Lace Mainnet - FAQs

Getting started

What is Lace?

Lace is a light wallet platform built on Cardano. Its first release includes a light wallet, an NFT viewer, an easy staking feature, and a decentralized app (DApp) connector. Unlike full-node wallets, light wallets do not synchronize the full copy of the blockchain. Lace is all about ease, allowing you to manage your digital assets and interact with Web3 without all the complexities of a full-node wallet. Lace lets you:

• Send and receive ada and Cardano native tokens
• Stake your ada and receive rewards for participating in the network
• Connect to and use DApps
• Store, send, receive, and view your NFTs
• Connect with a Ledger hardware wallet for added security
• View your transaction history

How do I install Lace?

Lace is available as an extension in the Google, Edge and Firefox stores. You can add Lace to your Google Chrome, Brave, Edge or Firefox browsers!

What is my private key?

A private key is a long sequence of digits and letters that uniquely verify ownership of your digital assets. Private keys should only ever be shared with the key's generator or parties authorized to decrypt the data.

What is my secret recovery phrase?

Because the private key can be hard to remember, Lace gives you a recovery phrase (also known as a mnemonic or a seed phrase) of 24 words instead, which you set up when you first create your wallet. Typically, the longer the word sequence, the less likely someone will be able to guess your recovery phrase. You use the phrase to recover your wallet and access your assets, so make sure you store it securely. If you are recovering your wallet from another platform on Cardano, you may have a 12 or 15 recovery phrase. You will receive your recovery phrase when you first create your wallet. Make sure you keep it in a safe place, preferably in a tangible (offline) way. If you lose your recovery phrase, there is no way to recover it and access your digital assets. The IOG development team behind the wallet doesn’t know your recovery phrase and there’s nothing that can be done to help you in the event of its loss.

What happens if I forget my wallet password?

If you forget your password, you can only recover your wallet by using your secret recovery phrase. So make sure you always store your secret recovery phrase securely offline – write it down and keep it in a secure location.

What happens if I lose my secret recovery phrase?

If you lose your secret recovery phrase, you lose access to your wallet and your digital assets. That’s why it’s so important that you store it somewhere safe.

Is there a way to recover my wallet if I lose my secret recovery phrase?

No. There’s really no way to recover your wallet if you lose your secret recovery phrase. This is fundamental to how the blockchain works. You and only you are the owner of your secret recovery phrase and that is why losing your secret recovery phrase means losing access to your digital assets. That’s why it’s of critical importance that you save your secret recovery phrase in a safe place.

How do I add ADA to Lace?

You first need to purchase ADA from an exchange and send it to your wallet address – you can find your wallet address by clicking the Receive button.

Can I send ADA from Lace to other wallets?

You can send ADA to any Cardano-compatible wallet. Lace includes safeguards to prevent you from sending digital assets to wallets that don’t support Cardano, but it's always a good idea to triple-check the address you are sending your digital assets to, before you make any transaction. A good rule of thumb is that all Cardano addresses start with ‘addr1__’.

What is network switching?

Lace lets you switch between networks to test new releases and features, before they’re deployed on the mainnet. There are three networks you can choose from: two testing environments (preview and preproduction) and the mainnet environment (production). Network switching means there are fewer bugs on the mainnet and means everyone enjoys a smoother experience. Plus, it means you can give your feedback on new features before a release makes it to the mainnet – so by the time a new feature makes it to the mainnet, it should already work the way it should, and suit your needs. What’s not to love?

Why does Lace read your Chrome browsing history?

When adding the Lace extension to Chrome you will notice a pop-up stating that Lace will read your browsing history. Declaring requests such as this to users is a requirement from Google for anyone publishing to the Chrome store (more on that here).

When a DApp requests a connection to Lace using the CIP-30 - Cardano DApp-Wallet Web Bridge (the DApp connector), Lace uses the Chrome Tabs API to pull information from the DApp to read its URL, name, and icon so that this information can be displayed inside Lace. By using the Tabs API, Lace is explicitly required to declare these permissions – just as any other extension employing CIP-30 would have to do.

Rest assured, no other information is read or retained by Lace. The Lace team and IOG are absolutely committed to respecting user privacy and will not use this data in any intrusive or inappropriate ways.

Can I use a multi-address wallet in both Lace and another wallet, such as Daedalus or Eternl, at the same time?

