Personally I have always had the security of my cryptocurrency in the back of my mind, because up until recently I haven't had enough to worry about, but at the same time I am always hearing about exchanges and wallets being hacked, and fortunes being lost, so a few months ago I ordered the Ledger Nano S and this is what I think of it.
So what is a hardware wallet and what makes it so safe? Think of the wallets on your computer, if you have one on a website that hosts wallets such as "myetherwallet.com" then essentially your wallet is always hooked up to the internet, leaving it vulnerable to hacks 24/7. Likewise if you have a wallet installed onto your desktop, whenever your computer is connected to the internet (which is probably 24/7) you are vulnerable to attacks, as well as key-logging software and other maleware. There are also exchanges which people think are safe for some reason, these are essentially online wallets that are subject to hacking just as much as anyone else, more so in fact since there is the further incentive of MILLIONS IF NOT BILLIONS of dollars worth of currency are going through their sites and while this is largely unregulated hundreds of millions of dollars are "disappearing" during these so called "DDOS" attacks, who is to say that these people don't claim DDOS and steal your money? Don't think this is possible look into MT GOX where $500,000,000 vanished in the blink of an eye. This brings us to hardware wallets: the LNS is similar to a usb stick and plugs into your computer, upon setup you will be given a 24 word phrase that can be used to recover your account should you lose your ledger (YOUR COINS ARE NOT ON THE LEDGER THEY ARE LINKED TO YOUR WALLET ADDRESS), next you input a pin code into the ledger using the two buttons on it and this pin code (which is not stored anywhere online) unencrypts the wallet and allows you to then access the ledger wallets on your computer. Think of a hardware wallet as an offline key that only you know the code to and must be used every time you wish to access funds from your ledger wallets.
This means that in order to access your funds someone would:
A: need to steal your LNS and
B: know the 4-9 digit pin needed to unencrypt the wallet
or
C: Somehow find the 24 word recovery phrase unique to your LNS and restore your wallet as their own.
I never even realized how much the security of my coins was weighing on my mind until the day I received my Ledger Nano S (LNS). I have always considered the risk but with the small amount of currency I held I never thought I needed a hardware wallet. But then when my Ledger came something odd happened, I wanted to put everything I possibly could onto it (if it was worth it due to transaction fees). And the more of my cryptos I get onto my ledger the safer I feel. I never thought I was being risky but there is just something about wearing this LNS around my neck and knowing that not even the government could touch my cryptos without this little stick. In short you may not realize how much stress things like these exchange hacks are causing you and the best thing to do is just make the plunge, cryptocurrency is here to stay, so you may as well be smart and safe with your new wealth and give yourself the peace of mind that you didn't even realize you were missing.
Currently available on Ledger Nano S:
Bitcoin
Ethereum
Ethereum Classic
Dogecoin
Litecoin
Zcash
Dash
Ripple
Stratis
Komodo
All ERC20 tokens
1ST
ANT
ARC
BAT
BeerCoin
BCDN
BNT
CFI
CRB
CryptoCarbon
DAO
DAO_extraBalance
DGD
DGX 1.0
EDG
EMV
GNO
GNT
GUP
GT
HKG
HMQ
ICN
JET
LUN
MCAP
MCO
MGO
MDA
MIT
MKR
MLN
MNE
MYST
NxC
PAY
PTOY
PLU
QAU
QRL
REP
RLC
RLT
DICE
ROUND
SGT
SNGLS
SRC
SWT
TaaS
TIME
TKN
TRST
Unicorn
VSL
VERI
WINGS
XAUR
Steem is currently not supported but with its widespread use and adoption as well as the fantastic team behind ledger, it will only be a matter of time.
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