Cardano Founder Says ‘Welcome Home Bitcoin’ As Lace Adds BTC Support in Latest Upgrade

The Cardano wallet Lace has clinched a major milestone with the release of version 1.22, officially adding Bitcoin support for users participating in its beta program. 

This update marks Lace’s first step into becoming a multi-chain wallet, with users now able to store, send, and manage Bitcoin directly from the interface. The Lace development team described the upgrade as a “big one,” on track with Cardano’s vision of cross-chain interoperability.

The announcement triggered a response from Cardano founder and Input Output Global (IOG) CEO Charles Hoskinson. In a commentary on X, Hoskinson celebrated the moment, confirming that users could now interact with Bitcoin on the Cardano wallet. 

You can now use Bitcoin with Lace. Welcome home Bitcoin https://t.co/37Ms3BfTIZ

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) April 28, 2025

Bitcoin on Cardano Wallet Lace

His excitement is due to Cardano’s broader ambition to integrate Bitcoin into its decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem. Although this Bitcoin support within Lace does not yet represent the full realization of Bitcoin DeFi on Cardano, it is an important development in that direction.

For Hoskinson, this move validates years of work looking to bridge Bitcoin’s vast liquidity with Cardano’s smart contract platform. The Cardano founder suggested earlier this month that the integration is closer than most think.

Notably, Cardano’s roadmap includes partnerships like the one with BitcoinOS, utilizing zero-knowledge (ZK) for trustless Bitcoin bridging, and protocols such as Midnight and Midgard designed to enable private and secure Bitcoin staking without the need for wrapped tokens. 

For context, Hoskinson is eyeing a demonstration of Bitcoin DeFi integration next month, in May 2025, at the Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas. As the ecosystem awaits this move, Lace’s new Bitcoin functionality presents market participants with a glimpse of Cardano’s future ambitions.

Despite the excitement, it is crucial to note that Lace’s Bitcoin feature is primarily a storage and management tool at this stage, and not yet part of the larger DeFi infrastructure being built. 

Full Bitcoin DeFi integration will involve mechanisms like Babel fees, which allow users to pay transaction fees in Bitcoin, and merged mining possibilities, presenting Cardano as a smart contract layer for Bitcoin.

More Fixes from Version 1.22

Meanwhile, in addition to Bitcoin support, Lace 1.22 addresses several other enhancements. For instance, a previously reported issue affecting DRep identification for governance dApps has been resolved, improving the voting experience for users engaged in Cardano’s on-chain governance. 

Furthermore, the upgrade includes fixes for hardware wallet interactions, specifically refining output format mappings that had caused failures when connecting with decentralized applications.

Notably, Hoskinson confirmed this month that Lace could be on track to support XRP. The latest Lace update is part of a broader series of upgrades that have steadily enhanced the Cardano wallet’s capabilities throughout 2024 and 2025. 

Previous Lace Upgrades

Earlier versions like 1.9 introduced multi-account and multi-wallet setups, allowing users to manage various wallets under a single recovery phrase, enhancing both convenience and security. 

The 1.12 release added multi-staking capabilities alongside Trezor and Ledger hardware wallet integration, making it easier for ADA holders to delegate across multiple pools. Later updates focused on performance, such as 1.17.5’s improvements to synchronization speeds and 1.19.0’s introduction of a DApp Explorer powered by DappRadar.

Last December, Hoskinson teased that Lace could be a “powerhouse” in 2025. This came on the back of fixes that improved its Nami mode following the migration of over 200,000 Nami wallet users into Lace.