Tech | 06/21/2023
Announcing the Ledger Recover Cryptographic Protocol White Paper
We are pleased to share the now-published Ledger Recover Cryptographic Protocol White Paper for review.
In our ongoing effort to build in a transparent and collaborative way, we are publishing the detailed technical White Paper on Ledger Recover, provided by Coincover. This document covers the system design, architecture, and operational flows of Ledger Recover, our advanced solution for backing up and restoring the Ledger device’s Secret Recovery Phrase. As a reminder, Ledger Recover is an entirely optional and opt-in paid subscription service that does not impact the security of your Ledger.
In this white paper, you will find thorough coverage of Ledger Recover’s system design, the cryptographic protocol design and security goals, as well as details on the three primary operational flows:
- Backing up your Secret Recovery Phrase
- Restoring it on a new Ledger device
- Securely deleting your backups
We are also making the Ledger Recover White Paper available on our GitHub repository. We encourage developers, researchers, and crypto-enthusiasts alike to read this White Paper in detail to understand the underlying cryptographic protocol of Ledger Recover.
Feedback is welcomed and encouraged! We are excited to hear your constructive feedback and suggestions for improvement.
To read the Ledger Recover Cryptographic Protocol White Paper, visit our GitHub repository here.
We are pleased to share this milestone with our community and look forward to your valuable insights and contributions. This is just one of many next steps to continue making our Ledger operating system accessible for verification. You can see where we are on this roadmap below.
What’s next?

While this White Paper focuses on the technical aspects of the Ledger Recover, provided by Coincover, we have much more to share. Our six-partblog series, “The Genesis of Ledger Recover,” goes further into our thinking process behind this project, design choices, operational security features, and gives an in-depth look at our product security reviews conducted throughout the development of Ledger Recover.
Read The Genesis of Ledger Recover, featuring:
- Part One: Self Custody Without Compromise
- An overview of Ledger Recover and what it does
- Part Two: Securely Distributing The Shares
- How Ledger Recover securely distributes your seed shares to your backup providers
- Part Three: Avoiding Collusion and Leaks
- How Ledger uses multiple layers of encryption to ensure that your shares are stored safely and can’t be stolen, and to prevent collusion between backup providers to reconstruct your seed
- Part Four: Controlling Access to the Backup: Identity Verification
- How we handle authentication before recovery by using secure identity verification mechanisms that provide you – and only you -with access to your backup
- Part Five: Operational Security
- An overview of our operational security, both in terms of hardening our infrastructure and securing manual claims processes
- Part Six: Threat Analysis / Evaluation
- How Ledger conducts regular internal and external security audits to guarantee maximum security for its users