[ANN] Ledger Wallet - Smartcard security for your bitcoins

[Tigggger]

I like cheap gadgets so figured I'd pick one of these up.

Arrived Christmas Eve so was an early present for me, so here are my initial thoughts.

Wow it's tiny, I know there are pictures but it still suprised me

I had some initial trouble generating new bitcoin addresses on the device.  Eric told me via support that once a payment is received it will generate a new address but for me this wasn't working it kept giving me the same one. I just tried it again a couple of days later and now it has, so not sure what happened there.

As the device can have multiple addresses there needs to be a way to view them in the chrome plugin, currently you can only see a list of transactions.  As someone who uses blockchain.info would appreciate an option to view a list of addresses and their balance (and I think it's on the roadmap but being able to label an address would be good too)

Apart from those minor niggles I'm very happy with the device.

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[EricKennedy]

We have filed an inernal bug report and our engineers will work on that. Must be a default in the synchronization of the account's metadatas.

Regarding the multi-accounting, it will be available in February 2015.
More information on our roadmap: https://www.ledgerwallet.com/roadmap

[EricKennedy]

If you are interested to promote the Ledger Wallet, you can earn 25% on each refered sale!
Registration on our affiliate program is open: https://www.ledgerwallet.com/affiliates

[bitkilo]

I am about to purchase one of your ledger wallet, few questions,
Where can i get the cheapest price, shipped to Australia?
Also can these be used on Android phone, with wallet 32 ?

[siampumpkin]

I purchased 2 of the BT-Chip just prior to you releasing the nano. If I had known a new product was coming out I would have purchased the new product. Can I use the BT-Chip with the nano ledger wallet? If so can you provide a wallet card for each chip? If not, is there an upgrade option? 

Thanks.

[Muhammed Zakir]

I purchased 2 of the BT-Chip just prior to you releasing the nano. If I had known a new product was coming out I would have purchased the new product. Can I use the BT-Chip with the nano ledger wallet? If so can you provide a wallet card for each chip? If not, is there an upgrade option? 

Thanks.

I don't think there is an upgrade option. If you really want to buy, try selling both of 'em. There may be people who are interested in buying these for testing or for real use.

   ~~MZ~~

[onealfa]

Got my NANO yesterday.  35 Euros well spent ....   So far so happy

[siampumpkin]

Is there any video demo of this working with a PC to see how it functions. I would want it to work just like trezor but at a lower price point.

[Muhammed Zakir]

Is there any video demo of this working with a PC to see how it functions. I would want it to work just like trezor but at a lower price point.

See Youtube videos.

   -MZ

[droeder]

 

I bought the ledger wallet, because I read on CCN about it. It seemed to be an easy and safe way to store bitcoins. The staff (support) was very helpful and friendly. Most of you knew, that there is a BUT coming real soon.

Well, here it is. This thing is absolutely worthless! You know why? Who cares, how simple you can use the ledger wallet or how safe and secure your bitcoins are stored on that particular device, if one is unable to set it up. This thing is marketed to Jon Doe owning BTC. It tells you all about the simple and secure way to transfer BTCs on any system simply by mounting a USB device. Yeah, but what they do not tell you - or state correctly - mention in a side note, how bad ass the setup process is.

YOU NEED TO BE A DEVELOPER TO SET IT UP SAFELY. I've been around the block, even work in an IT company, but no, I'm not a developer. I'm a user! I'm into tech. But I needed to ask a friend to wrap my head around the Virtual Box Machine thing, because I use OSX. Then it was easy to install VM. It was also easy to find a chromium image to run under VM. But of course, the Chrome version is too old. I spent hours in the net, tryiing several images from this URL
http://chromium.arnoldthebat.co.uk/index.php?dir=daily%2F
which was recommended by Ledger wallet. But after the fourth bad image I gave up. Frustrated. Angry!

One may argue, it's not ledger wallet's fault, that you run OS X. It's also not their fault, that images in the internet are broken. Of course it is not their fault, that I'm not computer scientisticated enough to figure that one out. Yeah, one could say all of that. But ledger wallet is guilty of really really bad misleading marketing.
They sell the product to people, who are longing for a SIMPLE and EASY solution to store their bitcoins. Something everybody can understand. But they completely fail to WARN the potential user, that their easy product is only easy to use, but really really military grade complicated to setup.
Well of course, I could use my Mac as it is. But what sense does it make, buying a 39EUR device for security by jeopardizing all of it from the start? Correct, it doesn't make any sense. That's my point. Ledger wallet may be secure and easy to use. But to get there, it's as complicated as it gets. I'm gonna trash the crap, because by the time I spent trying to figure it out, I would have executed 100s of paper wallets and regular transactions.

