Now that everyone and your mother seems to have dived into cryptocurrency, it’s good to consider the single most important part of your digital assets: security and ownership. And if you say crypto in combination with security and managing your crypto folio, you say Ledger.
Ledger combines a hardware wallet with the Ledger Live app to manage and store your crypto securely on the one hand, and on the other hand to access important services and functionalities such as buying and selling crypto, trading currency and growing your power. In this (first) article we focus on the Ledger hardware and the storage of your cryptocrurrency.
Digital power
Now that more and more people are investing in bitcoin and other forms of cryptocurrency, it is good to zoom in on the importance of managing and securing your cryptocurrency. Especially when your assets are steadily increasing, it is good to think about the best way to manage, deploy and secure your portfolio. Crypto Italy is popular.
There have been some scenarios where users saw their exchange accounts hacked and lost all their cryptocurrency at once. Recently, the world was shocked by the arrest of as many as 62 people by the Turkish police for an alleged fraud case involving crypto. The founder and the big man behind Thodex, one of the largest digital currency trading platforms in Turkey, is said to have fled the country with a whopping $ 2 billion in investor assets. Security and ownership are key concepts when it comes to storing your digital assets, and Ledger is hugely important here.
Risks and benefits of investing and trading in crypto
Founded in 2014, Ledger has rapidly grown into a global leader in security and infrastructure solutions for digital assets and blockchain applications. The company has developed a global solution to easily manage and secure crypto and is enormously successful in this. And even if you don’t own crypto yet, but are mildly interested in the world of blockchain and bitcoin, you’ve undoubtedly heard of Ledger. In 2019, the company was frequently in the news because there was a real run on Ledger wallets. The hype around crypto was quite high. But where it was a far-from-my-bed show for many people at the time, investing and trading in cryptocurrency is becoming more and more mainstream. And you better do that as safely as possible. Cryptocurrency Portugal is popular.
When you own cryptocurrency, the most important thing is the private key that gives access to your coins. The person who has access to this private key is the actual owner of and controls the associated coins. When you buy crypto on an exchange, your private key is stored on that exchange. You can access your portfolio through the same exchange, but you do not actually own it at that time. The control you have over your crypto assets is limited and you consciously or unconsciously expose you to various risks, some of which we already mentioned above. Hackers can attack exchanges (although these are becoming increasingly secure), hackers can steal private keys, an exchange can go bankrupt or the people behind an exchange, as happened in Turkey, can from one moment to the next with the horizon have disappeared.
Keep crypto safe? Use a wallet
There are several ways to store your crypto. This can be done in an online wallet or offline in a hardware wallet. The most secure and therefore best solution is a hardware wallet: a physical device that stores your private keys in a secure chip. This way your private keys always remain offline and this way you protect your crypto in the best way. However, not all available hardware wallets offer the same level of security and control and that’s where Ledger comes in. As we mentioned earlier, Ledger combines a hardware wallet with the Ledger Live app. The combination of the two makes the Ledger approach unique. Ledger uses its own, certified chips so that your private keys can never leave your wallet because simply no one can access it. Ledger wallets are also the only hardware wallet with its own Operating System (BOLOS) to protect the device against possible malicious attacks from the outside, while applications themselves remain completely isolated.
You can see the Ledger hardware wallets and Live app as iPhones and the App store: on the one hand there is a device with which you store your funds safely, and on the other hand that device uses software om manage, buy and organize them.
Ledger Live software is automatically included with every Ledger wallet. One provides security and ownership of your assets, the other provides control over those same assets. With every action you do with Ledger, for example a transaction, you need both the Ledger Live (to create this transaction, and the Nano hardware wallet) to verify and confirm the same transaction). One simply does not go without the other. In other words, Ledger is the gateway to buying, storing, trading, selling and growing your crypto assets. Safe and convenient.
The fact that Ledger is successful with this is shown by the fact that more than 3 million (!) Ledger hardware wallets have been sold worldwide, in more than 160 countries. Ledger uses its own, certified chips so that your private keys can never leave your wallet because simply nobody can access it. Ledger wallets are also the only hardware wallet with its own Operating System (BOLOS) to protect the device against possible malicious attacks from the outside, while applications themselves remain completely isolated.
Nano S and Nano X
There are two types of Ledger hardware wallets; the Ledger Nano S and the Ledger Nano X. Both are equally safe, only the X variant has more functionalities. In both cases, you install the wallet using 24 unique English words that function as an access code for your wallet. The robust Nano S is the most popular of the two with 3 to 6 crypto applications available that you install on your hardware wallet using the Ledger Live app to secure and manage your favorite crypto – such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. The Nano X has a more luxurious finish, is slightly firmer, has more memory (you can install up to 100 installed coin apps) and has Bluetooth so you can always buy and trade crypto on the go. The larger screen also makes the Nano X a bit more manageable, although the Nano S will also be great to use for many users. The Nano X is slightly heavier than S, but it has so to speak more options. It is important that both are very safe to use, and that you can see the Nano X as a more extensive version of the Nano S.
Growing your crypto assets
In a subsequent article, we will take a closer look at the possibilities and various additional crypto services that you can access with Ledger, and in particular on growing your assets. In the meantime, you can read all about the difference between altcoins and bitcoins, the hype surrounding Dogecoin and the best documentaries about blockchain and crypto that you must see here.