Charles Hoskinson is increasingly emphasizing artificial intelligence as a foundational element for Cardano's evolution, with the Midnight City project serving as a live demonstration. He frames AI agents as essential for scaling communication and coordination, arguing that linear hiring cannot support a community growing from thousands to millions. Hoskinson defended recent experiments with a synthetic influencer on Cardano’s official channels, calling it transparent trial-and-error. He highlighted OpenClaw, an open-source agent project gaining traction, as evidence of the trend. Midnight City, running on the Midnight Network, features autonomous agents with assigned memory and personality, enabling real transactions and selective disclosure. Visitors can explore views ranging from open-chain data to an auditor's view with cryptographic clearance, or a 'God mode' revealing agents' internal states. The infrastructure uses zero-knowledge proofs and Trusted Execution Environments for shielded transactions. Hoskinson believes agentic trading and affiliate relationships could attract millions of new users. The project is positioned as one of Cardano's most important, integrating every emerging AI standard as the technology evolves.

Key facts

• Hoskinson frames AI agents as essential for Cardano's scaling and communication.
• Midnight City hosts autonomous agents with memory, personality, and real transactions.
• Experiment with synthetic influencer on Input Output account defended as transparent test.
• Infrastructure uses zero-knowledge proofs and Trusted Execution Environments.
• Hoskinson sees agentic trading and affiliate systems driving millions of new users.

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