Welcome Binance

Hi, this is Charles Hoskinson broadcasting live from warm, sunny Colorado. Today is a very exciting day, a major accomplishment for the Cardano ecosystem as a whole, and I want to share it with all of you. As when we launched Midnight, the Night token was listed on Binance Alpha, and there were many conversations about when Midnight would come to Binance Spot, the big exchange. Binance just tweeted today that they are excited to announce the Midnight holder airdrop. BNB holders, get ready!

The airdrop page is available on the Binance airdrop, and they are getting their distribution. Plus, the token is going to be listed on Binance soon. Midnight coming to Binance Spot is a significant milestone for the ecosystem. It opens the door for all other Cardano native assets. This was a very high bar; it's the largest market in the world.

You may have noticed recently that CZ is now richer than Bill Gates, marking a big inflection point in the industry. There's a reason for that: 80% of all coin trading is done on Binance. It's the market of markets, the granddaddy of them all, with half a billion customers. Midnight has always been a large part of the chain abstraction story, one of the pillars of Midnight, that triangle of abstraction. One of the exciting things is that when you look at where this is going, centralized exchanges (CEXs) and decentralized exchanges (DEXs) are coming together.

Traditional finance and DeFi are also merging. Binance has always been at the forefront of that with BNB and their infrastructure. When Midnight integrates with this infrastructure, we can reimagine the art of the possible with compliance, moving into the smart compliance world, which will open up $10 trillion of real-world assets. This goes beyond just making exchanges safer and more efficient, especially for things like travel, compliance, and provability without revealing the underlying information. Zero-knowledge (ZK) technology will play a big part in the story of all modern exchanges.

The first step is to be where the action is, and we're extremely excited that Binance announced today that Midnight is coming to Spot. This is a big deal for everyone in the ecosystem. That barrier has been broken now, similar to when Coinbase listed ADA back in 2021, which was a significant moment for us as an ecosystem. Most recently, we saw USDCX getting it done. I'm proud of everyone at the Midnight Foundation and everyone in the broader Cardano ecosystem.

This was a heavy lift, and a lot had to happen. Some people wrote off Cardano, claiming it couldn't launch a billion-dollar project or get tier-one liquidity, saying Cardano's days in the DeFi space were over and that it was no longer relevant. Today, we can show that they were all wrong. You don't get too many days like this, and when they come, I enjoy them. I want to thank everyone at the Midnight Foundation, from Fahmy Syed on down, and everyone at Shielded, from Mike Ward on down.

I also want to thank the Binance organization; they've been phenomenal to work with. My friend CZ has built a great organization with excellent leadership. I want to thank my friend Gabe Abed, the chairman of Binance. We've been friends for a decade and a half, both being part of the Crypto Island boys—he's in Barbados, and I was in Hawaii. I also want to thank all the rank-and-file staff at Binance and the BNB team.

There are a lot of moving pieces in situations like this, and it's always nice when everything comes together. It's a great ecosystem with a great culture and many wonderful people. There are certainly ups and downs, but this is one of those ups. To the young Midnight ecosystem and community, to the Knight Force and all the ambassadors, and to everyone in the Midnight Discord, we are going to create some exciting things in Midnight City to showcase the power and magic of BNB. Midnight City, as is an agentic civilization, and soon you'll be able to get your own agents.

You can buy them with Knight and maintain them monthly, similar to having a Tamagotchi. This will create a lot of demand, but more importantly, you'll get to participate in an agentic civilization. We're excited to see that happen, and when a big event like this occurs, Midnight City has to celebrate it. We'll ensure that this gets listed in the roadmap as well. Anyway, I'm just rambling a bit now because I'm happy.

It's a good day. Thanks, everybody. It's an exciting day, and congratulations! Cardano native assets are now listed on Binance. How about that?