After staring at the dual-token model of @MidnightNetwork for a long time, my first reaction was not how safe it is, but that this project party really knows how to calculate.
Many people are tangled up in the relationship between NIGHT and DUST. In fact, it is easy to understand if you see it as a 'goose that lays eggs.' You hold NIGHT (the goose), and it will automatically produce DUST (the eggs) for you. The key is that this egg cannot be directly listed for sale; it can only be used as fuel.
I just made a simple comparison table for this logic the day before yesterday and found that there is a tough game in it. This non-transferable DUST setting is actually the project party artificially creating a separation of 'usage rights' and 'ownership.'
The benefits of this approach are very clear; it can isolate pure speculators, preventing network nodes from being driven up by those who only want to trade coins.
However, I have a concern that this self-circulating closed loop has extremely high demands for external incremental funds. If Midnight's ecological applications cannot emerge, then a pile of DUST in hand will truly become digital garbage.
I took a look at the news about Google Cloud entering the node market today; this matter needs to be viewed dialectically.
Compliance is indeed a stepping stone, but it could also be a death knell.
With endorsements from major companies, the influx of institutional money has indeed faced no obstacles, but will this kind of 'semi-transparent' privacy protection make real whales feel restricted?
I guess those real dark pool traders might still hide in the old privacy chains to observe.
The current market sentiment is actually quite torn; on one hand, everyone is shouting that the privacy sector is about to explode, while on the other hand, there is fear that these projects embracing regulation will ultimately become attached to traditional finance.
I think this project is likely to carve out an extremely stable curve, but if you expect it to surge violently like those meme projects, that seems unrealistic at the moment, as the IOG team behind it is notoriously slow in action.
As for the current strategy, I plan to hold onto the points I earned from participating in the previous tests. At this stage, Midnight's value resembles a long-term bullish option, especially when it can serve as a sidechain to support Cardano.
My judgment is that compliant privacy is the big direction for the future, but whether this project can take the largest piece of the pie still depends on whether the actual burning speed of DUST after the mainnet can keep up with the issuance speed of NIGHT. Let's see if we can leave three parts out of seven; don't just dive in headfirst.
