Cardano Braces for Major ADA Upgrades and Institutional Moves in February

• February will be a landmark month for Cardano, with its privacy sister chain Midnight Network expected to begin public-facing test phases.
• The network is also expecting institutional investment in ADA, with CME futures going live in mid-February.

The Cardano ecosystem is bracing for a big month in February, with institutional interest expected to rise with the launch of new ADA futures, while work on its privacy-first Midnight Network accelerates into the public phase.

As we reported, the CME Group announced this months that it’s listing futures contracts tied to ADA, LINK and XLM, with trading scheduled to start on February 9. The new offerings will be available in both micro and standard contract sizes, allowing both retail and institutional investors to participate.

The listing will legitimize ADA as an institutional asset. Hundreds of private funds and trading desks globally view CME approval as the ultimate green light to introduce an asset to their investors. Unlike most products, cash-settled futures allow investors to gain exposure to the asset without having to hold any spot ADA. They further allow market-makers to run tight books and for long-term institutional holders to hedge downside risk.

ADA is already one of the largest tokens in the market, but this listing will bring it to investors who would have previously avoided it.

Founder Charles Hoskinson also revealed today that the USDCx stablecoin is set to land on the Cardano blockchain imminently.

Public Testing of Cardano’s Privacy Features

February will also be an important month in Cardano’s privacy journey. The Cardano team launched the Midnight Network last year as the ultimate destination for investors seeking programmable privacy, and in February, it’s expected to go into public-facing test phases.

As we reported, Midnight entered the second phase of its development, known as Kukolu, this quarter. The Midnight genesis block is expected within the first three months.

Under Kukolu, Midnight is stable enough to support applications without constant resets. Builders have been encouraged to launch products and stress-test the network, and February is expected to see accelerated development after a slow start to the year where most of the efforts were directed toward global expansion.

Despite only launching weeks ago, Midnight has already become an important player in decentralized privacy. As CNF reported, it partnered with Spacecoin this week to unveil a privacy-first P2P messaging app, built on low-earth-orbit satellites. It has also partnered with COTI and AlphaTON to boost privacy in DeFi and messaging.

Despite the excitement for the upcoming month, ADA and NIGHT have seen big drops heading into the weekend. ADA trades at $0.3125, shedding 8% of its value in the past day. NIGHT has lost 7% to trade at $0.05290, with its market cap now at $878 million.