Ledger releases white paper for hardware wallet seed recovery tool

Leading hardware cryptocurrency wallet provider Ledger is nearing the launch of a planning solution that will allow users to back up and recover Ledger device seeds.

Ledger CTO Charles Guillemet said on Twitter on June 21: announcement A hardware wallet company has open-sourced the Ledger Recover white paper.

Today, we are publishing the Ledger Recover whitepaper, an important step in making encryption protocols auditable for everyone.

It builds on over 150 apps and other open source enablements that Ledger has already implemented.

Check instead of trusting. pic.twitter.com/SbjDQRYCQM

— Charles Guillemet (@P3b7_) June 21, 2023

Guillemet said the upcoming service, provided by digital asset security firm Coincover, is expected to launch in the fourth quarter of 2023. The main takeaway from the whitepaper is that the new service is “100% secure”, he assured by the CTO. “You can learn exactly how it works technically and explore the service yourself,” he said.

Ledger Recover white paper available on GitHub Offers This is a 34 page long document containing a technical overview of Ledger’s solution for backing up and restoring seeded hardware wallets.

Ledger Recover’s repository allows for three main operational flows: backing up seeds, restoring to a new device, and safely deleting backups. The whitepaper also includes data on Ledger Recover’s system design and encryption protocols.

One implementation involves splitting the seed into shares using the existing private key distribution technology known as Shamir Backup. “If you do not have the required number of shares, you will not get any seed information,” the white paper notes.

The whitepaper emphasizes that users can run the protocol independently of the ledger, which we believe underscores its commitment to flexibility and self-management.

As previously reported, Ledger’s seed recovery tool has sparked significant criticism from the cryptocurrency community. Introduced in May 2023, Ledger Recovery is an optional subscription for users who want to back up their secret recovery phrases, according to the CTO.

Related: Trezor CEO Names Ease of Use as the Most Important Factor in Hardware Wallets: BTC Prague 2023

Many industry insiders, such as Mudit Gupta of Polygon Labs, have pointed out potential vulnerabilities in Ledger Recovery. “The problem here is that the encrypted key parts are sent to his three companies, who can reconstruct the key,” he pointed out. Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao also questioned the benefits of the new tool, saying, “Does that mean the seed can now leave the device? ‘The key is out of the device. I think it’s going in the wrong direction if it’s never going to come out.”

According to Ledger’s CTO, the new seed recovery solution “does not change the security” of Ledger devices. Guilmet also called on developers, researchers and cryptocurrency enthusiasts to study the white paper and fully understand the wallet’s security mechanisms.

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