Reading 3 min Published Updated
Major cryptocurrency hardware wallet provider Ledger is nearing the launch of a planned solution to allow users to back up and seed a Ledger device.
On June 21, Ledger CTO Charles Guillemet tweeted that the hardware wallet company had published the open source Ledger Recover white paper.
Today, we are publishing the Ledger Recover White Paper, a key step in allowing anyone to audit the cryptographic protocols.
This builds on the over 150 apps and other open-source enablement Ledger has already been implemented.
Don’t trust, verify. pic.twitter.com/SbjDQRYCQM
— Charles Guillemet (@P3b7_) June 21, 2023
Guilleme said the upcoming service is expected to launch in the fourth quarter of 2023 and will be provided by digital asset protection firm Coincover. The main takeaway from the datasheet is that the new service is “100% safe,” the CTO assured. “You can find out exactly how it works technically and explore the service yourself,” he said.
The Ledger Recover White Paper, available on GitHub, contains a 34-page white paper that includes a technical overview of Ledger’s hardware wallet seed backup and recovery solution.
The Ledger Recover repository supports three main workflows, including backing up the original state, restoring it to a new device, and safely deleting backups. The white paper also includes data on the design of the Ledger Recover system and the cryptographic protocol.
One implementation involves splitting the seed into shares using existing private key distribution technology known as Shamir backup. “Having less than the required number of shares does not provide any information about the seed,” the white paper notes.
The white paper highlights that users can run the protocol independently of Ledger, which should highlight its flexibility and commitment to self-service.
As previously reported, the Ledger seed recovery tool has drawn a lot of criticism from the cryptocurrency community. Introduced in May 2023, Ledger Recovery is an optional subscription for users who want to backup their recovery passphrase, according to the CTO.
Related: Trezor CEO Names Usability Top Factor for Hardware Wallet: BTC Prague 2023
Many industry players such as Mudit Gupta of Polygon Labs have pointed out potential vulnerabilities in Ledger Recovery. “The problem here is that parts of the encrypted keys are sent to three corporations, and they can reverse engineer your keys,” he said. Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao also questioned the benefits of the new tool, saying, “So the seed can leave the device now? Sounds different than “your keys never leave the device.”
According to the CTO of Ledger, the new original data recovery solution “does not change the security” of Ledger devices. Guillemet also encouraged crypto developers, researchers, and enthusiasts to study the white paper and fully understand the security mechanisms of the wallet.