Last year during Glacier Drop, I spent the entire night on Discord. Back then, NIGHT was just a concept of a 'testnet token', and the numbers on the exchange page were like scores in a game. To be honest, I didn't take it too seriously—I've seen many airdrops, but few that actually materialized.

Looking back today, those 4.5 billion NIGHT are no longer just numbers.

They have been listed on a total of 10 exchanges. They are protected by institutional custodians like BitGo and Fireblocks. They are being tracked in real-time on CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap. Yesterday, Monument Bank announced that it would deposit £250 million into Midnight, using NIGHT as the ecological foundation.

@MidnightNetwork named the mainnet phase Kūkolu, which means 'third' in Hawaiian. It’s not a one-step process, but a gradual approach. First, the federal nodes stabilize the network, and then slowly transfer control to the community.

This 'slow and steady' pace is something the project team has really thought through—Midnight's ambition is not to 'issue tokens', but to build a privacy network that can support real business. $NIGHT is not meant for speculation; it is the 'foundation' of the entire ecosystem.

I have always thought that the relationship between Midnight and NIGHT is like a building and its foundation.

Midnight is that building, a privacy city constructed using zero-knowledge proofs. NIGHT is the rebar and concrete in the foundation—it determines how high the building can be and how much wind it can withstand. The 4.5 billion NIGHT exchanged by the community is the 'load-bearing wall' of this building. Every single NIGHT that is held and staked contributes to the network's security and stability.

Monument Bank chose Midnight not because of the price of NIGHT, but because behind those 4.5 billion tokens stand 10 exchanges, 7 custodians, two major data platforms, and tens of thousands of ordinary users like me who have followed from the testnet.

On March 25, the first block of the Midnight mainnet was generated. This block was not copied from any testnet; it was created from scratch, specifically for 'default privacy'.

As someone who has followed from the testnet, watching NIGHT transform from airdrop numbers into real assets on exchanges, from 'can be exchanged' to 'is already in use', I do feel a bit emotional.

The 4.5 billion NIGHT were exchanged by the community and then flowed globally. This is not a story of the project team 'issuing tokens'; it is the process of community 'co-building'. And I am one of those 4.5 billion. #night