Cardano won’t get left behind as partner chain Midnight inks £250m tokenisation deal, founder says

Midnight supporters are exuberant after the blockchain inked a deal with UK bank Monument on Wednesday to tokenise £250 million worth of deposits for customers.

The deal marks the first time a UK-regulated bank will tokenise deposits on a public blockchain while keeping them FSCS-protected and interest-bearing.

Yet it also throws into question the role of Cardano, Input Output Global’s first blockchain, launched in 2017.

Despite Midnight being the focus of attention, Cardano won’t get left behind, Charles Hoskinson, the firm’s founder, said on X.

“When we do deals like this almost always there’s a Cardano component to the infrastructure. It’s not exclusive to Midnight,” Hoskinson said.

Monument is a so-called digital challenger bank. It targets financial services professionals and entrepreneurs, and requires a minimum deposit of £25,000 to open an account.

The deal comes as crypto projects look for commercial tie-ups with traditional financial firms as the two industries converge.

In recent years, Wall Street firms have become fascinated by tokenisation — the idea of representing ownership rights of traditional assets like stocks, bonds or real estate as tokens on a blockchain.

Among tokenisation’s biggest proponents is Larry Fink, the CEO of $14 trillion asset manager BlackRock. In his annual 2026 shareholders’ letter, Fink praised tokenisation for its ability to reduce fees and open up investing to more people.

‘Tip of the spear’

Midnight is a privacy-focused partner chain to Cardano. It enables Cardano DeFi protocols to use zero-knowledge technology to keep transactions private, and also relies on Cardano for its security.

Hoskinson said both blockchains will benefit financially from each others’ successes.

“Midnight is leading the way, it’s the vanguard, the tip of the spear,” he said. “It’s showing how to do commercialisation. It’s showing how to get real-world assets into the cryptocurrency space.”

Cardano was conceived as a so-called third-generation blockchain, and attempted to solve the scalability, interoperability, and sustainability issues facing Bitcoin and Ethereum. Its developers placed a strong emphasis on scientific rigour, requiring it to be academically peer-reviewed.

Yet technological setbacks over the years have seen it lose ground to rivals.

DeFi protocols on Cardano hold just $146 million in deposits, an amount that pales in comparison to Ethereum’s $76 billion and Solana’s $8.7 billion.

Cardano’s ADA token is down over 91% from its September 2021 all-time high.

If Midnight continues to find commercial success, it could give Cardano a much-needed boost.

‘Flagship deal’

Midnight’s deal with Monument goes further than just letting customers tokenise their deposits.

The second phase of the deal will focus on providing tokenised products on the Midnight blockchain, such as real-world asset investments, to Monument’s customers.

Further in the future, Midnight and Monument plan to introduce blockchain-based lending, allowing customers to borrow against their investments

This, the Midnight Foundation said, is designed to provide Monument customers with more cost-effective access to credit than traditional borrowing, allowing them to access liquidity without selling their investments.

“This is a flagship deal, and we take it very seriously,” Hoskinson said. “It’s something we’re real proud of.”

Midnight’s NIGHT token, the native utility and governance token for the network, is up 3.1% over the past 24 hours.

Tim Craig is DL News’ Edinburgh-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out with tips at [email protected].