Yes, you can. However, if additional addresses are created in the other wallet you have to manually discover them using the Wallet Sync button in settings. Then you would be able to see everything in every address in Lace.

Why does Lace need permission to "read and change all your data on all websites"?

This is a standard permission required by the Chrome Web Store for wallet extensions to work with DApps. It allows Lace to connect, interact with, and receive transaction requests from DApps. Lace only uses this permission for DApp interactions and does not access or modify your personal data on unrelated websites.

 

Got a question you can’t see here? Join our #Lace-community Discord channel to get answers from the community and the Lace team at Input Output Global.

 

Transactions and transfers

How do I send and receive digital assets?

To send ADA, you need the recipient’s Cardano address. Add the address and the amount you want to transfer to the recipient in the ‘Send’ tab of your wallet.

To receive ADA, copy your ‘Receive address’ to the clipboard from the ‘Receive’ tab. Next, share it with the person who is going to send you ADA (or other Cardano native assets) or use it yourself to send ADA from another wallet or exchange.

What is my public address?

Your public address is a unique identifier that serves as a virtual location for your digital assets. You can think of it like a postcode or a zip code.

Does Lace have fees?

Any blockchain network, including Cardano, charges transaction fees (ie, for sending ADA, delegating ADA to a stake pool, or withdrawing rewards). The fee amount depends on the size of the transaction.

These fees cover resources like electricity and computing power. They also enhance the security of the network and protect the Cardano network against attacks.

What are transaction bundles?

The transaction bundle feature lets users send multiple types of digital assets to multiple wallet addresses with just one transaction fee. Pretty neat, right?

Normally, sending different types of digital assets means making individual transactions for each asset and paying a fee for each of them. Likewise, sending digital assets to multiple addresses usually requires separate transactions, each with their own fee.

Transaction bundles not only save users fees, but they also reduce the number of transactions being made on the network, thereby reducing network congestion. From paying employees, to making an airdrop to the entire world – the opportunities are endless.

Got a question you can’t see here? Join our #Lace-community Discord channel to get answers from the community and the Lace team at Input Output Global.

 

Staking

What are staking and delegation?

Cardano was one of the first blockchains to support ‘staking’, however on Cardano, the process differs slightly from other chains. Cardano was designed to (1) always let users have access to their digital assets, and (2) let more advanced users run stake pools. Users with a less technical background can still receive rewards for actively taking part in the network through staking. 

On Cardano, you ‘delegate the block production rights’ associated with your stake rather than the ADA itself. This way, your ADA never leaves your wallet, it's never locked, and the stake pool operator (the expert user) mints blocks on your behalf. This allows you to safely select a stake pool that works best for you, without having to worry about the security of your digital assets.

How do I stake my ADA?

Most Cardano-enabled wallets have a staking feature. Depending on the wallet you use, you may or may not be able to choose where to delegate your stake. In Lace, you can choose the stake pool that you want to delegate to. 

After delegating your stake, you post a delegation certificate – containing your stake key and stake pool identifier – on-chain to publish your staking/delegation choice. This choice roughly states “I declare that the block production rights associated with the digital assets in this public address are delegated to this stake pool”.

I added more ADA to my wallet. Do I need to stake again?

After delegating ADA to a chosen stake pool, you don't have to do anything. Newly added ADA or assets will be automatically staked with the chosen pool. Re-delegation only happens when you want to change your original choice of stake pool for another.

Which stake pool should I choose?

You can choose a stake pool based on a number of factors. The amount of assets you can receive as a reward for participating in validating the network is influenced by several parameters – operating cost, operating margin, and pledge. You’ll need to research each pool to make your decision – just hit the staking tab on your wallet to view the pools.

• Rewards on asset means the amount of ADA in each new block that will be automatically distributed to the stakeholder by the network.
• Operating cost is the total ADA charged by the stake pool operator to cover the cost of running the stake pool. The cost per epoch is calculated from the total ADA rewarded to a stake pool, before the operator takes their profit margin.
• Operating margin is the percentage that the stake pool operator takes for minting blocks on behalf of the delegator. This is on top of the operating costs for the stake pool. This is a variable defined in the formal specification to allow stake pool operators to compete on the best operator price for the delegators.
• Saturation refers to the amount of ADA delegated to a stake pool in relation to its maximum possible size. Cardano automatically limits the maximum size of a stake pool in order to promote decentralization. If everybody delegated their funds to the same pool, one pool could own 51% of all the stake and take over the network. That’s why if you delegate to a pool over the maximum size, that pool only receives the same rewards as for its maximum capacity, so you would receive less rewards than if you’d chosen another pool. 
• Rewards on stake: this is a little more complicated. Let’s say a stake pool holds 1% of all the stake in the system, then this stake pool is expected to mint roughly 1% of all the blocks in one epoch. If you hold 10% of the stake in this stake pool, then you should receive 10% of rewards, or 0.01% of all the rewards in this epoch - cost + margin.