[EricKennedy]

ChromeOS is indeed a pain to run on MacOS. A simple solution would be to run a fresh Linux Ubuntu instance, install Chrome, add the udev rules (see our FAQ) and install the Ledger Chrome app.
Once it's done, remove internet access from the computer (or isolate the VM) and initialize the Ledger. When the procedure is over, just shutdown and destroy the Ubuntu instance.

[vabtc]

What would be my recourse if I lose the security card? or if it gets destroyed somehow?

[bitkilo]

ChromeOS is indeed a pain to run on MacOS. A simple solution would be to run a fresh Linux Ubuntu instance, install Chrome, add the udev rules (see our FAQ) and install the Ledger Chrome app.
Once it's done, remove internet access from the computer (or isolate the VM) and initialize the Ledger. When the procedure is over, just shutdown and destroy the Ubuntu instance.

Thanks for the help, I haven't bought one of these yet and now don't think i will.
Security of my bitcoins is a top priority but this just seems like a pain in the ass, especially when purchasing a item that is designed for securing BTC.

I'm not dev or computer expert but there is easier ways to store your coins and still sleep feeling safe at night.
I ended up going for the MyCelium Entropy, just the delay in shipping these is killing me, hope to have it soon. 

[gatecoin]

I am about to purchase one of your ledger wallet, few questions,
Where can i get the cheapest price, shipped to Australia?
Also can these be used on Android phone, with wallet 32 ?

Hi bitkilo, you might want to check out: https://gatecoin.com/ledger
We are official online reseller for the Ledger Wallet in Asia.
Shipping cost to Aussie is HKD150 and takes about 4-5 days. Hope this answers your question!

[jm1978]

Im very HAPPY with my LedgerWallet so far and with this new 2nd factor with the phone... hmmmmmmm perfect! I just want to say thanks a lot  Good work!

[mably]

Would it be difficult to implement a Ledger Wallet compatible withe some alt-coins like Peercoin?

It would be very interesting to have a Peercoin compatible Ledger Wallet configured to only sign coinstake transactions.

We could plug it on a Raspberry Pi for example to obtain a highly securised minting full node.  We wouldn't need cold minting anymore.

What do you think?

[Thireus]

Would it be difficult to implement a Ledger Wallet compatible withe some alt-coins like Peercoin?

It would be very interesting to have a Peercoin compatible Ledger Wallet configured to only sign coinstake transactions.

We could plug it on a Raspberry Pi for example to obtain a highly securised minting full node.  We wouldn't need cold minting anymore.

What do you think?

Any thoughts on this? I'm also quite interested!

[jm1978]

Hi!

The app for Android (is what i have) it is not working for to validate the transactions, i end always using the card. The validation never arrive to the handy and they are paired and so on.

Any idea why? Thanks in advance for the help

[EricKennedy]

Hi!

The app for Android (is what i have) it is not working for to validate the transactions, i end always using the card. The validation never arrive to the handy and they are paired and so on.

Any idea why? Thanks in advance for the help

Have you tried to kill and relaunch the Android app after having received the push notification?
(or do you never receive the push ?)

[EricKennedy]

Ledger is proud to announce the immediate availability of a low cost version of its Ledger Nano hardware wallet: the Ledger HW1. It is fully compatible and interchangeable with the Ledger Nano, but with a cheaper (and less elegant) plastic form factor.

Cost is 15 EUR, including free worldwide shipping.
(+ VAT for European countries)

https://www.ledgerwallet.com/shop

When you receive a Ledger HW1, this is what you get:
* the Ledger HW1 USB key, on a plastic form factor
* a security card
* instructions
* a recovery sheet

You will *NOT* get the following:
* the white box packaging
* the metal key engraved with "vires in numeris" and Ledger logo
* the leather pouch of the security card
* the lanyard and rings for the key

The key form factor is the main difference between the two products. It is very strong and reliable, but it definitely looks "cheaper" than the Ledger Nano metal counterpart. Also, you'll get the HW1 brand, the plastic key doesn't have any mention of the Ledger brand.

Image gallery: http://imgur.com/a/pa2r0#HXF9wWj