NIGHT has been obtained, but what is DUST?

Those who participated in Scavenger Mine or received Glacier Drop may now have some $NIGHT in their accounts, but Midnight's token model is dual-token, consisting of NIGHT and another token, DUST.

DUST is the actual utility token on the chain, used to pay for transaction fees and smart contract execution costs. In other words, just holding NIGHT means you can’t do anything on Midnight.

This design itself is logical.

Separating value storage from actual use is intended to keep transaction fees stable on the chain, preventing user experience from becoming unpredictable due to fluctuations in NIGHT's price.

Ethereum's ETH serves both as a store of value and as gas, causing transaction fees to surge to unreasonable levels during network congestion. Midnight's dual-token design aims to bypass this issue.

But for ordinary users, this creates a very practical dilemma: how do you obtain DUST?

According to publicly available information, DUST is obtained by running nodes on the Midnight network or participating in on-chain activities, not directly purchased assets.

Node operation requires hardware and technical barriers. The nodes in the Kūkolu phase are all run by institutions like Google Cloud, MoneyGram, and eToro; ordinary people have no entry point at all. Obtaining DUST through on-chain activities requires there to be activities available to participate in, but the mainnet has just launched, and the number of DApps is practically zero.

In other words, the current state is: NIGHT can be purchased from exchanges, but there is no public way to obtain DUST, and without DUST, you cannot use this chain.

This issue will be gradually resolved as the mainnet develops. The official roadmap has an incentive testnet phase in Q2, and Q3 is when cross-chain LayerZero integration will occur. By that time, the distribution mechanism of DUST should be clearer.

But right now, it is in a strange state, where #night is priced and available on exchanges, while DUST, the more critical token, is completely inaccessible to ordinary people.

This is not a problem unique to Midnight; many dual-token designs face similar dilemmas in the early stages. If the circulation of the other token doesn't keep up, the entire system operates in a semi-functional state.

Think from the perspective of participants.

If you buy NIGHT now, you are hoping that the Midnight privacy chain will appreciate after it is up and running. However, for the chain to function, there need to be applications built on it, and applications require DUST to execute contracts. To obtain DUST, one must either run a node or already have applications to participate in, but neither of these options is currently available, causing the entire chain to be stuck at the DUST stage.

There is another detail worth noting.

There is currently no publicly fixed mechanism for the exchange rate between NIGHT and DUST, which means that when DUST really starts circulating, its pricing will be entirely determined by the market.

If DUST is in high demand but supply is limited, transaction fees may be much higher than expected; if there is too much DUST supply, it will dilute the earnings from participating in node operations. Where this balance point lies is currently unknown.

$NIGHT The price has hovered around 0.044 for some time, dropping over 60% from its peak in the last 90 days. Holders are waiting for the day when the mainnet truly becomes active, but there is no timetable for this wait until the DUST mechanism is operational.

Personal opinion, not investment advice!