In a livestream broadcast on January 29, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson delivered a comprehensive update on the Lace wallet’s evolving feature set, highlighting faster release cycles, upcoming Firefox support, and imminent Bitcoin integration. Describing January as “one hell of a month,” Hoskinson spoke candidly about his hands-on approach to testing Lace’s new capabilities and reaffirmed Cardano’s broader roadmap for 2025.
Massive Update For Cardano’s Lace Wallet
According to Hoskinson, the Lace team has undergone operational changes designed to speed up product releases: “Lace just released version 1.19. 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 because of Brandon Wolf’s great leadership and some changes we made with how we structured that team.”
The updated organizational framework is driving a more rapid deployment strategy—what Hoskinson described as “ship fast, ship often”—resulting in multiple new features now available to users.
Among the most significant announcements was the addition of compatibility with Firefox, a development expected in the coming weeks. Hoskinson also confirmed that Bitcoin support is on the near horizon: “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.”
Lace version 1.19 features a new dapp Explorer, which aims to streamline how users discover and interact with Cardano-based decentralized applications. Hoskinson noted that this Explorer is effectively the first phase of a more robust dapp store: “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 such as MinSwap and Sunday Swap, the dapp explorer illustrates 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 push to improve user experience and security, Lace now offers PGP-encrypted paper wallets, which Hoskinson described as the best backup method yet. Holding up his own example, he remarked: “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 incorporates “Nami mode,” allowing users to preserve familiar Nami wallet features. Hoskinson acknowledged that the toggle was not immediately obvious in his test, underscoring the team’s commitment to refining the user interface. The 1.19 release also introduces early-stage multisig capabilities and support for multi-stake pool delegation, further enhancing Cardano’s growing ecosystem of decentralized finance (DeFi) tools.
Lace development will not be limited to browser extensions. A dedicated mobile application is already in progress. Hoskinson stressed ease of syncing between the desktop and mobile versions, with minimal “latency” in feature parity. He also outlined a future identity center meant to reduce the need for repetitive KYC processes: “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 touched on Cardano’s evolving governance features. The upcoming Plomin hard fork—scheduled for January 29—will enable a system allowing the community to vote on a Cardano constitution and an annual budget. He also discussed ongoing innovations, including advanced oracles, stablecoin frameworks, and the Midgard protocol from Anastasia Labs, which he called “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 made in just a few years, Hoskinson predicted that the next phase of Cardano’s journey will be “dramatically more transformational”: “It’s only January. I can’t wait to see how this year unfolds.”
At press time, ADA traded at $0.9155.
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
