It is official. The Midnight Foundation's September 2026 State of the Network update, published September 28, confirmed that permissionless smart contract deployment is now live on Midnight mainnet.
What Does Permissionless Mean?
A smart contract is a program that runs on a blockchain. Until now, developers had to pass a required security review on Preprod, Midnight's testing network, before deploying to mainnet. Permissionless deployment removes that gate. Any developer can now deploy directly to mainnet, and apps can even deploy contracts on behalf of their users.
The Foundation still recommends testing on Preprod first, which is good advice for anyone building with real money on the line.
What Comes Next: v8 and v9
In a September 30 post, Midnight Foundation CTO Sebastien Guillemot laid out the next steps, as reported by crypto media. He said v8 enables private contracts, and that composability, coming with v9, would follow this year after audit work.
Private contracts: Smart contracts that can keep certain data hidden while still proving they ran correctly.
Composability: The ability for different apps to plug into and build on each other, like Lego bricks. It is a big reason DeFi grew so quickly on other chains.
Also in the Update
OpenZeppelin, a leading smart contract security firm, is building a contract library and starter pack for Compact, Midnight's smart contract language.
Google Cloud's Web3 portal now hosts a Midnight page and a testnet NIGHT faucet, a tool that hands out free test tokens.
Noctis Zone, a private token launchpad built by Nightforce Ambassador MJ, deployed to Preprod. Its DarkVeil feature hides purchase data for the first 24 hours of a sale.
Why It Matters
Opening mainnet to everyone is the moment a blockchain becomes a true platform. Expect more apps, more experiments and more activity on Midnight in the weeks ahead.