✍️ Midnight Sessions
Content Plan & Project Management
Content Strategy
All episodes follow this structured format:
- Duration: 1 hour
- Segments:
- Ecosystem – Analysis of Cardano and Midnight developments: blogs, diaries, academy, hackathons.
- Coding – Live demos using tools such as Mesh SDK and partner libraries
- Q&A – Answering community and developer questions
Thematic Focus Areas
- Privacy & Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs)
- Interoperability
- Privacy-Enhancing DApps
Dynamic Content Calendar
Given the rapidly evolving nature of the Midnight ecosystem and Cardano’s development, we’ve adopted a dynamic content strategy that allows us to be responsive to the latest developments:
- Roadmap-Aligned Planning: Content topics are selected based on the Cardano and Midnight roadmaps, ensuring relevance and timeliness.
- Bi-weekly Planning Cycles: We plan content in two-week sprints to remain agile and responsive to the latest ecosystem developments.
- Community-Driven Topics: We actively incorporate community feedback and questions into our content planning.
- GitHub Tracking: All content planning and development is tracked in our GitHub repository.
Why No Fixed Calendar?
Given the nature of our content which covers:
- Emerging technologies and standards
- Recently released tools and updates
- Live coding with cutting-edge libraries
- Community Q&A based on current developments
We’ve found that maintaining a flexible, responsive approach allows us to provide the most relevant and up-to-date information to our community. This approach ensures we can quickly adapt to new developments in the Midnight and Cardano ecosystems while maintaining educational value and technical accuracy.
📺 Past Sessions
Github repo:
📺 Midnight Session #1
Description:
Erick introduced the midnight session, covering ecosystem updates, technical deep dives into the Testnet O2 upgrade and the “example counter” repo, and Q&A. The ecosystem catalog and core team updates on blogs, podcasts, and education were highlighted, along with DevRel meetings and monthly hackathons. Participants like Paul discussed the example counter and requested templates, and ongoing community projects by John Santi, Ivan, and David were mentioned.
Duration: 30min
📺 Midnight Session #2
Description:
Erick provided updates on the Lace wallet, the Midnight and Outlier Ventures partnership for the “Base Camp” accelerator, and the launch of Midnight Academy tutorials. The meeting also covered an ongoing hackathon, tooling development with Mesh, a technical deep dive into Midnight smart contract structure including types, configurations, architecture with its providers, standalone and remote configurations, and testing. Leif and Atosi engaged in discussions with Erick regarding Midnight’s blockchain structure, interoperability, contract deployment, SDK usage, the concept of circuits, private data storage, regulation-friendly aspects, comparison to Monero, and the mainnet release timeline.
Duration: 30min
📺 Midnight Session #3
Description:
Erick detailed Keystone’s partnership and their hardware wallet give away during Cardano Builder Fest, and outlined the Midnight ecosystem’s structure with the Midnight Foundation and Shield Technologies, alongside recent development updates. He also covered decentralization, consensus mechanisms (highlighting Midnight’s use of Cardano’s Ouroboros), blockchain fundamentals, and the ongoing hackathon. Participants Erick and Solanki discussed community contributions, bug reporting, and ZK keys, while Erick and Paul addressed wallet syncing issues, seed phrase compatibility, and addressing differences between Midnight and Cardano.
Duration: 30min
📺 Midnight Session #4
Description:
Ecosystem updates will cover Lace’s recent AMA on X, new Insight blog posts, and Midnight’s presence at Consensus 2025. In Education Academy we will introduce the tokenomics curriculum. For the Hackathon we will recap the revised deadlines, share judging criteria, and raise general awareness. The Technical Deep Dive will keep exploring the APIs—deploy, join, and increment—and we will close with an open Q&A and discussion.
Duration: 30min
📺 Midnight Session #5
Description:
In this Midnight session, we will cover a range of topics starting with a new module at the Education Academy focused on Cryptographic Foundations, including Hashing, Public-Key Cryptography, and Digital Signatures. In the Diaries section, we introduce the new Midnight Indexer. The Hackathon is reaching its final registration day, so last-minute sign-ups are encouraged. On the technical side, we will highlight key updates such as the release of the compact compiler and language versions v0.24 and v0.16, the new Midnight.js version v2.0.2, and the latest Indexer version v2.1.3. In the Technical Deep Dive, we will explore how state is stored, how transactions are composed and executed, and how to interpret circuit outputs. We will conclude with an Open Q&A and Discussion.
