Midnight is a new generation of blockchain, developed by Charles Hoskinson - the cofounder of Ethereum and founder of Cardano, that uses zero-knowledge (“ZK”) proof technology to offer utility without compromising data protection or ownership, enabling applications that safeguard user, commercial, and transaction data and metadata. Midnight introduces a novel blockchain architecture designed to address key privacy-limiting designs of existing public blockchains, supporting applications that require a balance between privacy and disclosure. The Midnight protocol combines the use of a ZK proofs-based, public-private dual-state ledger architecture to protect data, with a composite, dual-component tokenomics design to protect metadata.