The new Stashi wallet is here, Ironwood activation is just days away, network privacy has been strengthened for light wallet users, and the community has spent the past month discussing where Pirate Chain should go next.
Ironwood Activates on 3 October
The wait is nearly over. The countdown to Ironwood starts on 3 October, 2026 at 19:00 UTC and activates 60 blocks later.
Join the Pirate Chain team as we count down to Ironwood activation on an X space on 3 October. Look for the upcoming X space on the Pirate Chain ($ARRR) X account.
Pirate Chain is skipping Orchard and moving directly to Ironwood, a newer shielded pool built on the Halo2 proving system. Ironwood removes the older trusted-setup model for new Ironwood transactions and introduces a shielded pool backed by machine-checked formal verification of its circuit design.
Urgent: Treasure Chest & CLI users must update to 6.0.7+ before 3 October 2026
Users of the Treasure Chest and CLI (Command Line Interface) wallets must update to version 6.0.7+ before the Ironwood activation on 3 October 2026. This update is needed for Ironwood key derivation. User funds remain safe. Users of all ARRR wallets, including the Stashi light wallet and third parties such as Edge App, should follow regular updates when available. Find the latest Treasure Chest and CLI downloads on the PirateNetwork GitHub Releases page.
After activation, users will be able to create a new Ironwood address and move funds from an existing Sapling address with a normal transaction. Existing Sapling addresses will continue to be supported. Moving into Ironwood allows users to benefit from the new shielded pool.
New wallets and newly generated addresses will use Ironwood going forward.
Stashi: Pirate Chain's New Light Wallet Harness
The Unified Wallet now has a name: Stashi.
Stashi is Pirate Chain’s new cross-platform light wallet, built to provide the same experience across desktop and mobile while making private transactions faster and easier to use. The Stashi Light Wallet Harness is available on the Pirate Chain wallets page.
For Android users, the Stashi Wallet is now available on Google Play.
One of the biggest improvements is the new Supernova Sync Engine. Initial testing showed synchronisation performance of up to 27× faster than the previous Pirate Chain light wallet, reducing one of the biggest usability pain points. Stashi includes:
- Tor enabled by default
- I2P connectivity
- Multiple wallets in one app
- Sapling and Ironwood support
- Seed phrase and private-key restoration
- The new Supernova sync engine
- A new SDK for third-party wallets
With the new SDK, third-party wallet providers can benefit from the same underlying synchronisation improvements developed for Stashi.
The older Pirate Chain mobile wallet and previous light wallets will be deprecated, and users are encouraged to move to Stashi. As always, make sure your seed phrase is safely backed up before moving or restoring any wallet.
A huge thank you to Oswald and the development team for bringing this project from an idea to a working cross-platform wallet.
Faster Wallets Beyond Stashi
The work behind Stashi is not limited to one wallet.
The new Pirate Chain SDK was developed alongside Stashi, allowing third-party wallet providers to adopt the updated wallet infrastructure and potentially benefit from improvements such as the Supernova sync engine.
That means the development work going into Stashi can help improve Pirate Chain usability across the broader wallet ecosystem rather than remaining isolated to one application.
If you use a third-party crypto wallet that does not yet support Pirate Chain or still relies on older Pirate Chain infrastructure, now is a good time to let them know about the new SDK.
Community Roundtables: What Comes Next?
In August and September, Pirate Chain held a series of community roundtable discussions focused on what should come next after Ironwood and Stashi.
Topics covered include investigating a possible secondary consensus system, signatory-node functionality, multisig-related ideas, and other potential improvements.
These discussions are helping the team evaluate where development effort should go next.
If you missed the roundtables, you can still join the discussion through Discord, Telegram, and the weekly community calls or propose a time for a roundtable session to discuss.
More Merchants, More Utility
With Stashi making onboarding significantly easier and Ironwood about to activate, the next challenge is straightforward: more places to use ARRR.
Businesses, websites, freelancers, and side hustles can all help strengthen Pirate Chain (ARRR) by accepting it as payment. Pirate Chain already has BTCPay support and a growing range of wallet tools, and community members are available to help merchants get set up.
For users, the other half of the equation is actually spending ARRR. A currency becomes more useful when people earn it, accept it, and use it for real goods and services. For financial privacy, the idea behind Pirate Chain remains simple: digital payments should work more like cash. A merchant should be able to verify that they were paid without gaining access to your balance or lifetime transaction history.
Private Money Just Got Fast: An Interview with TCV
Pirate Chain was featured in a video interview with Rafael LaVerde of The Crypto Vigilante in an episode called Private Money Just Got Fast. First Mates Amy V and Daniel gave a preview of what is coming for Pirate Chain in Ironwood as well as updates to the new Stashi Light Wallet Harness and the super-fast Supernova Sync Engine.
September Monthly Update Meeting Recording
In Closing
October is a milestone month. Stashi is now available, and Ironwood activates on 3 October, and the community is already discussing the next generation of Pirate Chain development.
The work does not stop with a wallet release or network upgrade. Development continues, merchant adoption remains a priority, and the next stage of the roadmap will be shaped by the people who participate.
Stay Connected
The next monthly update will take place on Monday the 5th of October at 3 PM Eastern Time. As a reminder, we have changed the monthly update meeting to the first Monday of the month. We will also celebrate the launch of Ironwood together at that time.
Community calls continue every Sunday at 1 PM Eastern Time on Discord. These calls are open to everyone and are one of the best places to ask questions, share ideas, test new tools, and help shape the future of Pirate Chain.