I will show you how to setup Ledger Nano S. It will be a Complete Setup of a leading Cryptocurrency Hardware Wallet. As long as you do not compromise the Ledger Nano Mnemonics that is 24 words to restore the wallet, you funds will stay safe.

What is a Hardware Wallet?
Hardware wallets keep cryptocurrency in offline or “cold” storage, meaning they’re not connected to the internet. Hardware wallet are physical devices. They typically resembling a USB stick, which function as stripped-down, single-purpose computers. With a hardware wallet, crypto transactions are digitally signed within the device using your private key, then securely uploaded to the blockchain via a crypto bridge. In Ledger they use Ledger Manager as a crypto bridge.

What happens if you lose your hardware wallet?
During the Ledger Nano setup (detailed explained later), you will be back up Ledger wallet seed phrase on a paper and stored in safe. Without it your will you will not able to recover your funds. You must never lose your seed phrase or your funds will be lost forever! If your Ledger Nano hardware wallet fails or you lose the hardware wallet, using the Seed Phrase you can restore your wallet on different Ledger hardware or even on different Hardware wallet.

Install Ledger Live
Go to start.ledgerwallet.com
Download Ledger Live app. Depending on your Laptop or desktop operating system, pick your Ledger Live version. I am on a Windows PC. So, I picked the Windows Ledger Live App. I download it and run the install and Setup it up.

Getting Started with Ledger Setup
Click Get Started on Ledger Live. When the Ledger Live says What is your device? Pick Leger Nano S.  If you want to recover the Nano S, you can restore with mnemonics or the 24 seed phrase.  Your Private key is stored in nano. Nano acts as a cold storage.  You validate every transaction with Ledger wallet. The whole Ledger wallet installation will take 20 minutes. Make sure you are in a private area away from prying eyes from others because you have to physically write down the private seed phrase in the paper. You do not want anyone to see your seed phrase!

Click I am ready. You need to plug in Ledger Nano S to USB power. It needs the USB power to start up Nano S. It needs USB Power to keep it powered up.  Remember pressing both button is to accept change. Left button to go back. Right button to go forward.  When you are in bold face type phase.

Pin Code and 24 word recovery phrase setup
Choose your Pin. Pin should be 6 digits. I prefer 4 digit pin because I have to enter every time I plug wallet into the computer because it is a pain. 4 digit pin increase Nano been compromised if you ever get it lost. You can go up to 8 digits. If you enter your pin wrong more than 3 times your Ledger Nano resets itself. Mnemonicsis your only recover key. Write down the 24 recover phrase from the Ledger Nano stick in order one by one on the sheet provided. Store it in a secured place. Confirm your recovery phrase on the decide. To prevent security risk, you must only connect your nano to Ledger Live when you are offline never when you are online. With your Ledger Nano Seed Phrase, it give access to all your Private Keys for all your MetaMask Ledger wallets. After you wrote down the Recovery Phrase, you are ready to Perform a Genuine check before you can use the Ledger Nano on any Defi Platform.

Ledger Nano Genuine Check
Ledger Nano Genuine check is important because during you purchasing Ledger it could be infected or compromised. I would as a Safety rule never buy a Second hand Ledger Nano because it could get infected with virus or Malware. I am assuming using Ledger Genuine check api, this way Ledger keep track of compromised Ledger devices. Click Genuine Check. Allow Ledger Manager. I notice Ledger Manager does need to connect to the internet to perform its Genuine check. Without Internet connection briefly it does not perform Genuine check. I had my Ledger Genuine check failed because I did not have internet connection. Some corporates networks block outgoing internet traffic because of Proxy filters. So you need to be on your own home internet without any blocking traffic for the Ledger Live to access the Ledger Manger on the Ledger Nano S stick. Without Genuine check, you will not have access Ledger wallets.

After you have verified Genuine check, you are ready to install app on Ledger apps. Without apps installed Ledger Nano has no use.

How to add Apps to Nano Ledger Nano S?
Go to add accounts. Add accounts to get started. This device has 300k bytes of free space for apps. It allows up to 6 apps. In reality it is only 4 or 5 apps. Cardano uses 84k per apps. I am using Ledger Nano S app because almost all my crypto is in Ethereum or Ethereum Virtual Machine supported chains. So, I really need one app for Ethereum and another for Bitcoin.

Next I will show you how to install Bitcoin app.
Open Bitcoin app. Add accounts.

Open Ethereum app. By the way, for extra protection on your online account such as Gmail, use Yubikeys for 2 Factor authentication.

Trading crypto assets with the Ledger Nano S
Open the Ledger Live wallet. Go to for example the Ethereum. Click Copy Ethereum Address in the Ledger Live Ethereum public address go to centralized exchange to send the Ethereum and paste the address and send it out. Similar way, Go to the Bitcoin wallet on Ledger Live wallet. Copy the Bitcoin Public address and paste it to Centralized exchange to send Bitcoin from Centralized exchange like Binance into Ledger Nano S private wallet where you control the funds. I will create a detail video of connecting my MetaMask wallet to Ledger Nano and using it to securely doing Defi on a later video.

Difference between Ledger Nano S and Ledger Nano X. Difference is Nano S is $59. Ledger Nano X is $119. Ledger Nano X has a little bigger display. Nano X has 5 Megabytes of storage or 100 app to install vs 6 app for Nano S. Nano S only has 300k online storage which again translates to 4 to 5 apps. Nano X has battery and Bluetooth connection. This also allows more vectors of attack.

Ledger and Other Hardware Wallet General Security Considerations

Finally, having Ledger Hardware wallet will not secure your crypto funds if you do not follow this normal crypto safety operations:

Never Give a private key or seed phrase to someone or a site.
Never Give a smart contract unlimited spending allowance on assets.
Never Install a fake MetaMask or other Web3 Extension.
Never install questionable software on machine with crypto. The device has been compromised with malware/spyware, allowing private information stored on it to be stolen. Install latest Anti-virus software and Malware Bytes analysis software with regular updates for virus and malware signatures where your Metamask or other Web3 wallets are running. Donot use this computer for general surfing!
Never Visit a phishing site that resembles a genuine site or implies that it is official, and providing either access to your wallet via smart contract approvals/token allowances, or by providing your Secret Recovery Phrase and/or private key.
Ledger Live can be highjacked by Malware and change the receiving address, so always verify your receiving address to on their devices’ screen manually by using the “monitor screen” button at the bottom of each transaction request form. Meaning always verify the Ledger Live receiving address to the Ledger Nano Hardwares receiving address. Actually follow this for all transactions you do with Ledger Nano. Never blind sign any crypto transactions as well.

If you have unlimited spending transactions approved in any wallet, revoke approvals.
Use a platform such as:

• Revoke (Ethereum mainnet)
• Unrekt (multiple networks)
• approved.zone (Ethereum mainnet)
• Cointool (multiple networks)
• beefy.finance (BSC/BNB Smart Chain)
• EverRevoke (multiple networks).

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