Liqwid DAO NIGHT Airdrop Allocation

Midnight blockchain & $NIGHT Airdrop Overview

The Midnight privacy preserving network is set to launch by the end of March 2026 as Cardano’s first partner chain. Midnight is a 4th generation blockchain developed by IOG that uses zero-knowledge (“ZK”) proof technology to offer utility without compromising data protection or ownership. This allows for entirely new use cases of applications that protect data.

Midnight utilizes a dual-component tokenomics design to protect metadata. The native asset of the blockchain (NIGHT) exists as a Cardano Native Asset with a total supply of 24B NIGHT.

https://www.midnight.gd/tokenomics

The token generation event (TGE) and distribution schedule is divided into 4 equal parts according to the Glacier Drop release schedule. The release of NIGHT to claimed users works such that a user’s first distribution is randomly scheduled between the first and 90th day of the Redemption period, with the following three distributions following every 90 days after the first.

NIGHT tokens were allocated to users who held ADA during the Midnight snapshot as well as users who held BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP and select other crypto-assets. ADA deposits in the Liqwid ADA market were included in the ADA Midnight snapshot on June 11, 2025 at 00:00 UTC.

The multi-phased release of NIGHT tokens includes:

Firstly the Midnight Glacier Drop distribution. As the first method to claim NIGHT tokens the Glacier Drop included mechanism was implemented as a gradual unlocking of claimed allocations.

Second is the Scavenger Mine phase of the Midnight token distribution which enabled anyone to receive a portion of NIGHT by solving computational tasks. NIGHT token rewards were allocated proportional to the computational effort contributed.

The third and final NIGHT distribution is the Lost-and-Found phase which allows eligible Glacier Drop recipients another opportunity to claim a fraction of their originally allocated NIGHT tokens if they missed the first claim window.

Liqwid DAO NIGHT Allocation

ADA deposits in Liqwid’s ADA market were included in the NIGHT snapshot and claimed by Liqwid Labs as the DAO’s technical operator during the Glacier Drop phase. The total NIGHT allocated for the Liqwid ADA market is 18,813,699.9 NIGHT with the first thaw ending on March 6, 2026, at 00:00 UTC.

The Liqwid DAO exists to strengthen the ecosystem of Liqwid users, deliver new Liqwid-built DeFi products to the wider Cardano ecosystem and scale current products. Each of these purposes enables the growth of Liqwid DAO’s revenues and the protocol to reach a new set of users. This is how the Liqwid protocol’s long-term growth and the LQ DAO Token’s value proposition is successfully achieved.

This shared focus allows the Liqwid DAO to maintain a natural incentive coordination with the two substrates of the ecosystem; Liquidity Suppliers and LQ Holders.

Suppliers who deposit liquidity into Liqwid money markets form the foundation of the protocol. They earn real yield from borrowing activity within these markets, as well as staking rewards for supplying ADA. In addition, suppliers have received LQ token rewards as market incentives, including a significant incentive allocation distributed to ADA market suppliers during Liqwid’s first year on mainnet, when only a limited number of other markets were supported.

LQ Holders are the focal point of the Liqwid DAO and through staking, delegation and active governance participation actions move the entire Liqwid DAO forward. LQ Holders that staked their tokens have received staking rewards in the form of LQ and programmatic distributions in the form of ADA, Cardano Native Tokens, stablecoins and LQ distributed from buybacks utilizing protocol revenues.

*LQ distributed as staking rewards originated from protocol emissions and were distributed in addition to LQ which was bought on the open market using protocol revenues and then distributed to LQ Stakers.

A recent governance vote executed in December 2025 (Proposal 110) has refocused the Liqwid ecosystem on sustainable financing to achieve the DAO’s stated goals of growing the protocol’s revenues and expanding its reach to a new set of users. To achieve these goals the Liqwid DAO core development team is currently focused on the Liqwid V3 implementation but this also includes product launches that are currently in various stages of implementation including Bitcoin DeFi, RWAs, Liqwid Prime, yield-bearing stablecoins and Liqwid deployments on Cardano Layer 2’s and partner chains.

Proposal 110 was a critical decision point for the Liqwid DAO because long-term growth positioning must become the ultimate focus if the Liqwid ecosystem seeks to achieve its full scaling potential and continue delivering as Cardano’s premier lend-borrow protocol. If effectively reached allows the Liqwid DAO to operate in full alignment with Cardano DeFi’s 2030 vision to surpass $3B in TVL.

Given this context of balancing financial sustainability with the need to continue securely innovating within the Cardano DeFi ecosystem the Liqwid DAO core team suggests the following proposals for the claimed NIGHT allocation distributions. Ultimately LQ Holders will decide the distribution of the Liqwid DAO’s claimed NIGHT allocation between one of these proposals:

Proposal 1:
100% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to ADA Suppliers pro-rate to the supplied amount at the time of snapshot on June 11, 2025 at 00:00 UTC.*

*The technical work to distribute claimed NIGHT allocations to ADA suppliers based on the snapshot time has already been completed by the Liqwid core team and is visible within the Sundae rewards app.

