diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 908319663..58444678d 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -37,6 +37,8 @@ Ref: https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/
 
 ## [Unreleased]
 
+## [v0.44.5](https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/releases/tag/v0.44.5) - 2021-12-02
+
 ### Improvements
 * (baseapp) [\#10631](https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/pull/10631)  Emit ante events even for the failed txs. 
 
diff --git a/RELEASE_NOTES.md b/RELEASE_NOTES.md
index 408392cd6..14aae1abd 100644
--- a/RELEASE_NOTES.md
+++ b/RELEASE_NOTES.md
@@ -1,16 +1,10 @@
-# Cosmos SDK v0.44.4 Release Notes
+# Cosmos SDK v0.44.5 Release Notes
 
-This release introduces bug fixes and improvements on the Cosmos SDK v0.44 series.
+This release introduces bug fixes and improvements on the Cosmos SDK v0.44 series:
 
-SDK v0.44.0-v0.44.3 x/auth migration have a **vesting account bug**, which vanishes `delegated_vesting` field from `BaseVestingAccount`. Recovery, unfortunately, is complicated and either involves manually overwriting it or querying an old state.
-We had to change the order of module migration by pushing x/auth to the end. Auth module state depends on x/stake and should be run last. We have updated the documentation to provide more details how to change module migration order. This is technically a breaking change, but only impacts updates between the major version change, hence migrating from the previous patch release (0.44.x) doesn't cause new migration and doesn't break the state.
+- Emit ante handler events for failed transactions: ant events can cause blockchain change (eg tx fees) and related events should be emitted.
+- (fix) Upgrade IAVL to 0.17.3 to solve race condition bug in IAVL.
 
-Other bug fixes:
-+ grpc-gateway query account balance by IBC denom had an incorrect endpoint (correct one is `"/cosmos/bank/v1beta1/balances/{address}/by_denom"`)
-+ use `sdk.GetConfig().GetFullBIP44Path()` instead `sdk.FullFundraiserPath` to generate key - this correctly resets hdpath when running `app testnet`.
+See the [Cosmos SDK v0.44.5 Changelog](https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/blob/v0.44.5/CHANGELOG.md) for the exhaustive list of all changes.
 
-This release enables Auto Download feature to Cosmovisor >= v1.0.0. Now, you will be able to use Auto Download with the latest Cosmovisor when you will plan the next upgrade to the next major release (v0.45.0),
-
-Finally, we updated the IAVL to it's latest version and take a benefit of the new IAVL iterator, which improves the iteration performance.
-
-See the [Cosmos SDK v0.44.4 Changelog](https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/blob/v0.44.4/CHANGELOG.md) for the exhaustive list of all changes.
+**Full Changelog**: https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/compare/v0.44.4...v0.44.5