What’s going on with Daedalus?!

English Community Technical Support
1

I’ve been using Daedalus since 2017, but due to the ever-growing blockchain size I was forced to stop in 2023. In 2025, I bought a much more powerful computer (Intel Core 7 150U, 32GB RAM, 954GB SSD, Win 11 Pro) hoping I could finally restore my wallets through Daedalus.

After several weeks of failed attempts, I’m completely disheartened… I just don’t get it. Are people still actually using this wallet?!

First issue: The blockchain fully synchronizes on my side, but both versions 7.1.0 and 7.2.0 fail to display the list of staking pools. I even tried wiping the “wallets” folder in the state directory and restoring the wallets again, but the problem persists: the screens that are supposed to show the staking pools just keep loading forever.

Second issue: The restored wallets’ ADA cannot be moved. I’m asked to select a dRep for each wallet before being able to use them. The problem is, those screens are also completely broken. I tried choosing Abstain, No confidence, and even drep1y20fpc0f6qjl4edtl9cxzrvqzd8jkzr6ja7p0p2n7cxragqkurae3 (Peyton’s dRep ID), but every time I click Submit, the button just greys out and nothing happens.

I’m this close to restoring via a light wallet and sending all my ADA to a CEX, but I don’t feel safe at all considering the sums involved… especially with the recently discovered malware targeting light crypto wallets (not Cardano wallets specifically, apparently, but still better safe than sorry).

I honestly don’t understand. How can people accept the miserable state of the only full-node wallet of the 10th largest crypto by market cap?! After 8 years, I really didn’t expect to find Daedalus in such ruins in 2025. There isn’t even a certificate for Windows to verify the publisher of the installer executable.

Given all these issues, it’s no wonder so few people have been able to claim their Midnight tokens.

1 Like
2

There is only a limited amount of people still using Daedalus. Just get a hardware wallet and use it in combination with a litewallet like Typhon.

3

Few. And a lot of people – me included – now actively advise against it. It is just not worth the resources it eats.

Using a full node wallet is not that much safer than using a light wallet for end users. Really not.

If the sums are significant, get a hardware wallet. Period.

Sending to a CEX doesn’t seem like the best idea, though.

4

Problem solved: The wallet I was trying to restore had ended up in a broken state due to the governance updates. When I tried restoring it on Lace, I realized it was also frozen there: no transactions were possible. For some reason I don’t understand, all the ADA in it were treated as locked rewards. So I sent a small amount of fresh ADA to the wallet, and Daedalus immediately unlocked: the staking pools appeared and I was able to choose a delegation for my voting power.

As for Typhon, it’s not clear to me whether it’s actually an open-source wallet or not. I haven’t found anything about it that inspires trust.

Regarding Ledger, the Cardano wallet available there is developed by VacuumLabs, apparently a contractor based in Slovakia, and again it’s not clear whether this wallet is open source or not. I therefore can’t trust this software as it stands.

For this reason, I keep using Daedalus, where the commits and releases are clearly documented and developed by the very company behind Cardano itself.

5

You do you.