Proposal 2:
100% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to LQ Stakers.**

**The distribution to LQ Stakers would be in addition to current LQ staking rewards and distributed based on the current thaw release schedule for the DAO’s claimed NIGHT allocation.

Proposal 3:
50% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to ADA Suppliers.
50% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to LQ Stakers.

Proposal 4:
33.3% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to ADA Suppliers.
33.3% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to LQ Stakers.
33.3% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to Liqwid DAO.***

***The distribution to Liqwid DAO would be claimed by the Liqwid Labs core team and used to achieve the delivery of currently in development products and Liqwid V3.

Proposal 5:
100% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to Liqwid DAO.

Proposal 6:
90% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to ADA Suppliers.
5% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to LQ Stakers.
5% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to Liqwid DAO.

Proposal 7:
75% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to ADA Suppliers.
12.5% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to LQ Stakers.
12.5% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to Liqwid DAO.

Proposal 8:
5% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to ADA Suppliers.
90% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to LQ Stakers.
5% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to Liqwid DAO.

Proposal 9:
12.5% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to ADA Suppliers.
75% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to LQ Stakers.
12.5% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to Liqwid DAO.

Proposal 10:
12.5% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to ADA Suppliers.
12.5% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to LQ Stakers.
75% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to Liqwid DAO.

Proposal 11:
5% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to ADA Suppliers.
5% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to LQ Stakers.
90% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to Liqwid DAO.

Proposal 12:
50% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to ADA Suppliers.
50% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to Liqwid DAO.

Proposal 13:
25% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to ADA Suppliers.
75% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to Liqwid DAO.

Proposal 14:
10% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to ADA Suppliers.
90% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to Liqwid DAO.

Proposal 15:
90% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to ADA Suppliers.
10% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to Liqwid DAO.

Proposal 16:
99% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to ADA Suppliers.
1% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to Liqwid DAO.

Proposal 17:
95% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to ADA Suppliers.
2.5% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to Liqwid DAO.
2.5% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to LQ Stakers.

Proposal 18:
98% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to ADA Suppliers.
1% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to Liqwid DAO.
1% of the claimed NIGHT allocation distributed to LQ Stakers.

Which of the above proposed distributions of NIGHT tokens do you support?

  • Proposal 1
  • Proposal 2
  • Proposal 3
  • Proposal 4
  • Proposal 5
  • Proposal 6
  • Proposal 7
  • Proposal 8
  • Proposal 9
  • Proposal 10
  • Proposal 11
0 voters

It was promised that the Glacier drop would be distributed to ADA suppliers, so I don’t understand why this now needs to go to a vote? Wtf?

5 Likes

Anything other than distribution among ADA providers should not even be considered! Whose idea was this vote? Who took the time to write down all the possible scenarios for redistributing (in my view stealing) the NIGHT tokens in any way other than to ADA providers?

What about your public promises and statements that, unlike Minswap, everything on Liqwid goes to liquidity providers? What is this supposed to mean now?

4 Likes

Weird proposal.

Didn’t you see the reactions when Minswap tried that ?
→ went as far as lawsuits ready to be taken, because considered stealing.
→ as well as assets being withdrawn from their pools because of this behaviour.

And this goes back on your own words (people will say one more time).

Does the DAO/protocol still need money so much that it wants to face such things ?

This proposal not going to vote would avoid some level of negativity around the DAO. I would even remove it from the gov forum asap.

(You should also stop to use the early days sky high $lq emissions as an argument to (partly) justify whatever.)

5 Likes

Hey @gil I see you have posted your comments both here and the Discord governance discussion channel wanted to respond to each point here:

  1. I am only concerned with the goals and current focus of the Liqwid DAO which means shipping a securely built V3 and scaling it alongside current and upcoming products. I do not have the time nor bandwith to focus on other DAOs and especially not to the reactions other DAO community members have on their own governance matters.

  2. This proposal is directly in line with how Liqwid DAO should operate. Every economic decision should be ratified with an onchain vote decided on by LQ holders following a temp check period of community discussion.

  3. Yes the core development team does require funding to deliver V3, ship the products in development and continue regular operations for V2. Currently the protocol is experiencing decreasing month over month interest income revenues with active loan amounts reducing each week and new loan volume not keeping pace with the active loan reductions. This is even with significantly lower interest rates in stablecoin markets than the protocol has historically experienced.

