Cardano Founder Explains Why Some ADA Holders Missed Out on Glacier Airdrop

A software limitation in Ledger hardware wallets is preventing some Cardano users from participating in the Midnight Foundation’s Glacier Drop, a two-month-long airdrop distributing NIGHT tokens across eight blockchain ecosystems.

The issue stems from the handling of message signing for Cardano. In a post on X, Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson explained that the Ledger’s implementation of CIP-8—a protocol for securely signing messages—limits messages to just 31 bytes. The Glacier Drop is 251 bytes, making it too large for Ledger’s current firmware to support.

“This is a Cardano-specific issue with Ledger’s software that we flagged in July,” Hoskinson wrote. “They haven’t given us a timeline for their update.”

Ledger has not responded to Decrypt’s request for comment.

Midnight Foundation President Fahmi Syed confirmed the issue and said the group is in contact with Ledger.

“There are some limitations around how the CIP-8 message is constructed and delivered when signing on Ledger,” Syed told Decrypt. “We identified that there was a potential security issue around that, and for us, security is paramount.”

While Ledger has yet to issue a fix, Cardano developers are rolling out a workaround. According to Hoskinson, the system will use a null transaction that includes the Glacier Drop payload as metadata instead of a traditional message signature. The workaround will be integrated into the Glacier Drop protocol to allow affected users to claim tokens.

The Glacier Drop is designed to distribute NIGHT tokens—used within the Midnight blockchain ecosystem—to eligible wallet holders from eight chains: Cardano, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP, BNB, Avalanche, and Brave’s BAT.

Syed acknowledged similar issues with XRP and Avalanche. He said the Midnight Foundation expects to roll out its own solution to the Ledger problem in the coming weeks..

“We’ve been working with many partners, including Ledger, and also the Cardano team,” Syed said. “The affected users are a small minority, but we’re taking it seriously and will have a secure solution in place by the week of August 25th.”

He warned users against seeking or accepting unofficial workarounds in the meantime.

“There are already fake sites and unsolicited claims circulating,” he said. “We ask the community to stick with our official platforms. No one should be transferring tokens, locking assets, or sharing their private keys.”

Despite the Ledger issue, Syed said user participation in the airdrop remains high.

“We’ve had over 120 million tokens claimed in just a few hours, across all eight ecosystems,” he said. “This is bigger than Cardano—it’s about collaboration across chains.”

According to Syed, the claim window remains open for 60 days, and user eligibility is locked from the moment of verification.

“When you do things differently and innovatively, you’ll be challenged,” he said. “In an ideal world, would I prefer everything worked perfectly? Absolutely. But this is about progress, and with the Glacier Drop today, we’re making it.”