WHAT'S WORTH NOTING IN THE UPCOMING MŌHALU PHASE OF MIDNIGHT
According to my research, @MidnightNetwork has been confirmed in the network status report from February 2026 that the Kūkolu phase will end at the end of March and the Mōhalu phase may begin at the beginning of April 2026.
The Mōhalu phase will mainly focus on building the ecosystem in the real environment and expanding partnerships to apply Privacy solutions in areas such as AI Agent, DeFi,... Below are 3 noteworthy points that I have summarized:
1. Mōhalu will start to expand the validator set - stake pool operators (SPO) and community nodes are activated, beginning the process of transitioning from federated to community-driven block production. This means that if you are staking ADA on Cardano, your familiar SPO may soon participate directly in Midnight.
2. Launch of DUST Capacity Exchange, this is a renewable resource used to pay for smart contract and privacy operations, it automatically "recharges" over time based on the amount of NIGHT being held.
3. Rewards for participants in the Scaled Incentivized Testnet, this will be implemented in the upcoming Mōhalu phase, everyone should keep an eye out for any opportunities
It can be seen that the Midnight team is significantly improving the technical infrastructure for SPOs, transitioning from Docker-only to pre-compiled binaries, eliminating the registration wizard, and prioritizing air-gapped signing to secure validator keys. This is a signal that they are preparing for the expansion of node operators.
Anyone knowledgeable about this, please enlighten me 👇