboard.

You compete with the BlackBerry by building multi-touch. Do something people haven’t seen before. I believe in my heart that over the next 12 months, when we look to the future, this is the model that’s going to win. Be friends with everybody, be cooperative with everybody, put your heart on your sleeve, give it away, and let them do the right thing. We see $1.

8 billion of trading volume today. We’re not even on Binance spot or Coinbase because Coinbase invested in ALEO and won’t list us for that reason. They will, because they’re actually losing like $20 million annually in trading fees by not listing. [snorts] Guys can recoup your investment pretty quickly. [laughter] We know what to do.

We know how to do it, and most importantly, we’ve got the community to do it. Midnight is a really special thing, and I wanted to make a video to tell you there are a lot of rays of sunshine and a lot of hope. Sometimes you just know in your heart you’ve got the model right, and sometimes you’ve got something special. I remember January of 2014, I was at the Ethereum house with all the other guys, and everybody in that house deep down inside knew we had something very special, unique, and different. We knew there was something there that was going to change the entire world.

When I look to Midnight, I see the community we have, the people there, and I see that same passion and enthusiasm. What’s really exciting is that this makes every other cryptocurrency better. Cardano needs a few things to get back in the game, and Bitcoin DeFi will certainly do it. Tier one integrations will certainly do it, and some upgrades like Lace and Hydra will certainly do it. Pound for pound, it makes us the most competitive and best platform to build on, but we’re only going to win if we can do things differently.

We get first access to this amazing new thing that’s going to change everything. That makes me happy; we get to take them along for the ride. what’s going to happen? Everybody else will get jealous, so they’ll go use Midnight too because it’s the ChatGPT of privacy. Just send stuff in, and stuff comes out.

I’m pretty proud of that too. I’m going to take it to the whole world. I’m going to travel a lot next year. I’m going to Japan, and I’m going to go from Hokkaido all the way down the archipelago to Okinawa. We’re going to talk to all our old friends there—people who bought in at $72 million and are now sitting on a $134 billion ecosystem.

It’s time to bring the old gang back together because we’ve got to change the world. We’re not done. We need this for real fight. We need this for banking the unbanked. We need this to create one universal cryptocurrency market.

This technology needs to exist. Let’s go get that done. Then we’ll go to Korea. These markets love us. We’re going to go to the rest of the industry kicking and screaming.

They’ve been kicking and screaming every step of the way. We’re going to do Cardano Midnight and show them how it’s done. Then we’re going to do Midnight Ethereum two months later, Midnight Solana two months later, Midnight Avalanche two months later, and Midnight Bitcoin. Bring them in. Every single one of them will say, “God damn it, we want that.

” We want the homomorphic encryption, the multi-party computation, the zero-knowledge cryptography, the private intents, the private DEX. We just want it. We need it. We’ve got to have it. It’s a big thing.

[__] And I can pay in Sol, I can pay in Ether, and I can pay in Bitcoin. Predictable pricing. [__] Why are you guys so good? You’ve got the model. You’ve figured it out.

That’s what’s going to happen in the next 24 months. It’s just going to be so much work on our side every two to three months. It’s just going to be hitting the pavement again and again and again. That’s why there’s $1.8 billion worth of volume, and that’s why the market cap is where it’s sitting despite the fact that we just launched because people know we’re serious.

People know we’ve got a mission. They know this is not just another token. They know this is the thing that brings cryptocurrency back. We’re all done. We’re all tired.

We got rugged by the president of the United States of America, guys. We’re tired. We’re done. It’s over. We watched all this up and down.

We watched memecoin mania. We watched NFT mania. We watched all this nonsense. We’re done with it. We want to do real things.

We want the respect back. People working in this industry want to go this Christmas in seven days and tell their family, “I work in crypto,” and have it be a good thing. That’s what they want. And what? We’re just going to do it next year.

Midnight is the platform to get this done. Kicking and screaming if we have to. We’re going to drag this whole industry and all these people with us, and we’re going to get back to respectability and credibility. The third generation is dead. It’s over.

Long live the third generation. The fourth generation is here—rational privacy, selective disclosure, and cooperation. Kicking and screaming, we’re going to bring the markets together. Kicking and screaming, we’re going to bring the next two billion people in. Kicking and screaming, retail is going to return, and they’re going to return to decentralization.

They’re going to return to first principles, truly resilient networks, and the freedom of association, commerce, and expression. That’s why we’re worth right now more than ZK, Darkware, ALEO, and Mina combined because deep down inside, people know Charles Hoskinson is serious. I’ve been here longer than pretty much anybody else, with just a few exceptions. I’m only going to stay if it’s a real industry. I’m so tired of the corruption, the nepotism, the lies, the scams, the rug pulls, and all this nonsense.

I don’t have to be here, guys. I don’t want to be here in that world. I’m only going to be here if there’s something real and meaningful. And what? I got so tired of waiting for it; we’re just going to build it ourselves.

