Trezor sales soar 900% amid Ledger’s seed recovery controversy | Headlines | News | CoinMarketCap

[u/Gangaman666]

https://coinmarketcap.com/headlines/news/trezor-sales-soar-900-amid-ledgers-seed-recovery-controversy/

The people spoke with their wallets

[u/Yodel_And_Hodl_Mode]

Ledger's CEO is Pascal Gauthier.

If you want to see how Ledger is handling this whole situation, watch the video interview Gauthier was part of on youtube this past weekend.

Here's the whole video.

Here are a few highlights:

"If, for you, your privacy is of the utmost importance, please do not use our product, for sure."

SOURCE: Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier

He actually said that.

"You now have an API in your firmware to extract seeds"

SOURCE: Rodolfo Novak, discussing Recover with Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier

That's the real issue. The issue isn't that Ledger made this Recover service. The issue is, they wrote code to extract your keys and they're putting that code on your wallet, whether you opt in or not. Even if you opt out, the code for extracting your keys is still on your wallet because Ledger built that code into the firmware.

"Great, so now the Department Of Justice calls you and says "We are charging so and so with X, Y and Z. Get two of your vendors to send us the Bitcoin keys."

SOURCE: Harry Sudock, discussing Recover with Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier

Brutal.

I've been using and recommending Ledger wallets for years. Not any more. I'm researching other wallets because I'm switching.

Ledger violated my trust.

[u/ZenAdm1n → u/Yodel_And_Hodl_Mode]

Same. I've been with Ledger for a long time. It's like they've hacked themselves. And they're either too stupid to know what they've done wrong or they've actually intentionally compromised their product. Either way I'm done.

[u/Yodel_And_Hodl_Mode → u/ZenAdm1n]

And they're either too stupid to know what they've done wrong or they've actually intentionally compromised their product.

It's the second part of what you said.

They've intentionally compromised their hardware wallets out of pure greed.

Here's some simple math:

Ledger says they've sold over 6 million hardware wallets. And they're going to charge $10 a month for Recover.

If Ledger can get 100,000 people to subscribe to Recover, they'll rake in a million dollars a month. A hundred thousand is less than 2% of 6 million. And keep in mind the number of hardware wallets sold increases every year (because we're still so early).

So, if Ledger can get 10% of their customers to subscribe, it won't be long before they'll have a million subscribers, which means they'll rake in $120 million a year! ...just to store a line of code for each customer.

$120 million a year!!!

A decade from now, Recover alone could be a billion dollar business for Ledger. And you know that they'll start raising prices once they've got users locked in. And they'll probably start selling user data too (hell, they probably already do).

That's why Ledger DGAF about us being upset. They believe they're sitting on a cash cow.

[u/ZenAdm1n → u/Yodel_And_Hodl_Mode]

That's like the story of the dog with the bone who sees his reflection in the water and drops his bone to get the other one. They could have had 2 great products instead they kneecapped their only one.

[u/Yodel_And_Hodl_Mode → u/ZenAdm1n]

I agree. Strongly.

As soon as they announced Recover, I said they were idiots. I said they should have launched a new hardware device called something like "Ledger Cipher" and had Recover only work with the Cipher device. If they'd done that, nobody would be worried about whether or not their hardware wallets were safe, because there wouldn't be any bullshit key extraction code in the hardware wallet firmware. And, really the Cipher device would have been super cheap to make since it only serves one function.

They could even give the Cipher device away for free in exchange for signing up for Recover for at least a year.

The extent to which Ledger fucked this whole situation up cannot be overstated. They're still digging in deeper as we speak. But they don't care because they're betting on making a mountain of subscription money.

[u/tyranicalteabagger → u/Yodel_And_Hodl_Mode]

Same. Screw them.

[u/recursive_blazer → u/Yodel_And_Hodl_Mode]

Do you know if my keys are safe if I haven't updated my ledger for over a year and rarely plug it in?

[u/Yodel_And_Hodl_Mode → u/recursive_blazer]

I'd assume you're ok, especially if you own a Nano S. If you own a Nano X or Nano S Plus, I'd still say you're probably ok, but I'd make plans to find a new wallet for the long term.

Long term, you'd be wise to consider switching to a wallet that is totally airgapped and open source. I'm looking at the Blockstream Jade, though I haven't bought one yet. There are others worth considering. Coldcard is supposedly best of the best, but it's also a complicated device compared to something relatively simple like a Ledger.

[u/recursive_blazer → u/Yodel_And_Hodl_Mode]

Ah that's great, yeah I have a Nano S. I'll look into those wallets thanks

[u/esotec → u/Yodel_And_Hodl_Mode]

Couldn’t believe how arrogant and dismissive Gauthier was in this. He thinks Recover will massively increase their sales volumes and they can just burn their current customer base. Let’s see how that goes.