Ledger

Ledger has sold a device called "Nano" since the Nano S in 2016, and the name still covers most of what people buy. Every model stores keys in a certified secure element and runs Ledger's own closed operating system on top of it. What changes between models is the screen, the radios and the price. The current shop splits the range into the Nano Gen5, the older "Nano Classics" (Nano X and Nano S Plus), and two larger touchscreen devices, Flex and Stax.

The line has moved from buttons to touchscreens for a practical reason: Ledger committed in December 2023 to phase out blind signing (approving a transaction the device cannot decode) in favour of Clear Signing, where the device shows what the contract call actually does. A larger screen makes that readable. In September 2026 Ledger's Ethereum app drops the hashed EIP-712 signing path entirely, so apps that have not migrated to its Device Management Kit can no longer request typed-data signatures from a Ledger.

Our scored review covers only the Nano X: see Ledger Nano X review. How it compares with other devices is in the hardware wallet ratings.

Two separate questions hide in this one. Can someone take coins off a Ledger device? There is no public case of keys being extracted from a Ledger secure element, remotely or with the device in hand. Every Ledger loss we could find came from something around the device: a phishing site that collected a 24-word phrase, a malicious dapp front end, or a fake "Ledger" email or letter aimed at people whose addresses leaked.

Can you verify that? Not fully. Ledger's operating system and secure-element code are closed. The May 2023 Recover announcement made the consequence concrete: an opt-in firmware app can encrypt the seed, split it into three shards and send them off the device. Ledger's position is that nothing leaves without the owner's PIN approval. Critics' position is that the capability exists at all, and that owners previously believed firmware could not do it. Both are accurate descriptions of the same design.

• Keys on the device: no extraction on record.
• Software around the device: one supply-chain attack (Connect Kit, December 2023) drained about $600,000 from users who blind-signed.
• Customer data: leaked in 2020 through Ledger's own shop database and in January 2026 through its payment processor Global-e.
• Physical safety: the 2020 leak put home addresses of known crypto owners online, and extortion letters followed.

Ledger does not phone customers and never asks for a recovery phrase. Any email, text, letter or "replacement device" that asks for the 24 words is a scam.

Ledger's record is less about its hardware than about the systems it runs to sell and support it. The events below are covered in detail in the incident list further down this page.

The 2020 leak is the one that keeps costing owners. Ledger first reported about 9,500 detailed records. In December 2020 a file with roughly 270,000 names, postal addresses and phone numbers appeared on a hacker forum, and owners began receiving fake Ledger devices, phishing texts and letters demanding bitcoin. Because a postal address does not change the way a password does, that list is still in circulation.

The January 2026 Global-e incident repeats the pattern at one remove: the breach was at a third party, but the data was Ledger customers' order records. Neither Ledger nor Global-e has published how many buyers were affected.

Recover is a paid backup for the recovery phrase. Announced on 16 May 2023 and launched on 24 October 2023 at $9.99 a month, it encrypts the seed on the device, splits it into three shards and hands one each to Ledger, the insurer Coincover and a third backup provider. Any two shards rebuild the seed. Restoring requires passing an identity check.

1. 01The owner installs the Recover app on the device and approves with the PIN.
2. 02The secure element encrypts the seed and splits it into three shards.
3. 03Shards go to three custodians; none holds enough to rebuild the seed alone.
4. 04To restore, the owner passes ID verification and two custodians release their shards to a new device.

The backlash in May 2023 was not about the subscription itself. It was about the admission that signed firmware can move a seed off the device, which many owners had understood to be impossible, and about tying seed recovery to a government ID that could in principle be subpoenaed. Ledger paused the rollout, and CEO Pascal Gauthier said the product would ship once more of the code was open-sourced. It launched five months later, first on the Nano X.

Nobody is enrolled by default. If you never install Recover, no shards exist. The objection that remains is structural: closed firmware plus a documented export path means you are trusting Ledger's word about when that path runs.

Ledger Live was the desktop and mobile app used to set up a device, install coin apps, check balances and sign. At its Op3n event in Paris in October 2025 Ledger renamed it Ledger Wallet, and the new name reached both desktop and mobile by 3 November 2025. Accounts, settings and the recovery phrase are unchanged; nothing needs to be migrated.

The rename came with more built in: token swaps routed through 1inch, native dapp connections, and fiat on- and off-ramps from partners. Buying through the app means buying from those partners, not from Ledger, with their fees and their identity checks.

Search results for "Ledger Live download" are a favourite spot for fake installers. Get the app only from ledger.com or the official app stores, and never type a recovery phrase into a computer or phone; a real Ledger only ever asks for it on the device itself.

Ledger was started in 2014 by eight co-founders including Éric Larchevêque, who left in 2019, and David Balland. Pascal Gauthier is chief executive. The company is headquartered in Paris and assembles devices at its own site in Vierzon, in central France. It raised a €380m Series C in 2021 at a $1.5bn valuation and a €100m Series D in 2023.

In January 2026 the Financial Times reported that Ledger had hired Goldman Sachs, Jefferies and Barclays for a New York listing at more than $4bn. Ledger hired a new CFO in March 2026 and opened a New York office, then put the plan on hold in May 2026 citing crypto market conditions, without having filed an S-1. Private fundraising is the stated alternative.

Beyond consumer devices Ledger sells Ledger Enterprise, a custody and multisig platform for institutions, and runs the Donjon, an in-house attack lab that publishes research on its own and competitors' hardware. In September 2026 it appointed Oded Blatman as combined chief information and security officer.