Ledger introduces “hardware” BTC wallet

[bitcoincasino.info]

Ledger BTC wallet is claimed to be one of the world’s safest and most user-friendly “hardware” wallets. And there is even better news – you can order it already.

- Read full article HERE

[SargeR33]

Hmm, is this just a glorified USB with password protection? The link doesn't give much at all.

[sandykho47]

Wow, it's a good product
But, which one is better ? This one / trazor ?

Anyway i think this is not too expensive

[EricKennedy]

The Ledger Wallet Nano connects to your computer through the USB port, but is not a flash memory. It contains a secure element (smartcard), protecting the seed of your Bitcoin wallet.

You can see the wallet in action here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFvHq8zEgd8

A full review by Coindesk here:
http://www.coindesk.com/review-ledger-wallet-nano-provides-premium-security-budget/

[newIndia]

Wow, it's a good product
But, which one is better ? This one / trazor ?

Anyway i think this is not too expensive

Trezor is better any day. But that is only if u r fascinated about hardware wallet. I think for security, there is no replacement of a paper wallet.

[EricKennedy]

Trezor is better any day. But that is only if u r fascinated about hardware wallet. I think for security, there is no replacement of a paper wallet.

Smartcard hardware wallets offers the same level of security than paper wallet, and even more.
A smartcard is garanteed 30+ years, it resists water damage, and it is PIN protected.

If you absolutely don't need to use your bitcoins, then yes, paper wallets could be an option.
But if you need to do payments and want to always have with you your Bitcoin "stash", then hardware wallet it is.

[Flashman]

IMO, you should treat hardware wallets like a petty cash box, good for day to day spending amounts. What you don't want to do is commit large amounts of coins to them, stick them in a safe and forget about them.

Some of the perils of using a hardware wallet as long term cold storage may be:

Battery Malfunction; high likelihood of any battery going dead beyond recovery, if internal.
Battery Malfunction; could leak or corrode, causing damage mere battery replacement will not fix.
Software Rot; "bit rot", while cosmic rays may cause unnoticeable and recoverable errors in running systems, errors may accumulate, uncorrected over a period of months and lead to unrecoverable data loss.
Obsolescence; changes to core or seemingly minor changes to protocol, or even the odd fork may affect how the wallet works, there will probably be workarounds, but possible need for technical expertise and experimentation to use or recover.
Solder Metallurgy; Since the advent of lead free solder, we have been inflicted with many piss-poor substitutes, they can have alloys come out of solution over time, form whiskers and crystals, go brittle, oxidise, add all manner of bizarre failure modes. Only some of these failure modes are related to thermal cycling, some are age dependant.
Component Chemical stability; Capacitors in particular have been plagued by failures from this.  

If you like to gamble, gamble a little less by powering it up every 2 weeks. This should allow error correction to clean up the odd instance of bit rot before it accumulates, it keeps a battery in more viable condition, if anything is beginning to fail, it may be noticed in flaky behaviour, in which case recovery operations can proceed immediately. If it has gone dead in 2 weeks, then other recovery options are more likely to succeed, i.e. battery or capacitor secondary corrosion will be minimal and will clean up, solder failures have higher likelihood of responding to homebrew reflow techniques etc etc. whereas left for months unnoticed, damage may accumulate to a point that is not recoverable.

[dmugetsu]

I will stick to my web wallet,i think the security is pretty decent

[EricKennedy]

Some of the perils of using a hardware wallet as long term cold storage may be:

FYI, none of the points your made are valid for a smartcard.
A Ledger Wallet is as resilient as a SIM card, your credit card or the chip inside your passport.

[LiteCoinGuy]

little bit old news because you can buy this since weeks  

list of hardware-wallets:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=899253.0

[gadman2]

30+ year life span? No, absolutely not. If you load it once and never plug it in again, maybe...  But realistically, if it's made of plastic and simple gold plating, it will never last 30 years in the wild.

[hungergamespro132]

30+ year life span? No, absolutely not. If you load it once and never plug it in again, maybe...  But realistically, if it's made of plastic and simple gold plating, it will never last 30 years in the wild.

where did you read that its gold plated? are they all made of it?

[btchip]

The 30 years thing is the data retention time coming directly from the manufacturer http://www.st.com/web/catalog/mmc/FM143/CL1814/SC1523/PF217469 - not something that can be guaranteed by the typical USB flash storage drive.

Gold plating is pretty much a standard when you're dealing with a USB connection unless you want it to break after a few connection cycles.

But yes, it will likely not last for 30 years if you insert it and remove it many times a day for 30 years (although in this case your computer port is likely to die first)

[cryptworld]

It is a good product but I think it needs more development

[Flashman]

The 30 years thing is the data retention time coming directly from the manufacturer http://www.st.com/web/catalog/mmc/FM143/CL1814/SC1523/PF217469 -

Ohhhhh,  it's made by the same people who were the foundry for Cyrix CPUs, you know, the ones that lasted 12 months if you were careful not to apply power...

[sobitcoin]

Wow, it's a good product
But, which one is better ? This one / trazor ?

Anyway i think this is not too expensive

Trezor is better any day. But that is only if u r fascinated about hardware wallet. I think for security, there is no replacement of a paper wallet.

Hey! What would the difference in security be from something like this to a paper wallet? Is there vulnerabilities in USD connecting?

[iGotSpots]

MMXIV and BALLS have dedicated standalone staking hardware for months already

[btchip]

Ohhhhh,  it's made by the same people who were the foundry for Cyrix CPUs, you know, the ones that lasted 12 months if you were careful not to apply power...

they're also the same people (actually the same business division and a variety of the same chip) making credit cards and passports. This is probably more closely related to the current use case.

Hey! What would the difference in security be from something like this to a paper wallet? Is there vulnerabilities in USD connecting?

a paper wallet is secure until you want to spend it - at that point the private key is revealed and a malware can grab it. Also, being bitcoin, it should not be vulnerable to US dollar connections (sorry, that was an easy one  )

MMXIV and BALLS have dedicated standalone staking hardware for months already

you don't want to start comparing the security of a smartcard and of a Raspberry Pi. Also, you might want to rename MMXIV now

[bitkilo]

I was looking to purchase a device to help me with secure cold storage.
I looked at the ledger wallet but thought it would be better for spending and storing small amounts.
The security card that goes with it makes it quite secure but i didn't see anthing about how to get coins out if you loose the card, does anyone know?

For my cold storage savings i ordered a Mycelium Entropy a couple of nights ago, with the research i did it looks like the safest way i can hold my coins.
Although it really is only a safe way to print paper wallets it will help me sleep better knowing that my cold storage hasen't been hacked due to one small mistake made by me while creating it.

[btchip]

I was looking to purchase a device to help me with secure cold storage.
I looked at the ledger wallet but thought it would be better for spending and storing small amounts.
The security card that goes with it makes it quite secure but i didn't see anthing about how to get coins out if you loose the card, does anyone know?

it's a standard BIP 32 + BIP 39 + BIP 44 implementation, so you can restore it with any wallet supporting all of those. A few options are listed here https://ledger.groovehq.com/knowledge_base/topics/how-to-restore-my-backup-without-a-ledger-wallet

For my cold storage savings i ordered a Mycelium Entropy a couple of nights ago, with the research i did it looks like the safest way i can hold my coins.
Although it really is only a safe way to print paper wallets it will help me sleep better knowing that my cold storage hasen't been hacked due to one small mistake made by me while creating it.

You would still have to pay attention when you actually need to use that cold storage. The best setup if you want to use your coins on a regular basis would be to use Mycelium Entropy to generate a seed that you put in a hardware wallet in my opinion.