Mimir Sunset Announcement

Ecosystem
1

We want to share an important update regarding the future of Mimir.

After careful consideration, Mimir will enter a Sunset phase, beginning with a gradual reduction in scope.

What does “Sunset” mean?

Sunset means that Mimir will freeze feature development and move into minimal maintenance mode, followed by a gradual service wind-down when continued operation is no longer sustainable.

This approach is intentional and designed to provide users with clarity and sufficient time to prepare.

Sunset Timeline

Stage 1 – Network Scope Reduction

  • Mimir will not continue to support any bug fix

  • No new features will be developed

Stage 2 – Service Wind-down

  • Stage 2 will begin only when continued operation is no longer sustainable

  • Remaining services will be gradually removed

  • The project will transition toward full archival status

No fixed date is set for Stage 2. We will communicate clearly before any major changes take effect.

What does this mean for users?

  • No new functionality will be added going forward

  • Users should begin planning operational adjustments

  • Multisig and proxy operations can continue via Signet or Polkadot JS

About the future

Within our capacity, we will make a best-effort attempt to continue maintaining core functionality for the primary supported networks using our own resources, for as long as this remains sustainable.

Why are we taking this step?

Over recent months, we have followed guidance to significantly reduce scope, lower budgets, and cut future operating costs. Despite these efforts, retroactive support for work already delivered was ultimately not approved, making long-term sustainability increasingly difficult.

Background timeline (for transparency)

To provide context, we are sharing a brief, factual timeline of events leading to this decision:

  • Nov 25, 2025 – We contacted Web3 Foundation to introduce a new proposal. No response was received.

  • Dec 1, 2025 – Proposal #1799 was submitted. Later the same day, updated W3F guidelines were published.

  • Dec 4, 2025 – During the AAG meeting, W3F became aware that we had difficulty reaching the relevant contacts and proactively followed up.

  • Dec 18, 2025 – We were informed that the proposal could not proceed as it was not milestone-based.

  • Dec 22, 2025 – A new milestone-based proposal was submitted. We were informed that review would resume after the holiday period.

  • Jan 7, 2026 – Feedback indicated that the proposal scope was considered too large.

  • Jan 8, 2026 – We resubmitted with a significantly reduced budget, cutting the original request by nearly half.

  • Jan 12, 2026 – We were formally notified that funding could not be continued.

This timeline is shared to explain the context of our decision, not to assign blame.

Project status

  • The Mimir project will be archived in a clean and transparent state

  • Code and documentation will remain available in archived form

A note to the community

Mimir was built because we believe in Polkadot and in the value of community-built infrastructure. That belief has not changed.

We will continue to act responsibly toward users and the ecosystem for as long as we reasonably can. This sunset marks a pause — not a loss of commitment — and we hope it also creates space for reflection on how critical infrastructure can be sustained in a healthy and collaborative way.

Thank you for your understanding and support.

— The Mimir Team

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Polkadot Digest 19 January 2026
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Sad :face_with_crossed_out_eyes:

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Mimir is a great product which simplified multisig usage significantly. If the ecosystem can’t even maintain its best products the outlook is very dire indeed. Abandoned software doesn’t age well. We can’t just come back in a year and hope to push a button and get it back easily.

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Very sad news, indeed. :disappointed_face:

Are you sure? Polkadot JS is no longer being maintained and Signet is on the one hand PJS based and on the other is on Beta (and barely being maintained?).

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5

oof, that’s tough.

Mimir is my favorite multisig :confused:

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6

:sob: :sob: :sob:
We still hope to meet again in the future anyway!

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7

Yeah, even retaining data with the smallest possible costs still requires funding, and it’s hard for us to say how long we can sustain it. Overall, this is truly heartbreaking.
:sob:

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8

Ah, I see. Maybe Polkadot will have to say goodbye to multisig for a while.
:face_in_clouds:

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9

We sincerely thank you for your long-standing support of Mimir! :heart_with_ribbon:

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10

it’s deeply saddening news..

