Ledger Introduces White Paper for Seed Recovery Tool for Hardware Wallets

Ledger Nearing Launch of Seed Recovery Solution

Ledger, a major provider of hardware cryptocurrency wallets, is nearing the launch of its solution to enable users to back up and recover a seed for their Ledger device.

On June 21, Charles Guillemet, the Chief Technology Officer of Ledger, posted on Twitter to reveal that the Ledger Recover white paper has been made open-source by the hardware wallet company.

Guillemet declared that the upcoming service, provided by the digital asset security firm Coincover, is anticipated to be released in Q4 2023. He reassured that the major takeaway from the white paper is that the new service is “100% secure.” He added, “You can find out precisely how it operates technically and examine the service yourself.”

Ledger Recover White Paper Now Open-Source

The Ledger Recover white paper, available on GitHub, contains a 34 page technical overview of Ledger’s approach to backing up and restoring the seed of a hardware wallet.

Ledger Recover’s repository facilitates three main processes, such as safeguarding the seed, reinstating it on a new device and securely erasing the backups. The white paper also contains information regarding Ledger Recover’s system architecture and cryptographic protocol.

One of the implementations utilizes the existing private key distributing technology known as Shamir backup to divide the seed into shares. The white paper emphasizes that having less than the required number of shares does not provide any insight into the seed.

The white paper highlights the fact that the protocol can be operated independently of Ledger, which serves to demonstrate its versatility and dedication to self-custody.

Ledger Recovery Met With Criticism

As was reported previously, Ledger’s seed restoration tool has been met with much criticism from the cryptocurrency community. The CTO stated that Ledger Recovery, which was released in May 2023, is an optional subscription that allows users to back up their confidential recovery phrase.

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Many industry players, such as Polygon Labs’ Mudit Gupta, raised concerns about potential security risks with Ledger Recovery. “The issue here is that the encrypted key fragments are sent to three companies, and they can rebuild your keys,” Gupta stated. Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao also questioned the advantages of the new tool, commenting, “So the seed can now be taken off the device? This appears to be a different approach than ‘your keys never leave the device.'”

Ledger CTO Urges Crypto Community to Examine White Paper

Ledger’s CTO has stated that the new seed recovery solution does not alter the security of Ledger devices. Guillemet has also urged developers, researchers, and crypto lovers to examine the white paper and comprehend the security features of the wallet.

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