Duration: 30min
📺 Midnight Session #6
Description:
Let’s keep learning building ZK Dapps! 🚀 Today we will cover the upcoming NMKR Berlin Hackathon with photos and videos, explore a new blog just shared by Lauren on how developers level up with the Midnight network, and highlight advice from Brick Towers and the EddaLabs team. We’ll also dive into the functions displayCounterValue and createWalletAndMidnightProvider, and finish with an open Q&A and discussion.
Duration: 30min
📺 Midnight Session #7
Description:
The Ecosystem Tooling Hackathon features several key events aimed at developers and the community. Highlights include educational development diaries like “From Hex to Bech32m,” which introduces Midnight’s new standard for safer and smarter blockchain addresses. There is also a technical deep dive covering topics such as “Wallet State and Provider” and the “Midnight Provider.” Additionally, there will be an open Q&A and discussion session to engage with the community and answer questions.
Duration: 30min
📺 Midnight Session #8
Description:
This week’s insights include a detailed look at the Midnight Whitepaper, focusing on tokenomics and incentives. A new hackathon has been launched, challenging participants to build Mini DApps. Additionally, a technical deep dive introduced developers to the Starter Template with a user interface (UI). Finally, there was an open Q&A and discussion session, allowing the community to engage and ask questions.
Duration: 30min
📺 Midnight Session #9
Description:
Explore the latest from Midnight: insights from Money 20/20, updates to tokenomics, and a switch to BLS in the proving system. Learn smart contract basics in the Academy, discover hackathon winners, and try the Lace Wallet Beta in the Catalog. We finish by exploring the API functions in the Code section.
Duration: 1 hour
📺 Midnight Session #10
Description:
Midnight’s latest updates cover several key areas. The blog explores the Scavenger Mine and what lies ahead. In the Dev Diaries, they discuss simulating divisions in the Compact protocol. The Academy shares insights on smart contract vulnerabilities and secure development practices. A Mini DApp Virtual Hackathon invites innovation from developers. The Catalog highlights SheFi, a fast-growing Web3 education platform. On the code side, new API functions and a text-based user interface (TUI) have been introduced. The Q&A section remains open for community interaction.
Duration: 1 hour
📺 Midnight Session #11
Description:
The update highlights recent developments and resources within the Midnight ecosystem. The blog covers how builders are tackling challenges in ecosystem tooling. Dev Diaries feature a guide on connecting a decentralized application (DApp) to the Lace Wallet using Midnight’s tools. The Academy section explains key properties of Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs), distinguishing between interactive and non-interactive types. In the Catalog, there’s a focus on token standards, including OpenZeppelin-compatible tokens and NMKR NFT standards. Additionally, there’s ongoing work to better understand the TUI interface and how it handles transactions, as well as a Q&A section for community engagement.
Duration: 1 hour
📺 Midnight Session #12
Description:
This week’s highlights center on three core areas: Explore, Code, and Q&A. Under Explore, dive into educational content like how to become a Midnight block producer on testnet and a deep-dive into Merkle Trees and DAOs in the Web3 Dev Diaries. In the Code section, developers get hands-on with the Midnight transaction lifecycle—learning how to initiate, debug, and understand it within a standalone network. Finally, Q&A offers the opportunity to engage with experts and clear doubts directly from the source.
Duration: 1 hour
📺 Midnight Session #13
Description:
In this video, we break down the main types of zero‑knowledge proof systems and the core mechanics behind ZKPs, then show where to put them to work through online and in‑person hackathons. We also review OpenZeppelin’s token smart‑contract primitives—fungible tokens, modular extensions, and utilities—and walk through initiating, debugging, and understanding the Midnight transaction lifecycle in Testnet mode, wrapping up with a concise Q&A.