Cardano price drops 6.5% despite the Midnight mint event

Midnight airdrop enters its next stage after the project mints all 24 billion NIGHT tokens on Cardano.

One of Cardano’s most anticipated projects, the privacy-focused sidechain Midnight, hit a major milestone. However, despite this, Cardano saw increased volatility due to broader bearish market conditions.

On Wednesday, October 22, the price of Cardano (ADA) fell 6.5%, from levels near weekly highs at $0.6718 to $0.6304. This was despite the excitement for the Midnight sidechain, which minted its full 24 billion NIGHT token supply on October 20.

The community had big hopes for the zero-knowledge-enabled sidechain. Midnight promises to bring confidentiality, data protection, and private smart contracts to the Cardano ecosystem. The project even promised to bring in institutions due to its focus on compliance.

What is more, according to the Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, the Midnight network could onboard millions of users to the Cardano ecosystem. Still, macro pressures over the entire crypto market outweighed investor excitement.

Why is Cardano down?

Cardano’s price action is under the influence of macro pressures, which have pushed the overall crypto market down 4%. What is more, the token has also shown signs of structural weakness. Notably, ADA failed to reclaim the value area low of $0.07.

According to crypto.news analyst , this suggests that ADA will now look to the $0.53 support zone to prevent further declines. In any case, bearish momentum will likely continue in the near term.

Midnight sidechain is transitioning into its next phase of distribution. The sidechain has entered the Scavenger Mine. This gamified claiming period is designed to engage the crypto community, ahead of the token redemption phase.