Compass Investments

-Cardano founder, Charles Hoskinson, highlighted a new connect in X: the privacy-focused Midnight blockchain is teaming up with the UK-regulated Monument Bank. He called it one of the most significant agreements for the entire ecosystem so far.

Hoskinson believes this partnership could unlock billions in total blockchain value (TVL).

This is one of our biggest endeavors and it has the potential to bring Midnight hundreds of millions to billions of TVL. I am immensely proud of @F_ZK_Now and the @midnightfdn team for their diligence in negotiating with Monument.

Monument Bank has announced its intention to pioneer the tokenization of retail deposits on the public blockchain among regulated UK institutions. The London-based bank will use Midnight, Cardano’s long-awaited, privacy-focused sidechain, to implement these plans. The official launch is scheduled for the last week of March.

The integration will take place in three phases, starting with £250 million ($335 million) in tokenized retail deposits. These digital assets will be fully collateralized, matching one-to-one with the underlying fiat funds held at Monument Bank.

According to the release, the deposits will be redeemable in pounds sterling at a one-to-one ratio and will be protected under the current UK regulatory framework. The initiative also highlights that data security has long been a key barrier to blockchain adoption in the financial industry.

otably, Midnight’s architecture uses zero-knowledge (ZK) cryptographic proofs to protect transaction information, ensuring that sensitive financial information remains private, accessible only to the bank and its customers.

Simply put, it acts as a smart shield for blockchain activity, allowing users to show only the necessary details while keeping the rest secret. Midnight functions as a partner network for Cardano’s smart contract platform and is designed to enable decentralized applications to comply with privacy and regulatory requirements.