Save and Grow your Crypto With Ledger
| KEY TAKEAWAYS: |
| — Effectively saving as and growing your assets are two important aspects of cryptocurrencies. There are a few different ways you can do that, but they’re not all created equal. — People tend to keep their crypto on exchanges, but such practice has its pitfalls, such as; limited ownership and cyber threats. The solution to this is self-custody. — You can use a wide range of non-custodial wallets where you are the sole owner of your private keys. But again they’re not all created equal. Although software wallets provide you with full ownership, they come with their risks, since they’re constantly connected to the internet. — To self-custody you need to choose the most secure wallet to store your private keys, that is in a hardware wallet such as the Ledger Nano that stores your keys offline and safeguards them from cyber threats. — The Ledger Nano combined with its application; Ledger Live allows you to manage and grow crypto thanks to a wide range of crypto services, all from within the security of your hardware wallet. — In this article, we will explore how you can safely save and grow your crypto with Ledger. |
Ledger allows you to save and grow your crypto. Let’s find out how!
Over the years, we’ve grown accustomed to central entities like banks controlling our savings and assets. So much so that even when decentralized finance (DeFi) offers us the ability to take full control of our crypto assets, we choose to trust third-parties, such as centralized crypto exchanges.
It’s obvious that this transition toward self-custody cannot be sudden, and certainly not very simple. Becoming the only person accountable for your assets can be a daunting task. But we’ve also seen how centralized entities fail their customers time and again.
All of this points in one direction: even though it is slightly difficult to start with, self-custody is the best option to achieve true financial freedom.
And as you might’ve guessed, we now have easy and flexible options to do just that.
Save Your Crypto With Ledger
When it comes to choosing a crypto wallet to save your assets, the most important aspect to look for is the security of your private key — the alphanumeric identifier that points to your crypto assets on a blockchain and makes you their verifiable owner.
That’s because when you use a crypto wallet, it actually stores your private keys and not your cryptos. And whoever has access to your keys can access the cryptocurrencies it is associated with.
What does that tell us? Owning and securing your private key is of utmost importance.
Speaking of that, we have three common options — a hot wallet, an exchange wallet, and a cold wallet.
Hot wallets like MetaMask are non-custodial and offer you full control of your private keys and funds. But they are always connected to the internet, which may inadvertently expose your private keys to cyber threats.
On the other hand, an exchange wallet doesn’t even allow you to take control of your private keys, instead you use the standard email + password logins. Which makes them, not you, the ultimate owners of the assets you paid for. Not your keys, not your coins.
This leads us to our third option, hardware wallets; such as the Ledger Nano.
Ledger devices offer three key and essential benefits:
Security
Hardware wallets such as the Ledger Nano provide you with a physical second factor authentication. Meaning that you will need to physically connect your Nano wallet to sign and confirm every action initiated through your mobile/desktop. Since software can easily be compromised, this physical layer protects you from a wide variety of cyber threats.
The Nano is a certified device that uses the most secure chips called Secure Elements, the kind of chips used for biometric passports and credit cards, to store your private keys offline at all times and preserve them from any kind of threat.
Furthermore, a dedicated team of world-class security experts working at Ledger’s internal security lab; The Donjon, ensures that the wallets have the most resilient and robust designs and works tirelessly to maintain the most up-to-date security.
Ownership
Once you set up a Ledger wallet, you become its one and only owner. There’s no gatekeeper watching or tracking what you do on your Ledger. It’s just you, your private keys, and your recovery phrase.
The recovery phrase is a series of 24 words that serve as a backup to all the crypto assets managed through your device. It is part of a standard referred to as BIP-32, used by the majority of wallet providers. This means that if Ledger’s no longer around, you can always enter your 24 words into another compatible wallet to have access to your cryptocurrencies.
That’s the kind of freedom you get with Ledger.
Ease-of-Use
An obvious question about Ledger wallets is that if it stores your private keys offline at all times, how can it approve online transactions.
Enter Ledger Live — an online application that syncs with your Ledger Nano every time you connect it to your system. It has a great interface that allows you to manage and grow your crypto under one roof, thanks to the integration of a variety of apps and dApps. Think of it as the App store to your phone.
