diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index c5a4e3784d34a81e6501df6fce6cdf89f85c7a88..8733a44ce1880d7f7220b2f52577e7f73380f5b3 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -1,6 +1,5 @@
 Changelog is kept at [GitHub](https://github.com/Dronehub/minijson/releases),
 here's only the changelog for the version in development
 
-# v1.6
+# v1.7
 
-* improved checking for malformed structures during parse
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 51b3c7825225ae35eb9c1704c3a1b0cbc697a88b..bc8e610b8aec47b989039619a3a6a5d163032d7a 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ if 'DEBUG' in os.environ:
     directives['embedsignature'] = True
 
 
-setup(version='1.6',
+setup(version='1.7a1',
       packages=find_packages(include=['minijson', 'minijson.*']),
       ext_modules=build([Multibuild('minijson', find_pyx('minijson'),
                                     dont_snakehouse=dont_snakehouse), ],