Midnight Partners With Spacecoin to Build Privacy-First Messaging on Satellite Infrastructure

• Midnight Network has partnered with Spacecoin to develop a private peer-to-peer messaging app, deployed on decentralized satellite infrastructure.
• By removing centralized control points, they protect the message content, identity of the sender and recipient and their locations.

Midnight Network has partnered with Spacecoin to develop a privacy-first messaging app on the latter’s decentralized satellite infrastructure.

In their announcement, the two projects stated that the new peer-to-peer platform will be enhanced with zero-knowledge proof, further enhancing the privacy of the sender and recipient, hiding their locations and protecting the content of the messages.

Spacecoin is a blockchain project that provides space-based internet connectivity through decentralized low-earth-orbit satellites. Midnight is Cardano’s privacy-focused sister chain where privacy is programmable.

The two will explore how they can apply programmable cryptographic privacy to messaging systems and have them transmitted outside traditional internet infrastructure. This will allow users of the new service to avoid content surveillance and the collection of messaging metadata by Big Tech and governments. It also reduces reliance on centralized networks which can monitor and censor users, and can also be forced to shut down by regulators.

With the rapid advancement in surveillance technology, governments can now access messages across calls and internet services. Globally, over 80 countries have laws that allow governments to intercept digital communications. The US NSA alone collects 197 million SMS messages per day and goes through up to 5 billion internet records daily.

These stats, and the unending internet shutdowns globally by authoritarian governments, “underscore the urgency of building communications infrastructure that protects both privacy and availability,” Spacecoin says.

Spacecoin’s Satellites and Midnight’s ZK Proofs and Smart Contracts

Under the partnership, Spacecoin’s satellites will deliver permissionless internet connectivity to users of the new platform. The network relies on smart contracts to coordinate the satellites, guaranteeing that no single entity can corrupt the system or shut it down.

Midnight comes in with its programmable privacy, which allows users to select the level of disclosure they want, through zero-knowledge proofs. Users can then select the details they want revealed, and can keep their identity, location or communications patterns secret.

As we have reported, several other blockchains are exploring the use of ZK proofs to enable programmable privacy, including BNB Chain and XRPL.

By combining Spacecoin’s satellites and Midnight’s privacy, the two will provide P2P communications that are “truly end-to-end encrypted with no server intermediaries, censorship-resistant at the infrastructure level, and geographically resilient,” they said.

Midnight President Fahmi Syed says that privacy should be a fundamental human right, not a privilege. The only way to guarantee it is thinking beyond application layer products and build new underlying infrastructure.

“Partnering with Spacecoin allows us to explore what privacy looks like when it is protected end to end — from cryptography to connectivity — so people can engage online with confidence and peace of mind,” he commented.

Spacecoin founder Tae Oh added:

As CNF reported, Spacecoin recently partnered with Worldcoin to expand DeFi connectivity in areas without internet service.

Midnight’s NIGHT token trades at $0.0533, dipping 6.8% overnight as the entire market recorded a significant downturn.