Midnight Network upgrades mainnet to Ledger 9 with private transfers and contract calls

Midnight Network has moved its mainnet to Ledger 9. The upgrade adds private asset transfers, contract-to-contract execution and a fresh set of cryptographic standards.

The hard fork landed on November 6, 2026. Midnight also skipped its usual staging environment, deploying directly to mainnet because of what it described as pressing security considerations.

What Ledger 9 actually changes

The headline feature for developers is contract-to-contract calls. One smart contract can now trigger another directly, without a user stitching the steps together manually.

Ledger 9 also introduces unshielded event emissions. Contracts can broadcast certain events publicly, which matters on a network built around keeping things private by default.

Then there are the cryptographic additions. Midnight now natively supports ECDSA signatures, Keccak-256 hashing and secp256k1. According to the research findings, together they significantly improve interoperability with established chains like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Private asset transfers round out the release.

How the migration worked

The fork was executed through a governance action. That came after node operators upgraded to binary version v2.1.101.

Existing balances and deployed smart contracts were migrated automatically. Users did not need to take any action to keep their funds or contracts intact.

Holders of cNIGHT on mainnet also got a hands-off experience. Their DUST generation registrations were replayed automatically after the DUST state was reset.

During testing, that replay took approximately 48 blocks.

Developers have more homework. DApps need to update to Midnight.js 5.0.0 and Wallet SDK 2.0.0 to stay compatible with the new ledger.

Public indexers also need to re-index from genesis.

There is also a clean break with the past. Transactions built for Ledger 8 can no longer be decoded on mainnet following the upgrade.

Why skipping Preprod matters

Midnight’s normal rollout path includes a soak period on Preprod, its pre-production network. Ledger 9 bypassed that step entirely. The network cited security considerations as the reason for going direct to mainnet.

Shortly after, the Preview network was reset as a new Ledger 9 chain. Preprod, meanwhile, remains on Ledger 8, with work on its upgrade still underway.

What this means for developers and token holders

For builders, contract-to-contract calls are the most consequential change. The new cryptographic primitives push in the same direction. Native support for ECDSA, Keccak-256 and secp256k1 lowers friction for teams that want their Midnight applications to interact with assets or identities rooted in Bitcoin and Ethereum.

The research findings suggest the upgrade could attract new projects looking to use these capabilities. They also point to the automatic contract migration as a factor that minimizes disruption for existing developers and users.

For holders of NIGHT and cNIGHT, balances carried over automatically, and DUST registrations were restored without user intervention.

The risks deserve attention. Skipping the Preprod soak means Ledger 9 received less real-world testing than Midnight’s process normally calls for before reaching mainnet.

There is also operational friction for the broader ecosystem. Indexers re-syncing from genesis, DApps updating to new SDK versions, and the incompatibility of Ledger 8 transactions all create a window where some services may lag behind.

The key items to track are straightforward. Watch how quickly major DApps and wallets ship Midnight.js 5.0.0 and Wallet SDK 2.0.0 support, how fast public indexers complete their re-index, and when Preprod finally catches up to Ledger 9.