  4. With all due respect to your contributions to Liqwid DAO this is your opinion on avoiding negativity. This proposal is very much required if Liqwid DAO is to remain focused on delivering long-term growth the same way Proposal 110 which refocused the DAO on fiscal sustainability was critically important. If the Liqwid DAO ecosystem does not believe a focus on long-term growth is necessary we can simply put V2 in maintenance mode, not ship any new products nor V3 and enable the core team to go and focus on other work.

  5. LQ emissions for the 1st year of the protocol’s mainnet were mostly distributed to ADA market suppliers, this is a fact. Pointing it out for full context in this proposal is necessary to provide some background on how Liqwid arrived at the position it is in today. I am not sure there’s really anything more to it than this.

Hey @mnemo just to clarify the NIGHT Airdrop is allocated to the ADA supplied to the Liqwid pool during the snapshot. As this ADA is pooled in a Liqwid DAO governed smart contract it is a cashflow governed by the Liqwid DAO. Every economic decision and economic parameter of the Liqwid protocol does and will continue to flow through the Liqwid DAO. Thus it is up to LQ Stakers to determine the distribution of the claimed NIGHT allocation not any one individual.

Public statements and promises is not a substitute for LQ Stakers who govern the Liqwid DAO deciding on an economic decision.

Hey @justSomeRandomDude please see my response to @mnemo comment below. It is up to LQ Stakers who govern the Liqwid DAO to decide the outcome of economic decisions, not one individual nor public statements from the Liqwid core team marketing channels.

please kindly withdraw this malice idea of stealing something from the depositors which does not belong to you. as the largest holder of LQ tokens liqwid labs cannot grab something for them by hiding behind DAO. Liqwid team has set very high standards in the toughest of time so please dont spoil your image and avoid doing any misadventure through indirect stealing.

We can argue that liqwid had a failed token sale due to extremely high FDV when it decided to do token sale, so high token emissions were direct after math of that. recently you painted a rosy picture that you got funding through direct sale and since POL debt is already paid there is that option of funding if anything is required in emergency in the future.
as we here aspire to be a DEFI layer for BITCOIN we need to stay away from such a shady business.

I am feeling objectively disgusted to even contemplate stealing from those who supplied ADA to Liqwid Protocol to make this whole thing work. Suddenly when the day the ADA suppliers should be able to get their claim u have to make a proposal last second to steal from them?

3 Likes

Just voice out all NIGHT token airdrop is due to ADA supplier effort only. it is not reasonable to distribute to others.

2 Likes

My opinion is that there is an accepted convention in Cardano where staking rewards (or any reward for holding ADA) is provided to the supplier becuase of the liquid staking convention that exists. If it is important to hold a DAO vote to decide, then I think it should be only two choices at the moment:

  1. 100% of NIGHT is proportionally allocated to ADA suppliers
  2. The DAO is authorized to pause NIGHT distributions and solicit additional proposals for the allocation of NIGHT

This way, the community decides it is either for or against the originally communicated intent that the ADA accrues benefits to the supplier (Staking Rewards, air drops, etc.). If it is against, we take that conversation further with the above options and get feedback on what we want to see.

5 Likes

I support Proposal 1: 100% distribution to ADA suppliers pro-rata based on the June 11, 2025 snapshot. This honors the original August 2025 commitment from Liqwid that “100% of $NIGHT will be distributed to Liqwid ADA lenders,” which was the basis for the airdrop eligibility and the tech already built in the Sundae rewards app. Redirecting any portion now to LQ stakers or the DAO treasury risks eroding trust in the protocol, especially given similar backlash in projects like Minswap where the community ultimately voted for full passthrough to liquidity providers. While Proposal 110’s focus on sustainability is important, this specific windfall came from suppliers’ deposits—let’s reward them directly to strengthen the ecosystem’s foundation and avoid alienating key users

4 Likes

Hi @DC1, thanks for your reply.
I don’t have much to add because the matter is so obvious to me, but:

To reply to your points:

1.bis Focus is great, but I bet you fully know neither Liqwid the protocol nor the DAO operates in a vacuum, especially in a small ecosystem struggling to get outside attention and capital inflows. Should pay attention to ecosystem participants. Plus with AI not much bandwith is needed to keep an eye on such things.

2.bis Sure. It could also be a vote with one choice and that would respect the rule too.

3.bis When thinking of protocol revenue and financials, I would not underestimate the possibility of a portion of suppliers (Ada is the biggest supply market and an important collateral asset) leaving the protocol as a response to certain actions, which ultimately lowers revenue.

