Cardano Glacier Airdrop Is Live — How To Claim Your Share

Trusted Editorial content, reviewed by leading industry experts and seasoned editors. Ad Disclosure Within the Cardano ecosystem, Midnight’s long-trailed token distribution has moved from promise to production. At 13:00 UTC on August 5, the Midnight Foundation opened the Glacier Drop claim portal, kicking off a 60-day window for eligible addresses across eight ecosystems to redeem NIGHT, the network’s native token.

“The first step toward rational privacy online begins now,” the foundation wrote in its launch note, adding that “nearly 34 million eligible addresses across eight blockchain ecosystems” can participate via the official portal at claim.midnight.gd. The claim window, it said, runs until 13:00 UTC on October 4.

Cardano Glacier Drop Goes Live

The rollout drew immediate traffic. The Midnight Foundation reported “a phenomenal response in the first few hours,” citing “close to 5,000 ecosystem members who have successfully claimed over 80M NIGHT tokens.” A few hours later, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson said he was “blown away” by the pace: “Already 11000 redemptions for 250,000,000 night!”

Hoskinson also framed the infrastructure behind Glacier Drop as a technical first for large-scale distributions. “This application is probably the most complex ever built in the history of distributions in crypto,” he wrote, describing “8 ecosystems… 7 blockchains all with different addresses and crypto, regulatory compliance, auditability, and a huge smart contract,” and adding that “the millions of claims are flowing first to a Hydra head. The GD is the Hydra application running with Cardano main net.” He cautioned that “there will be bugs, UX issues, and some people will have to wait a little bit,” which is why the claim phase spans two months.

Related Reading: This CIP Is ‘Massive’ For Cardano DApps, Says Anastasia Labs CEO Midnight’s launch post emphasizes that Glacier Drop is phase one of a three-stage distribution (to be followed by Scavenger Mine and a Lost-and-Found period). The foundation says eligibility was determined by a pre-announced snapshot across eight ecosystems, including Cardano, Bitcoin, XRP, Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain, Avalanche, and BAT on Ethereum.

The foundation’s breakdown for the Glacier Drop phase allocates 12 billion NIGHT to Cardano addresses, 4.8 billion to Bitcoin, roughly 2.623 billion to XRPL, 2.3054 billion to Ethereum, 1.4291 billion to Solana, about 796.054 million to BNB Chain, 43.2753 million to Avalanche, and 3.1813 million to BAT on Ethereum.

Midnight also underscores that the only claim URL is claim.midnight.gd and lists its verified X accounts to help users avoid impersonators.

How To Claim Your Share

The claim mechanism itself is deliberately simple and auditable. According to the foundation, participants complete two steps: first, “demonstrate custody” by cryptographically signing a message from the eligible address; second, provide a new, unused Cardano address to receive NIGHT. Midnight says detailed instructions, an eligibility checker, and a set of verified compatible wallets are accessible from the portal.

Not everything worked out-of-the-box. On day one, users of Ledger hardware wallets for ADA encountered an implementation limit in Ledger’s support for Cardano’s CIP-8 message signing. “It apparently only supports signing messages up to 31 bytes whereas the GD payload is 251 bytes,” Hoskinson wrote, describing it as “a Cardano-specific issue with Ledger’s software.”

He said the team is deploying a temporary workaround “common in the NFT space” that signs a null transaction carrying the 251-byte payload as metadata, and stressed that “there is no difference redeeming today or a few weeks from now,” as the claim phase lasts two months. Third-party coverage and Midnight’s own updates echoed the 31-byte versus 251-byte mismatch and noted that Ledger has not yet provided a timeline for an update.

Related Reading: Cardano Community Funds Core Upgrades In Historic VoteMidnight simultaneously warned users against improvising cryptographic proofs with opaque or hashed messages to “hack” around hardware-wallet limitations. “This method of claiming introduces a potential and significant security risk to the wallet owner,” the foundation said, pointing users to two explainers on signature-based attacks and blind-signing hazards. Those advisories show how a single, non-transparent signature can be enough to authorize malicious actions or expose keys.

The foundation’s guidance reduces to three imperatives. First, start at the official portal—“the only official URL for the claim portal is claim.midnight.gd”—and verify the handle of any X account you rely on for updates.

Second, follow the portal’s process to sign a human-verifiable message proving control of the eligible address and to submit a fresh Cardano destination address for NIGHT. Third, if you’re an ADA holder using Ledger, wait for the supported path to appear in the portal rather than attempting an unsupported signature flow.

As Hoskinson put it to affected users: “If you are one of the impacted people, then come back towards the end of the month and try again. No one lost their night or place in line.”

Beyond token logistics, Midnight casts Glacier Drop as a test of Cardano’s scaling and programmability in production conditions. Hoskinson said the distribution “pushed the bounds of our ecosystem, its technology, and the perception of Cardano as a whole,” highlighting Hydra as the execution layer for intake before on-chain settlement. The foundation, for its part, positions NIGHT as the incentive layer for “rational privacy,” with the claim phase designed for breadth and verifiable inclusion across chains.

At press time, the Cardano (ADA) token traded at $0.72.

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