Midnight has scrapped its dedicated developer-relations team as the Charles Hoskinson-backed blockchain shifts its builder strategy toward AI tools that can help people ship software without traditional coding skills.
- The Midnight Foundation, the organization overseeing the privacy-focused blockchain ecosystem, said in a Wednesday thread on X that it had "wound down" its dedicated DevRel team, the group responsible for helping developers understand Midnight, use its tools and turn ideas into working applications.
- The foundation said the move wasn't "a retreat from developers," but "an expansion of the audience we're building for."
- Midnight pointed to Replit, the AI-assisted software development platform that says it has more than 60 million users, as evidence that people without traditional engineering backgrounds can increasingly build websites, apps and other products.
That shift, the foundation said, could bring founders, designers, operators and industry specialists into blockchain development without requiring them to first become experienced programmers.
"Our ambition isn't just to help more developers build privacy-preserving applications," Midnight said. "It's to make building with Midnight accessible to a much broader group of people who have something worth building."
The new strategy will focus on what Midnight called "AI-native tooling," simpler ways to enter the ecosystem and programs designed to support builders from the initial idea through deployment.
Midnight was celebrating developer growth weeks ago
The restructuring comes less than a month after Midnight publicly highlighted what it described as record developer activity.
- On Aug. 17, Lauren Lee, Midnight's then-head of developer relations, said in an X thread that monthly active contributors had climbed 325% from a year earlier, citing Electric Capital data.
- Lee, whose role centered on growing and supporting Midnight's developer community, linked the increase to developer resources, hackathons and other programs designed to make building on the network easier.
- Midnight had also highlighted growing developer and community activity in June, pointing to new tooling, tutorials and programs intended to bring more builders into the ecosystem.
Midnight is hiring for the AI pivot
The change also comes as Midnight is hiring specifically around AI-assisted development.
An opening for an AI Developer Tools Engineer was posted on Sept. 4, just six days before the foundation announced that its dedicated DevRel team had been wound down.
- The role involves making Midnight a "first-class target" for AI coding agents, software systems that can generate and modify code from natural-language instructions.
- It also includes maintaining Midnight Expert, the ecosystem's AI-focused developer assistant, while improving the software development kits, documentation and technical context that AI systems use when building on the network.
The timing doesn't establish, though, that AI replaced Midnight's DevRel employees. The foundation also hasn't made that claim.
Midnight itself said the tooling and workflows behind its new model are "still maturing" and that it plans to begin with a limited group of builders before expanding the approach.
- Midnight, a privacy-focused layer-1 blockchain designed as a partner chain to Cardano, was incubated by Input Output, the blockchain engineering company founded by Cardano creator Charles Hoskinson.
- Hoskinson has said roughly $200 million was invested into Midnight's development, making the network one of the largest projects associated with the broader Cardano ecosystem.