PROTECTING YOUR BITCOINS — AND YOUR ONLINE IDENTITY

By  Kyle Torpey

NEW YORK (InsideBitcoins) — The Ledger Wallet Nano is quickly becoming a popular hardware option for enhanced bitcoin security, but the team behind this product believe that their devices will be used for more than just protecting bitcoin private keys in the near future. Although devices such as the Ledger Nano are currently used for simply securing one’s bitcoins, they could also be used to protect passwords, online identities, and much more.

I was recently able to chat with Ledger CEO Eric Larchevêque about their latest hardware wallet offering and where he thinks these sorts of security solutions are headed over the next few years.

“Our vision is to provide mass market, affordable, open and secure hardware wallets to bring Bitcoin to the next level of adoption.”

Protecting online identities

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HANDS ON WITH LEDGER, ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST SECURE AND USER-FRIENDLY BITCOIN HARDWARE WALLETS

By  Yannick Losbar

If there is a specific point which all bitcoiners should take note of, it is the proper storage of their bitcoins. Proper storage of bitcoins is essential to the promise of Bitcoin. Properly securing your bitcoins allows you to have control of your money in ways that were not as accessible before. Two approaches exist so far:

• Entrust -rightly or wrongly- all the hassle of security to a third party (Coinbase, Blockchain.info)
• Setup a cold storage by putting your bitcoins on a wallet totally disconnected from the internet, at the obvious cost of less practicality.

Ledger intends to offer the advantages of both these solutions without their drawbacks. The wallet consists of a “smartcard” (a small chip)  that provides a  significant level of safety since this component has been used for years in the credit card industry. The same chip signs all your transactions in a fully encrypted way, hence permitting its use even if the PC on which you would like to perform the transaction is compromised.

From a practical point of view, the wallet is no slouch: the link between this technological gem and you is made through a neat and intuitive interface accessible after installing the dedicated Google Chrome add-on. Launched on December 11 at the price of 29€ (about 36 USD) excluding shipping cost, the wallet is the brainchild of Eric Larchevêque / Thomas France (La Maison Du Bitcoin), Nicolas Bacca (Who built the first smartcard based HW wallet -1) and Joel Pobeda (Chronocoin).

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Ledger Launches USB Bitcoin Wallet With 'Bank-Grade' Security

By Daniel Palmer

The team behind a new affordable multisig bitcoin wallet say their product has security features that make it almost immune to hacking attacks.

The Ledger Wallet Nano is the result of a merger between three French startups: La Maison du Bitcoin, a bitcoin centre in Paris; BTChip, a hardware wallet manufacturer; and Chronocoin, an exchange platform.

Priced at €34.90 (or 0.1213 BTC), the USB device contains a banking-grade EAL5+ smartcard, the same as found in credit cards. Additionally, as a hierarchical deterministic wallet (BIP32), the Ledger can hold an infinite number of bitcoin addresses.

Connecting to each user's computer through their USB port, the device carries out cryptographic work, such as signing bitcoin transactions, inside its own protected environment. Once safely initialised, it can even be used without risk on an insecure or compromised computer, its makers claim.

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