You can see the staking process visualized here.

How do I receive my staking rewards?

Your rewards are automatically distributed to your rewards address at the end of every delegation cycle. Read more about delegation cycles here: The delegation cycle. Each cycle consists of four epochs, and each epoch lasts five days, so it will take 16-20 days to receive the rewards in your Lace wallet. After the initial delegation cycle, the rewards continue after each epoch ends until you redelegate to a new stake pool.

If a single-address wallet has already been delegated, then restored in Lace, the delegation will continue without any changes or action needed. Don’t forget that once your ada is delegated to a stake pool, it will always remain in your wallet, and isn’t locked.

Are the sorting options of the stake pools-view shown as real-time data?

You can sort Staking in the stake pool view by seven parameters: ticker, saturation, cost, margin, produced blocks, pledge, and live stake. We'll soon add other parameters.

Currently, these parameters are not updated in real-time. However, they are updated every 1,000 blocks (there are 21,600 blocks in the 5-day epoch). This results in approximately 5.52 hours.

Got a question you can’t see here? Join our #Lace-community Discord channel to get answers from the community and the Lace team at Input Output Global.

Multi-Staking

How many stake pools can I delegate stake to, using the multi-staking or multi-delegation feature?

With the beta release of multi-staking, Lace users can delegate to up to ten pools simultaneously

What's a stake pool ratio?

Put simply, it's the percentage of your stake that's assigned to a specific pool.

Can I change a stake pool's ratio?

Yes, you can choose the percentages for each pool in your multi-staking selection. This great new feature means you can view and adjust the ratios of all your stake pools by adding or subtracting a percentage, all from an easy-to-use interface when you click on Manage.

Does stake distribution remain the same?

Stake distribution will drift through transactions because of Cardano's EUTXO model. If the amount of ada changes for one address, so will the stake to that particular pool.

This means that any variation of the UTXO set will drift stake distribution. The first iteration of Lace's multi-delegation feature includes an improved TxBuilder that reduces the impact of this, though stake distribution will inevitably drift after many transactions. Upcoming iterations will include improvements to approximate the stake distribution to the user preferences. Transactions that are constructed outside of Lace by DApps will likely not take into account stake distributions and cause more drift.

Are staking user preference persistent?

No. Once preferences are submitted, Lace will always query user stake information on-chain and reflect the actual status in the staking tab, including any stake distribution drift that may have occurred.

What is the wallet's UTXO limit to use the multi-staking feature?

Wallets with over 80 UTXO sets won’t be able to use multi-staking, due to the protocol's limitation of the maximum transaction size. The next iterations will include a feature to inform the user that their wallet exceeds protocol-set limits for delegation.

Do Ledger hardware wallets support multi-staking?

Yes, the multi-staking feature is now enabled on supported Ledger wallet models upgraded to the latest firmware.

Can I use my Trezor wallet to multi-stake in Lace?

Lace supports multi-staking with Trezor wallets updated to firmware version 2.6.4 or higher.

What happens to the rewards I have accumulated for a stake pool delegation if I change pools, or remove it from my portfolio?

Changing one pool for another one: This doesn’t impact the user as previous accrued rewards not yet distributed from the old pool will be deposited in the user’s reward account for the next 2 epochs.

Removing a pool: Requires deregistering the stake key associated with that pool. All pending rewards already distributed are withdrawn in the same transaction as the key deregistration. Rewards in the calculation epoch phase, or waiting to be distributed, will be lost.

What are the costs of changing my staking portfolio?

Changing pools or ratios costs the same as a normal transaction in Cardano. Remember that increasing the number of pools to delegate requires a 2 ada deposit per new pool for stake key registration. This deposit is returned when you decrease the number of pools.

How can I track rewards I'm receiving from each pool?