4.bis Opinion indeed that such discussion and vote would face some negativity. I tried to phrase it neutrally. Time will tell. (but it’s obvious to me).
From your point 4, it sounds like you would like to not vote for option 1, which ultimately the proposal is not quite clear about. It’s a missed opportunity to be clear and straightforward. The proposal writing makes one understand the intention, but it’s not actually written. Would be better to be more straightforward, in plain text.
I see the end of your point 4 as creating an opposition that does not exist. Refusing to not send the $night fully to Ada suppliers only is not equal to not ‘believing a focus on long-term growth is necessary’. The end is dramatic too. Real question: what would you do then if there was no $night airdrop to get financing from ? Would Liqwid be over ?

  1. A fact is a fact indeed. But is it that much relevant here ? → Are the Ada suppliers on June 11th 2025 the same who benefited of high LQ emissions some years ago ?

And a more idealist take:
Composable non-custodial DeFi → my vision of it is not one where a smart contract address detail can/should act as a middleman influencing asset flows just because it’s technically possible (or legal)

(Ideally airdrops like this would go straight away to suppliers, programmatically. Too bad that would be a lot of integrations to do, but not that many for the Cardano ecosystem. It’s just highlighting composable DeFi is not easy enough yet).

1 Like

Your word is challenged here and there is now major concerns of your ethics. You put this proposal together. We all staked with your platform because the Night allocations were confirmed by you. I am not sure if this is legal but you will find out. I cannot believe this is happening. You are creating all of this and it is not acceptable.

2 Likes

JakeMN,

These tokens do not belong to LQ and belong to ADA liquidity providers. The DAO or protocol has zero responsibility for any of these night tokens being air dropped or earned, ADA holders do. It is a criminal offense to think that you can vote or decide on what to do with a coin or currency that you do not own or maintain with your investment or money. There is zero need for a vote. This is not acceptable. Let me give you an example. Hi, I am going to take the money out of your 401K and keep it. I have decided that I want that money to fund my retirement accounts and you do not get to keep it anymore. Oh, thank you for supporting our fund, but I have decided that I am going to just keep all of your money now. Wait, let me get people to vote that it is ok to steal all of your money. That is criminal fraudulent activity. You cannot vote on how to use money that does not belong to you. I am at a loss of words right now. This has to be shut down with an apology and consequences!!!

1 Like

Proposal 1: 100% to ADA Suppliers.

Unconscionable. Racketeering DAO vote in 2026. There is no explanation or excuse from the team that will suffice a vote following this temp check. Peace be to everyone.

Proposal 1: 100% NIGHT allocation to ADA Suppliers only. Period.

This shouldn’t even go to vote. The temperature check is showing that it doesn’t need too. Anyone who would even consider NIGHT be distributed to LQ Stakers or the DAO, obviously was not an ADA supplier and isn’t eligible to receive any NIGHT, so therefore looking for a free underserved gift. Or just call it corruption and deliberate theft.

Distribute the NIGHT to ADA suppliers.

1 Like

This is completely false. Even after the NIGHT snapshot took place it was not known if ADA deposited in liquidity pools such as Liqwid or Minswap would be technically capable of claiming the NIGHT.

  1. The most important point is the origin of the allocation. The Glacier Drop was determined by ADA balances at the snapshot on the Cardano network. In Liqwid pools, those balances consisted entirely of ADA supplied by individual lenders. The protocol address appeared in the snapshot only because it aggregated these user deposits. Without supplier deposits: • the lending contracts would have held no ADA • the snapshot balance would have been zero • the $NIGHT allocation would not exist This shows the eligibility was created by supplier capital, not the protocol itself. A simple counterfactual illustrates this clearly: If suppliers had kept the same ADA in their wallets instead of supplying it to Liqwid, they would have received the Glacier Drop directly. Depositing assets into a non-custodial protocol should not cause users to lose rewards they would otherwise receive. ⸻

    1. Consistency With Existing Reward Treatment

    Liqwid has historically treated rewards generated from supplied ADA as belonging to suppliers. For example, ADA supplied to the protocol is delegated to stake pools, and the resulting staking rewards are distributed pro-rata to suppliers. From a supplier’s perspective, the Glacier Drop allocation is economically similar: it is determined by the same underlying ADA balances. Maintaining the same pass-through treatment preserves predictable protocol behavior and fairness for liquidity providers. ⸻

    1. Long-Term Alignment With Liquidity Providers

    Liquidity providers supply the capital that enables Liqwid’s lending markets. Maintaining a clear precedent that rewards tied to supplier capital accrue to suppliers strengthens trust and encourages deeper liquidity in the protocol. A one-time treasury allocation may provide short-term benefit, but long-term protocol health depends on consistent alignment with liquidity providers.

  2. Suggested Approach To maintain consistency and supplier alignment:

    1. Recognize that the Glacier Drop allocation derives from supplier-provided ADA captured in the June 11 snapshot.

      1. Distribute 100% of the claimed $NIGHT tokens pro-rata to suppliers based on their snapshot balances.

      2. Governance may simply ratify this distribution as confirmation of supplier entitlement

3 Likes