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11

I’m really sorry to hear this. As a DAO contributor, I used Mimir almost every day for our DAO operations, as we manage several multisigs on Asset Hub, Bifrost, and Hydration. Our next step will be to transfer out all funds currently held in these multisigs, as we may no longer be able to control them in the future if bug fixes due to the frequent runtime upgrades are no longer maintained. The lack of user friendly multisig support is yet another serious setback for ecosystem users.

Thank you for your work Mimir Team and wish you good luck for the future!

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Thank you very much to Polkadot Hungary for the long-standing support of Mimir and for all the valuable feedback you’ve provided! :heart_with_ribbon:

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13

On behalf of Astar Foundation, I want to express our strong support for the Mimir team and acknowledge the value Mimir has brought to the Polkadot ecosystem.

Mimir is a great product that we actively use on a daily basis across many of our financial operations on Astar Network, including the Foundation itself, the Astar Financial Committee, DAO related activities, and other operational workflows. It has become a critical piece of infrastructure for how we securely and efficiently interact with Substrate based chains. Beyond the product itself, the team has consistently been responsive, professional, and deeply aligned with the needs of ecosystem operators.

Regardless of the final decision from Web3 Foundation, we want to clearly state that Astar Foundation intends to continue supporting and relying on Mimir for as long as the product remains available and maintained on Astar Network. Products like Mimir are not peripheral tooling. They are foundational to safe multisig operations, treasury management, and governance execution.

At the same time, we strongly encourage Web3 Foundation to reconsider its position on financial support for Mimir.

The ecosystem should be very cautious about a pattern where high quality, battle tested, and widely used infrastructure products are effectively pushed out due to funding constraints or process rigidity. With Polkadot.js interface being deprecated and Mimir now entering sunset mode, a serious question must be asked. What user facing tooling will realistically remain for operators, DAOs, and everyday users to interact with the Polkadot ecosystem?

Are we moving toward a future where interacting directly with the chain, without robust and maintained user interfaces, becomes the default expectation? That would represent a significant step backward from years of progress in usability, safety, and accessibility. This is not only about the Relay Chain or Asset Hub. It affects the entire ecosystem, including parachains, DAOs, application teams, and thousands of users who rely on Substrate based tooling to operate securely.

If the outcome of these decisions is that teams and users gradually move away from Substrate based chains due to declining tooling quality and support, that should be a serious concern for everyone invested in Polkadot’s long term success.

We sincerely thank the Mimir team for their transparency, professionalism, and continued commitment to users despite these circumstances. We hope this moment creates space for reflection on how critical ecosystem infrastructure is evaluated, funded, and sustained moving forward.

Astar Foundation stands with teams who build real, indispensable products for the Polkadot ecosystem.

Gaius_sama :wolf:
Astar Foundation

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Thank you very much for Astar’s support!

We also sincerely hope that W3F will reconsider this decision. At this point, we are feeling more deeply than ever the anxiety and confusion within the community. This sense of uncertainty is frightening—it reflects a real loss of confidence. Blindly discarding what is considered “old” in order to embrace a so-called “new era” raises a serious question: is this truly the right choice?

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I understand the current narrative and the direction that is being taken. I also understand that Parity has assumed a central role in development and that W3F, as the largest stakeholder, naturally has significant influence over the treasury.

That said, I believe that discontinuing many of the products designed to simplify the experience for non-technical users carries some risk. These tools have played an important role in onboarding and usability, and removing them may unintentionally set the ecosystem back to a stage where Polkadot.js was essentially the only viable option for users.

Papi could eventually become a strong alternative, but at the moment it is still not sufficiently user-friendly and remains primarily focused on developers.

I have great respect for the Mimir team, and I genuinely consider their multisig application to be among the best ever built. For this reason, it is unfortunate that community feedback does not always seem to be fully reflected in decision-making. This is not meant as criticism, but rather as an observation from within the ecosystem.

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16

The interesting question is, if Mimir was really so popular and good, why didn’t they charge for their services in order to finance themselves?

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Here’s some good news at least: https://x.com/i/status/2013581524981956874

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good work, thank you so much @kukabi!

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19

Thank you very much for your support! As members of the ecosystem ourselves, we share the very same concerns.

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A good product may be related to profitability, but the two are not absolutely linked. Even Safe, the largest multisig application in the industry, has never charged users a single cent.