The current version of Lace calculates total rewards for a specific pool. The next iterations will calculate rewards per epoch instead.

Is it possible to totally unstake my funds, effectively removing all active delegations?

The current beta version of the multi-delegation feature does not support unstaking your funds. Future versions of Lace will however enable the removal of active delegations.

What happens if one of the pools I'm staking to stops operating?

Lace will inform you via a modal message and a banner when a pool you are delegating to is about to retire, is effectively retired, or is saturated, so you may change your staking preferences.

Why does the balance/stake information appear incorrect in other wallets?

In some cases, other wallets may display different balance or stake information to Lace. This occurs because Lace is the only wallet that derives stake keys over index 0, according to active standards set out on CIP-18 and CIP-1852. Other wallets may not track these addresses, resulting in the apparent difference.

To resolve this incompatibility, change multi-delegation to single delegation or staking, choosing a pool that is not part of the current delegation portfolio. This will have the effect of moving the delegated funds to the stake key with index 0. Afterwards, you can change the single delegation to any pool (including those that were part of the current delegation portfolio. This will have the effect of moving the delegated funds to the stake key with index 0. Afterwards, you can change the single delegation to any pool (including those that were part of the multi-delegation portfolio) again.'

Why do some DApps behave unexpectedly when they start using multi-delegation?

Sometimes this happens because Lace is the only wallet that derives stake keys over index 0, according to active standards set out on CIP-18 and CIP-1852. Some DApps might not track these addresses, in which case you might see unexpected results.

But don’t worry, there is a solution, follow these simple steps:

Step one Change multi-delegation to single delegation – make sure you choose a pool that is not part of the current delegation portfolio.

Step two Change the single delegation to any pool – it’s fine to pick a pool that’s part of the current delegation portfolio here.

Voila! This will have the effect of moving the delegated funds to the stake key with index 0.

NFTs

What is an NFT?

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are tokens that may serve as evidence of ownership of virtual (or even physical) assets. The specific rights that attach to NFTs vary. NFTs are currently most widely used as evidence of ownership of digital art. 

How do I buy an NFT?

NFTs can either be purchased directly from the creator’s website during their minting phase or on a secondary marketplace such as jpg.store, artano.io, cnft.io, and more. Make sure you have ADA in your wallet, connect your wallet to the DApp, find the NFT you want to buy, and click to purchase. The Lace extension will pop up and ask you to enter your password to process the purchase. Once the transaction is completed, the NFT will be transferred to your wallet.

How do I view my NFTs?

Head to the NFTs tab in the Lace extension to view your NFTs. 

What are handles?

Handles are NFTs issued by ADA Handle and owned by a Cardano wallet address to provide holders with custom and human-readable addresses.

How can I mint a new handle?

Minting a handle involves a clear and convenient process. Simply go to the ADA Handle minting page, secure your handle by checking its availability, and purchase it.

How can I send funds to the owner of a handle?

Sending funds to a handle holder is a straightforward process:

• Go to the ‘Send’ screen on your Lace wallet
• Type the handle you want to send funds to in the “Address or $handle” input field
• Wait for confirmation that the handle is found
• Select the amount and type of tokens you want to send
• Review your transaction
• And send

How can I personalize my handle?

To personalize your handle, visit the new ADA Handle portal, connect your Lace wallet, and choose the handle you want to personalize or create a new one. You can then choose an available background or NFT from your Lace NFT collection that you’d like to showcase, or mint new NFTs to include in your handle personalization.

Can I test the personalized handle before a real one?

Yes, you can! Simply go to the Ada Handle preprod page, connect your Lace wallet, change your network to preprod from the wallets’ settings, mint a new test handle on the preprod minting page, and personalize it here.

How can I see my personalized handle in Lace?

You can see your personalized handle on Lace in three places:

• As an avatar in the upper right corner of your wallet, in the profile area
• As an NFT in your Lace NFT tab
• And in the wallet address section of your Receive tab

How do I benefit from personalized handles in Lace?

Personalized handles are more than just custom, human-readable addresses. They’re also:

• One-of-a-kind profile pictures (PFPs) that you can show off
• A type of ‘calling card’ that you can add your social links and a QR code on
• Your unique and personalized digital identity on the Cardano blockchain

Got a question you can’t see here? Join our #Lace-community Discord channel to get answers from the community and the Lace team at Input Output Global.