So, we look to the future, and every step of the way, it’s going to get bigger and bigger. Thousands of people have already asked to be ambassadors in Midnight. We’re going to pick our top 10 to top 20, and they’re going to come with me to Japan. Every step of the way, we’re going to fight hard. Then they’re going to come with me to Hong Kong, and every step of the way, we’re going to fight hard.

We’re going to march to a million people in our Discord. We’ll find a way to make that happen because we have about 1.5 million people that got Knight tokens. That’s why the volume is so high, and they’re moving their way through. We’re going to march to 10 million, then to 100 million because I am done with this nonsense.

I want to be proud of this industry. I want to be proud of these people. I want to be proud of the products we build, the outcomes, and I want to have tangible, hard, real numbers and facts and KPIs to say we made a difference. We made this industry great, and Midnight can bring this to Ethereum, Salana, Bitcoin, and XRP. There’s no discrimination here; we’re taking everybody along for the ride.

Little by little, they’re going to believe it. Little by little, we’re going to get stronger. Little by little, we’re going to get more integrated. They’ll be wowed by the fact that we’ve got the right technology. We pulled all the right pieces together.

We have the right team. We’ve been training for this day for six years, and we have endured so much. That’s the commitment. In the next 12 months, we’re going to fight like hell. We’re going to push like hell.

And when we end the year, it’s going to be so strong. We have to, or else it’s not worth it. That’s the way it’s going to be. And I have an army—the Cardano army, the XRP nation. We’ve got all the Bitcoiners, even the Maxis, because they want privacy.

Damn it. We’ve got the Ethereum people; deep down inside, they want us back. It’s a grievous wound we’ve all had for 10 years. It’s over. All the grievances of the past are done.

We’ve got the pentad now, working together with people. All the egos, all this other nonsense—just set it aside. It’s done. Stop it. Let’s go win.

Let’s just do it. Let’s win. Let’s make this work for once. Let’s actually do what we say we’re going to do for once. Let’s actually be able to cash the checks that we write for once.

Let’s let this industry actually do something meaningful. Yes, there will still be scams. Yes, there will still be rugs. Yes, there are still going to be ups and downs and good days in the market and bad days in the market. But what?

I just don’t care anymore because we’ve got clarity of purpose. When you have clarity, vision, and discipline, and you have an army of people willing to wake up every day and get it done, you get it done. That’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to wake up every day and get it done every step of the day. We’ll go to Japan, Hong Kong, Canada, Australia, Germany, England, Italy, Argentina, Venezuela, Chile, Brazil, and Guatemala.

We’re going to go all around the world, one person after another. We’re going to win them over and say, “what? It’s different this time.” why? Because you’re in charge.

It’s different this time. why? Because you bring your thing, and we make your thing better. We make Ether better. We make Bitcoin better.

I don’t care what your thing is; we will bring your thing and make it better. We’ll show them how to do it with Cardano, and then we’re going to show the rest of the world how to do it. That’s what we’re going to do every step of the way. That’s what we must do. We’re going to be proud of this.

At the end of the day, we’re going to look back on December 18th, 2026, and we’re going to say, “Was it worth it? Did we win? Did we accomplish?” And we’re going to say, “God damn it, we did. We’re proud of this.

We made it happen. That’s what we’ve got to do as an industry.” So, the people working here can say, “I work in the cryptocurrency industry.” And people will say, “That’s cool and interesting, and what? You guys are doing great work.

” Not, “I lost my money, and you guys are scammers and ruggers and terrible people.” I don’t care about the cynical people on cryptocurrency Reddit. what? Be part of the solution or be part of the problem. Shut the [__] up.

Go home. Get out of your goddamn basement. Stop sucking off your mom. Get a real job and get a real life. We got all the partners ready to go—Fortune 10 all the way down to nobody's and everybody in between.

They want this too because we found a way to make them money. [laughter] That's the dirty secret of it. Spread it around, Joey. Spread that wealth. Everybody gets a little taste.

Eight ecosystems, seven blockchains. That was the beginning. And, god damn, we got more to come. We got fire, man. We got fire.

So, I hope this gives you some perspective and some rays of sunshine. No criticism to ZK Sync, Starknet, Alleo, and Mina. Good people, good projects. They fight hard, work hard, and they've done a lot of great work, and we stand on the shoulders of those people. But this is the first time ever that anybody's pulled the whole package together: multi-resource consensus, hybrid applications, private intents, multi-chain signatures, distributed key generation—the whole pet gamut.

Homomorphic encryption, NPC, zero knowledge. It will take a while to roll it all out. God damn, it's complicated. But it's the ChatGPT of the pet world. You basically just have this API.

You send something in, you get something back. And every six months, it gets better. That's what we're going to do. And that's why they have 800 million users. That's why they change the world.

And what? They're going to have a billion here in just a little bit. We will too because everybody wants what we're selling as an ecosystem. So let's go get it done, Cardano. Let's go get it done, XRP Nation.

Let's go get it done, Bitcoin. Let's go get it done, Ethereum. Let's go get it done, Solana. Let's go get it done, Avalanche. Let's go get it done, BNB.

Let's get it done for everybody, for the industry, for our pride, and frankly, to finally be able to cash the checks that we write. Good night.