Cardano Founder Disputes CoinMarketCap’s $1.81 ATH for Midnight, Says No One Bought NIGHT At That Level

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has disputed CoinMarketCap’s claim that Midnight hit an ATH, arguing the token never genuinely traded at the reported $1.81 level.

Hoskinson made the remarks in response to reports highlighting NIGHT’s sharp decline from its purported $1.81 ATH. According to him, NIGHT hit $1.81 at launch in December 2025 and that it did not represent a level at which investors could meaningfully buy the token.

Instead, the Cardano founder argued that the figure resulted from the initial price-discovery process rather than sustained market trading. He stated that no one bought at that price, suggesting that treating $1.81 as NIGHT’s legitimate ATH could give a misleading picture of the token’s historical market performance.

Furthermore, Hoskinson compared the situation to a hypothetical $2 trillion valuation reading for Zcash, arguing that an extreme figure recorded during a token’s launch should not necessarily be treated as a genuine market valuation.

CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko Record Different NIGHT ATHs

The comments followed a CoinGape report that described NIGHT as being around 90% below its $1.81 ATH after the token surged nearly 159% to $0.048 in late September.

However, CoinMarketCap highlights $1.81 as NIGHT’s ATH, while CoinGecko records a substantially lower peak of $0.1185. The difference between the figures significantly affects how the token’s historical performance is measured.

For example, using the $1.81 figure makes NIGHT appear to have fallen more than 97% from its peak when trading around $0.05. In contrast, CoinGecko’s $0.1185 ATH puts the token’s decline at roughly 57%. 

NIGHT Extends Recovery Above $0.05

Meanwhile, NIGHT has continued its recovery following the late-September rally.

The token recently climbed above $0.05 and reached a multi-month high of $0.05257 before retracing toward $0.05. CoinMarketCap also ranked NIGHT as the strongest gainer among the top 100 cryptocurrencies over a 24-hour period, with gains exceeding 24%.

NIGHT significantly outpaced the second-biggest gainer on the list, which advanced 8.97% during the same period.

At the same time, the token’s latest momentum has coincided with several developments across the Midnight ecosystem.

Midnight Expands Mainnet Capabilities

Midnight recently announced that permissionless smart contract deployment is now live on its mainnet. The development allows developers to deploy smart contracts directly while also enabling applications to deploy contracts on behalf of users.

In addition, Midnight highlighted several ecosystem developments, including GeroWallet’s support for Midnight dApps, a Google Cloud Midnight testnet faucet, Noctis Zone’s launch on Preprod, and Ura Finance’s testing of DUST sponsorship for applications.

These developments provide additional context for NIGHT’s recent rally. However, they do not, on their own, establish the specific factors responsible for the token’s price movement.