What happens if you loose LEDGER NANO S or it is damaged?

[btcwish1]

Hello friends,

I apologize  if the question is already asked.  What happens if the wallet is damaged or lost? Do I need to order another ledger wallet or I can access my wallet using the seed in a different BTC wallet such as electrum or exodus?

What happens if ledger nano company goes out of business and then you loose your device?  it means we can't order another replacement one. So what will be the option?

Thanks

[Lucius]

Hello friends,

I apologize  if the question is already asked.  What happens if the wallet is damaged or lost? Do I need to order another ledger wallet or I can access my wallet using the seed in a different BTC wallet such as electrum or exodus?

What happens if ledger nano company goes out of business and then you loose your device?  it means we can't order another replacement one. So what will be the option?

Thanks

In case of Ledger Nano S is damaged or lost you always have chance to recover your coins if you have backup of your seed(24 words).Then you can order new Ledger or Trezor,or any other compatible device.You can also just use your seed and get access to your coins by using some desktop wallet(Electrum).

In any case your coins will be safe even if Ledger or any other hardware device stop working,seed is most important thing for you-so keep it in safe place and make more then one backup

[btcwish1]

Hello friends,

I apologize  if the question is already asked.  What happens if the wallet is damaged or lost? Do I need to order another ledger wallet or I can access my wallet using the seed in a different BTC wallet such as electrum or exodus?

What happens if ledger nano company goes out of business and then you loose your device?  it means we can't order another replacement one. So what will be the option?

Thanks

In case of Ledger Nano S is damaged or lost you always have chance to recover your coins if you have backup of your seed(24 words).Then you can order new Ledger or Trezor,or any other compatible device.You can also just use your seed and get access to your coins by using some desktop wallet(Electrum).

In any case your coins will be safe even if Ledger or any other hardware device stop working,seed is most important thing for you-so keep it in safe place and make more then one backup

Thank you Lucius. I can now use the ledger nano with confidence. Do you suggest to reset the device and then generate fresh seed?

[Lucius]

Thank you Lucius. I can now use the ledger nano with confidence. Do you suggest to reset the device and then generate fresh seed?

You're welcome

Regarding your question about seed,why would you reset device and generate new seed unless that seed is in some way compromised?Generally when you buy Ledger, configuration start from 0, means that you create your own seed and that's the only safe way to use device.In my opinion that seed should be only saved offline(no in e-mail,notepad document or something similar).

If you are not 100% sure that that you made all the steps properly and your seed may be compromised,then send your coins to some other wallet and reset device by entering 3 times incorrect pin/after that configuration is start from the beginning and new seed can be created.

[HCP]

... and reset device by entering 3 times incorrect pin/after that configuration is start from the beginning and new seed can be created.

You can also just unlock the Ledger device and then use: Settings -> Device -> Reset All

[btcwish1]

Thank you Lucius. I can now use the ledger nano with confidence. Do you suggest to reset the device and then generate fresh seed?

You're welcome

Regarding your question about seed,why would you reset device and generate new seed unless that seed is in some way compromised?Generally when you buy Ledger, configuration start from 0, means that you create your own seed and that's the only safe way to use device.In my opinion that seed should be only saved offline(no in e-mail,notepad document or something similar).

If you are not 100% sure that that you made all the steps properly and your seed may be compromised,then send your coins to some other wallet and reset device by entering 3 times incorrect pin/after that configuration is start from the beginning and new seed can be created.

Thank you again. The reason I am asking this, because I have seen many reports where people said their device was hacked because the seed was already known by the seller. Even though I bought from ledger itself, I am not very confident of getting the seed that will come with it.

[Lucius]

Thank you again. The reason I am asking this, because I have seen many reports where people said their device was hacked because the seed was already known by the seller. Even though I bought from ledger itself, I am not very confident of getting the seed that will come with it.

This can only happen if user buy device which was previously used,and do not reset such device, but that is wrong way of using hardware wallet.New hardware device does not contain any seed,every user is generates their own seed in the process of wallet setup,so every seed is unique.

A healthy dose of precaution is always welcome,but it should not be exaggerated with some things-If you stick to the basic rules and guidelines your wallet can be considered quite safe.

[vegemite2019]

Hi, what would happen if I send coins to my Ledger Nano S and accidentally reset the device.

Would I be able to use the same seed/word combination to recover the device and my coins?

[Pmalek]

Hi, what would happen if I send coins to my Ledger Nano S and accidentally reset the device.

Would I be able to use the same seed/word combination to recover the device and my coins?

Yes, you can always reset the device if your seed words are correct. Just make sure you have the correct words, spelling, sequence etc. After resetting you will have to reinstall all the wallets for your balance to reappear within the Ledger Live app.

[bob123]

Hi, what would happen if I send coins to my Ledger Nano S and accidentally reset the device.

Would I be able to use the same seed/word combination to recover the device and my coins?

Your private keys (which you need to spend coins 'from an address' are derived by the mnemonic code (which is a human-readable format for the seed, which is a 256 bit long random number).

This seed, together with a counter, is used in a mathematical formula to generate private keys.

The formula is fixed.
The counter starts with 0 and goes up to 'infinite' (not really, but a very very large amount of addresses, more than you could use).

Your seed is all which is necessary to derive the private keys of your current - and future - addresses.

As long as you have a backup of the mnemonic code, you will always be able to regain access to your coins. Even if the address you send them to, will only be generated some time in the future.

[vegemite2019]

Can anyone enter the 24 seed words and accidentally enter the wrong combination and open up another persons crypto coins?

Might be silly questions but I am learning to trust the Ledger ;-)

[bob123]

Can anyone enter the 24 seed words and accidentally enter the wrong combination and open up another persons crypto coins?

Might be silly questions but I am learning to trust the Ledger ;-)

1st:
The probability of simply choosing 24 words (or mistyping a few words) and still generating a valid seed are already way too slim.
The last 8 bit are a checksum, which verify the first 248 256 bit are correct.


2nd:
Since the mnemonic code basically consists of 248 256 bit random number + 8 bit checksum this results in 2^248  2^256 possibilities.
That's 4.5 * 10⁷⁴
That's 4500000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 possibilities.

That's 1.15 * 10⁷⁷.
That's 1150000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0 possibilities.


A number which is way too large to be understood by the human brain.
That's roughly the amount of atoms in the universe.

You wouldn't be able to find an already used seed in thousands of years, even if you used every computer on earth 24 hours per day searching.


Edited because of wrong numbers, thanks to HCP for the correction.

[HCP]

The last 8 bit are a checksum, which verify the first 248 bit are correct.
...
Since the mnemonic code basically consists of 248 bit random number + 8 bit checksum this results in 2^248 possibilities.

Just a minor correction... and being a bit of a pedant here... but it's a 256 bit random number + 8 bit checksum, so 264 bits in total.

Still, that doesn't change the fact that the odds of "randomly" picking 24 words from the BIP39 wordlist and finding someone elses wallets are, for all intents and purposes, zero.