Moreover, you can also use Ledger devices with third-party hot wallets such as MetaMask to access your favorite dApps. Now that you know how to safeguard your crypto with Ledger wallets, let’s dive into how you can grow them.
Grow Your Crypto With Ledger
Ledger Live is the gateway to all your crypto services that you otherwise would exclusively access via centralized exchanges or through hot wallet integrations with DeFi protocols.
Once you have your Ledger Live application setup and synced with your Ledger Nano, safeguarding and growing your crypto becomes extremely easy. Let’s explore some of the options:
Trade and Grow
Trading is a common way to grow your crypto assets by buying them at a lower price and selling them at a higher price. Even if you’re new to crypto and do not hold any assets, you can buy/sell Bitcoin, Ether, and other cryptos with fiat currencies through our partners Wyre and Coinify.
Additionally, the “Discover” section gives you access to different third-party DeFi protocols that allow you to seamlessly swap one crypto for another with the best exchange rates.
As you can see in the snap above, all of these are accessible from within the secure Ledger ecosystem.
Lend and Grow
The advent of DeFi lending protocols has enabled users to lend and borrow within a peer-to-peer setup, without any reliance on a central entity whatsoever. Ledger Live comes with a dedicated section where you can lend DAI, USDT, and USDC for an interest rate way better than your bank will ever offer on your savings.
Ledger Live is also integrating with lending protocols such as Compound where you have more flexibility to lend your crypto assets. This is also accessible in the “Discover” section, amongst many other dApps.
Stake and Grow
Of all ways to grow crypto assets, staking is highly preferred by crypto holders because it requires minimal expertise. When you stake a cryptocurrency, you support a blockchain network in its operations and earn the network’s native tokens in the process.
Ledger Live enables you to stake your cryptocurrencies such as; Ethereum, Polkadot, Tezos, Cosmos, Algorand, or Tron. All you have to do is install your coin’s application on your Ledger wallet via the manager tab and start staking immediately.
Recently, Ledger also integrated the Ethereum staking as a service application, Lido, to offer liquidity staking on Ethereum 2.0 to ledger users. This enables you to freely stake your ETH without any restrictions.
…You Can Even Stake Directly Through Ledger Validator Node
For growing your crypto, you are now able to stake directly from your Ledger hardware wallet, through Ledger’s own validator node. So you can enter the rewarding world of staking securely, via a platform you already know and trust. Find out how to access staking through Ledger validator node for yourself, right here.
More Ways To Grow
The “Discover” section on Ledger Live also gives you access to the asset management and investment platform Zerion. Through which you’ll be able to explore a wider range of services from across DeFi protocols. The platform enables you to trade a wide range of Ethereum-based assets and index funds. You can also add liquidity to the various liquidity pools and earn free governance tokens and a portion of the decentralized exchange’s fees.
Tips To Grow While Sleeping Like a Baby
Your cryptocurrencies are only as secure as your private keys and your recovery phrase. So, while using Ledger Live to grow your cryptos, make sure you are implementing the best security practices. Here are some tips for your to grow and sleep like a baby:
- Your recovery phrase is the ultimate key to your crypto assets. Never store them on any device that is connected to the internet. The best practice is to write it on paper and store it in a secret place where it is not easily accessible.
- Never tell anyone that you own cryptocurrencies. If no one knows you own cryptos, no one will try to gain access to them. It’s that simple. Keep it to yourself.
- Always verify the wallet address shown on Ledger Live with the one shown on your Nano before you confirm any transaction.
You can read more security tips for using Ledger here.
Your Way Forward
You can use one or a combination of these services to create a highly comprehensive portfolio under one roof from within the security of your Ledger wallet.
As we keep expanding our services and integrating more protocols to Ledger Live, you will have more ways to put your cryptos to work. Financial freedom, now there’s nothing in your way!
Knowledge is Power
Disclaimer: Exchange, lend, and other crypto transaction services are provided by third-party partners. Ledger provides no advice or recommendations on use of these third-party services.