VIA Labs Demonstrates USDM Transfers Between Cardano and Midnight

VIA Labs completed a live two-way USDM transfer between Cardano and Midnight during the latest Midnight Fireside Dev Hang.

The demonstration moved the stablecoin from Cardano Pre-Prod to Midnight Preview and then back to Cardano, with both transactions tracked through confirmation and execution.

The underlying testnet bridge was already available before the session. The new development is the addition of a developer package that allows the transfer process to be integrated directly into applications rather than accessed only through a browser interface.

USDM Moves Between Cardano and Midnight

For the first transfer, VIA Labs connected an Eternl wallet configured for Cardano Pre-Prod with a 1AM wallet running on Midnight Preview.

Five units of USDM were sent from Cardano toward Midnight. After the Cardano transaction was accepted, VIA Labs infrastructure monitored the required source-chain confirmations before completing the corresponding transaction on Midnight.

The team then executed the process in reverse. The Midnight-to-Cardano transaction also completed during the presentation, demonstrating the full round-trip transfer between the two test networks.

VIA Labs allows developers to configure the number of source-chain confirmations required before a cross-chain message is delivered. Applications can therefore adjust confirmation requirements according to their own security and execution needs.

Lock-and-Mint Keeps USDM Backed on Cardano

The USDM integration uses a lock-and-mint architecture.

When USDM moves from Cardano to Midnight, the original tokens are locked in a smart contract vault on Cardano. A corresponding representation is then created on Midnight and backed one-to-one by the assets held on the source network.

VIA Labs described this model as suitable for assets expanding beyond their native blockchain without creating a separate unbacked supply on the destination network.

The bridge operates through VIA Labs’ broader cross-chain messaging infrastructure, which can carry messages as well as coordinate token transfers between supported networks. This gives applications built around Midnight access to cross-chain functionality that can interact with Cardano-originating assets.

NPM Package Adds Programmatic Bridge Access

VIA Labs also presented an NPM package for developers building with the Cardano-Midnight bridge.

The package supports Cardano-to-Midnight and Midnight-to-Cardano operations through command-line tools and can also be imported into larger applications. VIA Labs said the package is currently available for testnet use, with mainnet support planned later.

The implementation supports Blockfrost for Cardano infrastructure access and can fall back to public Koios APIs when a Blockfrost project ID is not configured. Midnight-side transactions require DUST, while developers can run a local proof server during development.

The latest release therefore extends the existing testnet bridge beyond manual browser transfers. USDM movement between Cardano and Midnight can now be invoked directly from application code, command-line environments and automated agents, giving developers a reusable programmatic component for testing cross-chain applications across both networks.