MoneyGram joins Midnight Network as a founding federated node operator, bringing a 200-country payment reach to a privacy-first blockchain before the March mainnet.
MoneyGram has joined Midnight Network as a founding federated node operator. The payments company covers more than 200 countries and territories. That reach now connects to one of crypto’s most-watched privacy blockchain launches.
As @midnightfdn posted on X, MoneyGram’s role focuses on exploring how payment networks move on-chain while keeping compliance and privacy intact. The network targets the mainnet in March.
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The Node Roster Nobody Saw Coming
MoneyGram does not join alone. The initial group already includes Google Cloud, Blockdaemon, Shielded Technologies, and AlphaTON. Three new additions follow, per the Midnight Foundation’s blog: Pairpoint by Vodafone, eToro, and MoneyGram.
Each operator brings something different. Pairpoint brings IoT infrastructure. eToro brings 35 million users and a NASDAQ listing. MoneyGram brings cross-border payment volume that most blockchain projects never touch.
These are not speculative participants. The Foundation said it picked operators managing high-volume, mission-critical systems.
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Privacy That Actually Works for Payments
Luke Tuttle, MoneyGram’s Chief Product and Technology Officer, said running blockchain nodes fits naturally into the company’s existing strategy. Privacy, compliance, and reliability get built in from day one, not added later.
That framing matters. Settlement on Midnight acts as verifiable proof of compliance. Sensitive user data stays off the open ledger. Zero-knowledge technology handles it.
Omri Ross, Chief Blockchain Officer at eToro, said the platform was drawn to Midnight’s approach to programmable data protection and selective disclosure. He described technologies giving granular control over data visibility as foundational to next-generation blockchain infrastructure. eToro had already listed the NIGHT token before joining as a node operator.
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March Mainnet: Who Actually Holds the Keys
The Kūkolu phase governs this early mainnet window. Federated operators run the protocol under explicit coordination rules. Full decentralisation follows later, once the network matures.
Fahmi Syed, President of the Midnight Foundation, put it plainly. When a global payments network, a Fortune 500-backed telco venture, and a publicly traded fintech all choose the same privacy blockchain, that tells you where the industry is heading.
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