THE LEDGER PROBLEM

WHAT HAPPENED

Recently, Ledger got heavily criticized from various users because of a hack that made it impossible to interact with many WEB3 Dapps for more than 48 hours. But, it's not the first time that the company finds itself under the critics of users, in the past their website got hacked and plenty of users data was stolen, basically exposing which people were storing their crypto on a Ledger Hardware Wallet. And more recently, they introduced a new service called Ledger Recover, which put under question the safety of the product itself. Altough the service is optional, and Ledger clarified that the private keys of those that didn't opt in are not at risk. All of this exposed (even if it was always the case) the fact that the device wasn't open source, which led Ledger to open source some of the code behind certain components, even though not completely because some components come from and are licensed by third party companies. Let's get back to the most recent hack, because this one really put into question the seriousness of the company, since the hack was possible because an ex worker still had access to some Ledger libraries . The result of this, was much bigger than just putting Ledger's users at risk, because it put the entire WEB3 users in danger, since many Dapps were using Ledger's libraries. This, led many users to say once again: "It's time to stop using Ledgers".

MY EXPERIENCE

When I started to get serious with crypto, I understood that I needed to get a Hardware Wallet. After various research, I decided to go with a Trezor, this because most of the contents that I had watched advised against getting a Ledger, because of the user data breach. And also because I needed a WEB3 compatible wallet and Trezor was the only other option (even though only compatible with EVM Dapps). Unfortunately, it revealed itself to be a bad decision for 2 reasons. The first one being a much worse user experience compared to Ledger, sure, to hold crypto it's a great choice but for WEB3 interactions definetely not. Uncomfortable to use and full of problems, like the pop up for approving transactions often not appearing (a problem that exists already for many years, that Trezor still hasn't fixed). The second problem, appeared when I started getting interested in non EVM chains, especially Cosmos ($ATOM) , which is still not supported by Trezor. So, when I found myself with a pretty decent sum scattered through various Cosmos chains, I found myself obbligated to get a Ledger. Right away, I noticed how much better the user experience was, and especially it was saving me a lot of time. Even though I still use my Trezor for EVM chains, which in terms of safety is a great thing, everytime I use it I ask myself why am I not using my Ledger also for those, but at this point it would be too long and too costly to move everything. Things from there moved on pretty smoothly, until the recent hack, even though it didn't affect me, it led me to ask myself: "What alternatives are there to Ledger?".

THE PROBLEM

That's the problem, there aren't any. Where do you find a Hardware Wallet that is so comfortable to use and at the same time supports this many chains? You don't. While the last hack was happening, many relevant crypto Twitter accounts were talking about how it was time to change Hardware Wallet, and I as many others asked which were the alternatives. Taking away Trezor, for the reasons explained above, every other alternative for however comfortable, it doesn't even get close to supporting as many chains as Ledger does. And that's a problem now more than ever, since most of the smaller users like us, are moving away from costly chains like Ethereum into more convenient ones like Solana, Cosmos... In the end, we can hate on Ledger as much as we want, tell them that they're incompetent... but we have no choice but to use their product, it's more comfortable, thus makes us lose less time, which in the WEB3 space is very important. For example, if we're about to get liquidated on a lending protocol, the ability to do things as fast as possible is key. Plus, it supports the biggest amount of chains, giving us the opportunity to explore many ecosystems while mantaining the safety of a Hardware Wallet.

CONCLUSIONS

Obviously, I'm not suggesting to only go with Ledger, if you have the chance to economically support other Hardware Wallet providers, in the hopes that they can catch up, thus making the Hardware Wallet market more decentralized. And also, having more than one Hardware Wallet improves your safety. At the same time, it's clear that if someone wants to move through less known ecosystems, safely, it can't be done without a Ledger. Which isn't just the most comfortable option but it's also the most convenient one, with the price of the NANO S at only 79,99€ (sometimes less), a very great price for the safety and services it offers.
And what about you, what Hardware Wallet do you use? Am I right or am I missing a better option than Ledger that I'm not taking into consideration?