Massive Update For Cardano's Lace Wallet

In a livestream broadcast on January 29, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson delivered a comprehensive update on the Lace wallet's evolving feature set

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson provided an in-depth update on the latest features being integrated into the Lace wallet during a livestream broadcast on January 29. Among the key announcements were faster release cycles, upcoming Firefox support, and the imminent integration of Bitcoin.

Highlighting a productive January, Hoskinson personally tested and showcased the new capabilities of the Lace wallet. He also provided an update on Cardano’s broader roadmap for 2925.

Cardano's Lace Wallet Receives Massive Update

According to Hoskinson, the Lace team has implemented operational changes to accelerate product releases. He stated:

“Lace just shipped version 1.19. Now, you may have noticed that there's been a great velocity increase in the Lace releases, and we're starting to finally get a lot of those things that were jammed up for a few years. This is actually because of Brandon Wolf's great leadership and some changes we made with how we structured that team.”

This updated organizational structure has enabled a more rapid deployment strategy, which Hoskinson described as “ship fast, ship often.” As a result, several new features are now available to users.

One of the most notable announcements was the addition of Firefox compatibility, which is expected to be available in the coming weeks. Hoskinson also confirmed that Bitcoin support is on the horizon, stating:

“For example, I think in the next two to four weeks we should have Firefox support […], and Bitcoin support is coming very soon as well.”

The Lace version 1.19 also includes a new dapp Explorer, which is designed to make it easier for users to discover and interact with Cardano-based decentralized applications (dApps). According to Hoskinson, this Explorer is the first phase of a more robust dapp store. He explained:

“We decided to stage it and have it kind of as first a dapp Explorer, and then over time build out a whole house of capabilities for it.”

By integrating with platforms like MinSwap and Sunday Swap, the dapp explorer provides a path toward more user-friendly crypto transactions. During the demonstration, Hoskinson used the explorer to buy various tokens, highlighting how recent improvements have shortened transaction confirmation times “from hours to seconds.”

In a move to enhance user experience and security, Lace now offers PGP-encrypted paper wallets, which Hoskinson described as the best backup method yet. He showed off his own example, stating:

“This right here is my paper wallet. It's encrypted with my PGP key so you guys can scan that, follow that wallet, see what we do with it, but nobody can recover it.”

Additionally, Lace includes a “Nami mode,” which allows users to preserve familiar features from the Nami wallet. Hoskinson acknowledged that the toggle was not immediately apparent in his test, highlighting the team’s efforts to refine the user interface. The 1.19 release also introduces early-stage multisig capabilities and support for multi-stake pool delegation, further expanding Cardano’s ecosystem of decentralized finance (DeFi) tools.

Lace development will extend beyond browser extensions, with a dedicated mobile application currently being developed. Hoskinson emphasized the ease of syncing between the desktop and mobile versions with minimal “latency” in feature parity. He also outlined a future identity center designed to reduce the need for repetitive KYC processes. In his words:

“Instead of having to go through a naked KYC process, I could just have a Lace ID and, through partners, they can accept that so there's a seamless experience.”

Toward the end of his demonstration, Hoskinson discussed Cardano’s evolving governance features. The upcoming Plomin hard fork — scheduled for January 29 — will introduce a system that enables the community to vote on a Cardano constitution and an annual budget. He also covered ongoing innovations, including advanced oracles, stablecoin frameworks, and the Midgard protocol from Anastasia Labs, which he hailed as “a beast” for its potential to elevate Cardano’s DeFi infrastructure.

“All the pieces are coming together, and those pieces are resulting in a very comprehensive ecosystem that's becoming more and more consumer-friendly with each iteration,” he stated.

Emphasizing the progress achieved in just a few years, Hoskinson predicted that the next phase of Cardano’s journey will be “dramatically more transformational.” He concluded optimistically:

“It's only January. I can't wait to see how this year unfolds.”

At press time, ADA was trading at $0.9155.