User friendly, secure, and versatile
Keeping your coins 100% secure isn’t exactly possible, but you can certainly get close to 100% if you use hardware wallets. Initially, hardware wallets weren’t particularly popular due to several reasons, but the main one being that they used to be a bit of a hassle to set up. However, as time passes and the cryptocurrency landscape matures, you see how everything improves, and hardware wallets are no exception. Nowadays, we have a pretty nice selection of excellent hardware wallets that have proven to be extremely secure and reliable, and the Ledger Nano S is one of those.
If you’re looking around for a good wallet, stick around for this short review, because this might be what you’re looking for.
What are its features?
One of the biggest selling points we need to mention about the Nano S is the sheer amount of currencies that the wallet supports. While its competitors offer a decent selection of coins, the Nano S offers:
1. Bitcoin
2. Bitcoin Cash
3. Bitcoin Gold
4. Ethereum
5. ERC-20 based tokens
6. Ethereum Classic
7. Litecoin
8. Dogecoin
9. Zcash
10. Ripple
11. Dash
12. Stratis
13. Komodo
14. Ark
15. Expanse
16. Ubiq
17. Vertcoin
18. Viacoin
19. NEO
20. Stealthcoin
21. Stellar
22. Hcash
23. Digibyte
24. Qtum
25. PivX
Those are the 25 currencies that the Nano Support, which is quite impressive. But that’s not it. The Nano S also has great security both from a hardware and software perspective.
To avoid confusion, we’ll divide these features in their respective sub-sections.
Hardware
1. A pair of physical buttons that you must press at the same time to confirm payments. Essentially making it impossible for a hacker to confirm a payment remotely.
2. A built-in screen that generates a recovery phrase during setup. This phrase is generated offline, and is only displayed on the screen of the wallet. The screen itself also provides an extra layer of verification when you’re sending payments.
3. The ability to set up the wallet without even connecting it to a computer.
Software
1. The dongle itself comes with built-in anti-tamper software.
2. A 4-digit PIN that you create during setup.
3. 24 word phrase wallet backups.
4. Passphrases.
Additionally, Ledger’s own site has apps available for each supported cryptocurrency.
What does the community think of it?
As you’d come to expect from the overall feel of this review, it won’t come off as a surprise that the Nano S is highly regarded in the cryptocurrency community. It’s easy to set up and use, it has top notch security measures in place, it’s reasonably priced and it’s an overall solid product.
Naturally, you’ll find the occasional complaint or negative opinion from users that had bad experiences with the Nano, and one of the complaints about it is actually a fair one: Updating to the newest firmware can be troublesome at times.
For that reason, it’s usually recommended for you to backup your 24 word seed before making an update, so that on the off chance your ledger resets, you still have access to the seeds to recover your coins.
Pricing
You might be pleasantly surprised to know that similar to its competitors, the Ledger is actually quite cheap, as you’re getting what is one of the best hardware wallets available on the market for a mere £89.99
Word of advice: don’t cheap out on this. You might find the Ledger at a cheaper price on a site like eBay, but plenty of users have been scammed this way. If you don’t want to risk losing a lot of money, avoid this at all costs.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Easy to set up and use.
- Highly secure. You can even plug it into a computer infected with a virus and it won’t get infected.
- Fairly cheap for what it offers
- Supports an impressive amount of currencies.
Cons
- Updating the firmware can be troublesome.
Summin thinks up
The Ledger Nano S is probably one of the best choices available on the market right now in terms of hardware wallets. So if you have a lot of coins and want to keep them the safest place available you should definitely take a look at the Nano S.
About the Ledger Nano S
The Nano S is a hardware cryptocurrency wallet developed by Ledger, a security company that has been active and creating hardware for bitcoin security since 2014. Over the course of several years, the company received more than £62 million in funding by some top investors, and just recently it received an additional £55 million in funding. This in turn allowed them to develop and release in 2016 what is currently one of the most popular and secure hardware wallets in the market.
With over 1,000,000 wallets sold already you’d see why it’s a common choice among crypto investors that store big amounts of coins.
Note: Chances are that if you’re reading this review you already know what a hardware wallet is and what it does. But in case you don’t, it’s a device – usually a small USB dongle – that allows you to store your cryptocurrency offline. These types of wallets are mainly used by investors and traders that store really big amounts of cryptocurrency.
Think of Coinbase and its Vault service: They have the same principles but with some key differences, with the main ones being that withdrawing coins is less of a hassle and that you have more control over your coins.
