Midnight’s planned private smart contract release is drawing attention as its NIGHT token posts an 86% weekly gain. The Cardano-linked privacy project outlined further technical upgrades while its cryptocurrency outperformed several major tokens during broader market declines.

According to Midnight Foundation CTO Sebastien Guillemot, the project’s v8 release will enable private contracts on its mainnet. His update also outlined a subsequent composability upgrade, giving developers more detail about the network’s planned rollout.

Meanwhile, NIGHT traded at approximately $0.044 in the supplied market snapshot, gaining 17.66% over the preceding 24 hours. Its advance began from a September 24 low of $0.022, with seven consecutive daily gains already recorded.

An eighth positive session was developing, while Wednesday and Thursday produced particularly large green candlesticks on the price chart. During that advance, NIGHT reached approximately $0.048 before trading below that level in the reported market snapshot.

However, the token’s performance contrasted with losses across other cryptocurrencies, including established assets in the privacy sector. Zcash declined 5.44%, while Monero fell 1.06% over the same 24-hour period covered by the supplied figures.

Additionally, Cardano dropped 3.23%, highlighting the difference between NIGHT’s rally and the performance of its closely associated blockchain ecosystem. Those comparisons place NIGHT among the stronger performers in a market where many cryptocurrencies faced selling pressure. Nevertheless, the price figures alone do not establish how much of the rally reflects expectations surrounding Midnight’s upgrades.

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Guillemot first outlined the approaching smart contract deployment milestone on September 19, highlighting support for private custom token creation. His comments identified private contracts as an important component of the functionality developers would gain through the planned release.

Subsequently, Midnight released Node 1.0.3 on September 26 as preparations advanced toward enabling smart contract deployment on mainnet. Guillemot described that version as the final major technical release required before the network enables the deployment feature.

Moreover, he distinguished the private contract release from composability, which Midnight plans to introduce through its following v9 upgrade. This sequence gives developers an opportunity to prepare their applications before the additional functionality becomes available on the network.

According to Guillemot, developers can use v8 to prepare for composability and begin using it when the upgrade arrives. He also indicated that v9 could arrive within the year, although the supplied comments included no confirmed deployment date.

Besides those releases, Midnight plans a Node 1.0.4 mainnet update as part of preparations for its accelerated technical roadmap. Together, the outlined steps show how Midnight intends to move from deployment preparations toward broader private contract functionality.

NIGHT’s rally accompanies those development updates, but the supplied information does not confirm that the upgrades caused its gains. Midnight’s next reported milestones involve the Node 1.0.4 update, private contract deployment through v8, and the subsequent composability release.

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