What is Ledger Recover? New Feature Review 2024

Table of Contents

• What is Ledger Recover?
• Who is Ledger Recover for?
• Is Ledger Recover safe?
• Important things to know about Ledger Recover
• Can you recover a Ledger device without Ledger Recover?
• The bottom line

Ensuring the security of your cryptocurrency is a question that every crypto investor must tackle at some point in their investing journey. While cryptocurrencies promise to have a major impact on the way we use and think about money, they also bring unique challenges. 

Since cryptocurrency transactions are irreversible, it’s very difficult to recover funds if your crypto wallet gets hacked. This is why ensuring that your crypto remains safe and sound is of the utmost importance.

Ledger, the world’s biggest manufacturer of hardware cryptocurrency wallets, has recently introduced a new subscription service called Ledger Recover. The company claims that this service can significantly enhance the security of users’ crypto holdings. Let’s explore what Ledger Recover actually is and whether the service is right for you.

What is Ledger Recover?

Ledger Recover is a wallet recovery service offered by Ledger in partnership with Coincover. The idea behind this service is that it allows users to access their wallet even in the event that they lose their seed phrase backup. Currently, Ledger Recover is only available to users who have Ledger Nano X or Nano S Plus wallets.

Buy the Ledger Nano X +1 Year of Ledger Recover 

When a user signs up for Ledger Recover, their seed phrase is encrypted and split into three fragments. This happens within the Secure Element chip inside of a Ledger hardware wallet. 

Each fragment is then sent to a separate company—Coincover, Ledger, and Escrowtech. By itself, each fragment does not hold enough information to access your wallet, and at least two fragments are required to recover your wallet. 

This means that even if one of the three companies participating in Ledger Recover were to be compromised, your funds would remain safe. If someone were to steal your funds through the Ledger Recover service, you’d be eligible for up to $50,000 in compensation from Coincover.  

Ledger Recover requires customers to pass an identity verification check. When a user wants to recover their wallet through Ledger Recover, they are required to present an ID and a facial recognition check to ensure that the person who is requesting to recover the wallet is actually the person to whom the wallet belongs. 

The Ledger Recover service is not free, as it costs $9.99 per month (€9.99 per month if you’re in Europe). You’ll be able to recover your wallet only if your subscription is active. 

Who is Ledger Recover for?

In our view, Ledger Recover is a suitable service for crypto investors who own a substantial amount of cryptocurrency but not quite enough to justify using an institutional-grade cryptocurrency custodian. 

If you only own a smaller amount of crypto, Ledger Recover probably won’t make much sense for you. Staying subscribed for a full year costs just under $120, which is nothing to scoff at. Long-term crypto holders would likely want to stay subscribed for an even longer period, which would up the total cost of using the service even more.

Ledger Recover also isn’t a suitable service for those who insist on controlling their private keys to the fullest extent possible. While there’s realistically only a tiny chance that someone would be able to steal your crypto through Ledger Recover, the fact is that the service entails (encrypted) fragments of your recovery phrase being stored on someone else’s servers.

Is Ledger Recover safe?

Ledger Recover can generally be regarded as safe, although it is not risk-free. When you’re using Ledger Recover, encrypted fragments of your private keys are stored on servers that are not under your control, so there is a degree of trust involved. You also need to trust Ledger and Coincover that they will be handling your personal information safely.  

When Ledger Recover was first announced in May 2023, it was met with extreme backlash from the crypto community since users speculated that the feature meant there was a “backdoor” in Ledger devices that would allow the company to extract users’ private keys. In our opinion, the majority of this backlash was misguided and based on misunderstandings and incorrect assumptions. 

It’s important to understand that Ledger Recover is a completely optional service and those who don’t want to use it won’t be affected by it at all — the security of Ledger’s hardware wallets is the same as it was before the Ledger Recover service was introduced.

Anatoly Yakovenko, the co-founder of major blockchain project Solana, had the following to say on the controversy surrounding the announcement of Ledger Recover:

“If you trusted them before not to exfiltrate your keys, you can trust them now not to do it when that feature is off. I think the attack surface is about the same.”

if you trusted them before not to exfiltrate your keys, you can trust them now not to do it when that feature is off. I think the attack surface is about the same.

— toly ?? (@aeyakovenko) May 16, 2023

Important things to know about Ledger Recover

Now, let’s quickly go through some of the most important things to keep in mind if you’re thinking of signing up for Ledger Recover.

• Currently, Ledger Recover is only available to users with a valid government ID issued in the United States, European Union, United Kingdom, or Canada.
• Ledger Recover is currently only available for owners of the Ledger Nano X.
• Recovering your wallet through Ledger Recover is limited to 3 times per month / 10 times per year.
• It’s recommended to use a fresh Ledger Nano X device when signing up for Ledger Recover. You can either buy a new Ledger Nano X or reset your existing device to factory settings.

Can you recover a Ledger device without Ledger Recover?

Yes, even if you lose your Ledger device, you can access your crypto wallet again, provided that you have backed up your seed phrase (also known as the recovery phrase). You can either back up your seed phrase on a piece of paper or use a purpose-made metal crypto wallet backup for additional peace of mind.

In fact, your seed phrase is enough to gain full access to your wallet. This is why it’s so important to back it up safely and never share your seed phrase with anyone.

The purpose of the Ledger Recover service is to provide an additional backup in case you lose access to your existing seed phrase backup. 

The bottom line

Hopefully, our article helped you understand what Ledger Recover is and which users the service is aimed at. Overall, the service is a welcome addition to the crypto security landscape and will be appreciated by investors who have a substantial portion of their net worth in crypto. 

If you want to learn more about crypto security and hardware wallets, make sure to check out our list of the best Ledger alternatives.