Daedalus 11.1.0 Arrives as Se7en Labs Seeks 1.79 Million ADA for Its Next Phase

During a new Cardano Foundation Governance Hour, Se7en Labs co-founder Samuel Leathers outlined what the team has already delivered and what would follow if the active treasury withdrawal proposal receives sufficient support. The roadmap includes a CIP-30 dApp connector, an integrated DRep dashboard, continued protocol maintenance and an assessment of Daedalus’ long-term architecture.

Voting on the proposal remains open until July 28, 2026.

Daedalus 11.1.0 Introduces Partial Mithril Synchronization

During the Governance Hour, Leathers said the team was preparing a new Daedalus release. That update has now been officially published as Daedalus 11.1.0.

Its main feature is partial Mithril synchronization for existing installations that have fallen significantly behind the current blockchain tip. Instead of processing every missed block sequentially, Daedalus can offer to download only the missing immutable chunk range through Mithril.

This is particularly relevant for users who keep funds in Daedalus but open the wallet only occasionally. A wallet that has been offline for months or years previously needed considerable time to catch up before it could be used again.

The new synchronization process shows how many epochs the local node is behind, provides live file-count progress and allows users to interrupt the ledger replay. It also includes cancellation, error-handling and recovery flows.

According to Leathers, downloading the required snapshot data took approximately four to five minutes during his local testing, although the actual time depends on the user’s internet connection and the amount of missing data.

New installations have already been able to use Mithril to accelerate their initial synchronization. Instead of replaying the Cardano blockchain from genesis, users can download and restore a cryptographically certified snapshot. Those who prefer the original security model can still synchronize the entire chain from the beginning.

Leathers explained that the immutable snapshot data is signed through Mithril by participating stake pool operators. The ledger state currently requires an additional signature supplied by IOG, while work continues on a model in which a canonical ledger state could also be signed by SPOs.

Daedalus 11.1.0 also upgrades the bundled desktop runtime from Electron 24 to Electron 41. The change introduces several years of Chromium security patches and V8 improvements without materially changing the wallet’s user interface.

The release additionally updates Ledger and Trezor hardware wallet libraries, replaces an unmaintained USB detection dependency and upgrades several security-related software components. A Windows issue that could incorrectly report insufficient disk space when storage paths used NTFS junctions or symbolic links has also been fixed.

The official release notes recommend that all Daedalus users upgrade to the new version.

Earlier releases delivered other substantial improvements. Daedalus 8.0.0 introduced an LSM-based UTxO backend, reducing the amount of memory required to run the full node. Leathers said typical RAM consumption had fallen to approximately four to five gigabytes.

The same release introduced Mithril bootstrapping for new installations, while Daedalus 11.0.0 added compatibility with the Van Rossem hard fork and Cardano Protocol Version 11. The wallet was ready for the upgrade shortly after the corresponding Cardano node release became available.

CIP-30 Would Connect Daedalus to Cardano dApps

One of the most significant features included in the proposed development roadmap is CIP-30 support.

Daedalus currently provides a full-node environment in which the user locally validates the blockchain, but it lacks the direct dApp connectivity offered by modern light wallets. Se7en Labs plans to address this through a thin browser extension capable of communicating with the user’s local Daedalus installation.

The extension would serve as a bridge between web applications and the local wallet. Transaction signing would remain inside Daedalus rather than being transferred to the browser.

This would allow Daedalus users to interact with Cardano DeFi protocols and other applications that support the CIP-30 standard while preserving the wallet’s local full-node architecture. Leathers also pointed to potential connections with governance tools and other services using wallet-connect functionality.

A DRep dashboard is already under development. It would allow users to find, review and select governance representatives directly from Daedalus.

The current process can require users to locate a DRep identifier and manually enter it into the wallet. The planned dashboard would make DRep discovery and governance delegation more accessible without requiring users to leave the application.

Se7en Labs is attempting to serve two distinct groups of Daedalus users: those who want to hold their assets in a locally operated full-node wallet for long periods and those who want to interact regularly with Cardano applications.

The proposal cites approximately 4,000 monthly active users, but Leathers warned that this figure does not capture the entire user base. Daedalus uses Matomo analytics, and users can opt out of tracking. Because the wallet operates locally, there is no mandatory centralized backend capable of counting every user.

Many Daedalus holders also open the application only when they need to make a transaction. A wallet can remain inactive for an extended period while still holding funds, making partial Mithril synchronization particularly important for this group.

The discussion also addressed wallet security following the recent SecondFi incident. Leathers did not comment extensively on the incident itself but said Daedalus does not implement its own custom transaction-signing cryptography. Instead, it relies on established open-source Cardano node and Cardano Wallet components also used elsewhere across the ecosystem.

As a full-node wallet, Daedalus downloads and independently validates the Cardano blockchain rather than relying on a centrally hosted third-party backend. Transactions can be submitted directly to the network through the locally running node.

Leathers also warned against giving cloud-based AI agents direct access to the Daedalus node socket or wallet API. He recommended using AI tools to help create an application or script, reviewing that code and then executing the deterministic program locally instead of allowing an agent to interact freely with the wallet.

Se7en Labs Plans a Broader Architectural Assessment

Cardano is moving toward a multi-node future in which different independent implementations could operate alongside the existing Haskell node. Se7en Labs therefore plans to assess whether Daedalus should eventually adopt an alternative Cardano node, a different indexer or a new frontend architecture.

No transition has been decided.

Leathers said the alternative node implementations have not yet reached the level of production readiness required for integration into a full-node wallet. The current funding period would therefore focus on evaluating the available options rather than committing to a complete architectural migration.

The assessment could include cross-platform Rust interface libraries as an alternative to Electron. The team is also considering whether a mobile interface could securely communicate with a Daedalus full node running on the user’s computer.

Such a system would introduce challenges around remote access, network security and usability. Users might need a private network connection or be limited to accessing the node while connected to their home network. For that reason, mobile access remains an area of investigation rather than a confirmed feature.

The results of the architectural assessment are expected to provide a more concrete direction for a future development proposal.

In the meantime, protocol maintenance will remain a significant part of the team’s work. Leathers said he was preparing for the possibility of as many as three Cardano hard forks before July 2027, depending on whether the planned protocol changes are introduced separately or combined.

He connected that possibility to the phased path toward Dijkstra and the eventual Euler upgrade. This was presented as his expectation rather than a confirmed Cardano hard fork schedule.

Leathers identified Euler’s proposed multi-asset treasury as one of the future developments he finds most important. Such a system could allow the Cardano treasury to hold stablecoins and fund proposals in assets with lower short-term volatility, reducing the risk that a project’s operating budget loses value after approval.

Se7en Labs intends to use a similar risk-management approach if its Daedalus proposal is approved. The team expects to convert a portion of the received ADA into stablecoins to provide greater budget stability during the 12-month delivery period.

The team is also considering adding a donation wallet after parts of the Daedalus infrastructure, including its website, are transferred from IOG to Se7en Labs.

However, Leathers rejected the idea of creating a paid “pro” version with features unavailable to other users. He views a full-node wallet as an open-source public good that should remain accessible to the entire Cardano community.

If the current proposal or a future funding request fails, Leathers said he would continue providing basic compatibility updates for new versions of Cardano Node and Cardano Wallet. However, unfunded maintenance would not provide the same level of feature development, direct user support or officially signed Windows and macOS installation packages.