What are Ledger Applications and Why do I Need Them?
| KEY TAKEAWAYS: |
| — Applications on your Ledger device calculate the Private Keys for your crypto assets. — They are also used for verifying transactions and receiving addresses. — Ledger apps cannot interact with one another for optimal security. — If you uninstall and reinstall an app, you won’t lose your crypto – it will give you access to the same addresses. |
Ledger hardware wallets use applications to manage your cryptocurrencies. These can be installed onto your device through Ledger Live’s Manager. But why do we use apps for the Ledger Nano X and Ledger Nano S? What is their purpose? Let’s take a closer look.
Applications on Ledger devices play a vital role in managing your crypto assets – for each cryptocurrency, there’s a dedicated app. These apps can be installed onto your hardware wallet by connecting it to Ledger Live.
So what do these apps do? To summarize it shortly, the app on your hardware wallet calculates private keys based on your 24-word recovery phrase and are used to verify receiving addresses and transactions. While we want to give you some more insight into this process, we also want to explain a bit more as to why we use an application-based system.
The creation of your private keys
Your 24-word recovery phrase is a backup of all your crypto assets – which must be stored securely. Each individual cryptocurrency address is managed by a Private Key. While the 24 words can grant access to all your crypto accounts, each Private Key only does so for one specific crypto asset address.
Designed for optimal security, your apps do not have access to the recovery phrase. Instead, it sends a request to calculate the Private Keys from your 24 words, based on a specific parameter called a derivation path. The derivation path is unique for each crypto asset. After having satisfied necessary security checks, the app will receive a reply with the Private Keys. All of this takes place in the Secure Element chip of course, to make sure that these sensitive operations remain secure.
Great! You now have the Private Keys of your desired cryptocurrency on your hardware wallet! The application can then derive your Public Keys from it. These are also better known as your addresses. This is where anyone can send cryptocurrencies to you.
We’ve made the following diagram to summarize this process:
So why do I still need my applications after this?
Your Private Keys are still very important afterwards – they are needed for verifying your receiving address and transactions. Without using your private keys, you cannot perform either of these actions. Let’s take a look at how this works:
- You’re trying to make a Bitcoin transaction, for which you need your Bitcoin Private Key to sign (i.e. give the approval for) the transaction. After determining how much Bitcoin you want to send to a certain address, your wallet application will send a signature request to your Ledger hardware wallet.
- Your Ledger device will then show you what exact request was made by the wallet application on its screen so that you can verify if it indeed matches the transaction you’ve set up. This mitigates a so-called man-in-the-middle attack.
- After having verified and approved the transaction, the application on your Ledger device will create the correct signature by using the Private Keys and send this back to the wallet application.
- After this, the wallet application will broadcast the transaction to the blockchain – your transaction is completed!
그런데 앱끼리는 서로 소통이 불가능한가요?
네. 소통이 불가능합니다. Ledger는 각 암호화폐에 대해 개별 앱을 사용하기로 결정한 바 있습니다. 이는 보안상의 이유 때문이며, 또한 타사의 개발을 허용(추후 설명)하기 위한 것이기도 합니다.
보안상의 이유는 하나의 암호화폐 앱에 문제가 발생해도 다른 암호화폐에는 영향을 줄 수 없도록 하기 위함입니다. 이 원칙은 Ledger에서 설계 및 개발한 BOLOS라고 하는 맞춤형 운영 시스템에 의해 시행됩니다.
Ledger는 자체 운영 시스템을 만든 유일한 하드웨어 지갑 공급업체일 뿐만 아니라 애플리케이션 시스템을 사용하는 몇 안 되는 업체 중 하나입니다. 다른 하드웨어 지갑은 모노리식 펌웨어라는 것을 사용합니다. 그런 경우에는 한 암호화폐의 코드에 문제가 있으면 다른 모든 암호화폐에 영향을 줄 수 있습니다.
타사 개발
앱은 서로 분리되어 있고 서로 소통할 수 없기 때문에 Ledger 외부 사람들도 저마다 앱을 개발하도록 허용할 수 있습니다. 당사는 현재까지 암호화폐 커뮤니티 구성원과 개발자가 만든 40개 이상의 애플리케이션을 발표했으며 이를 매우 감사하게 생각합니다!
물론 이들 앱에 대한 검토를 통해 가장 높은 수준의 UX 및 보안 수준을 충족할 수 있도록 하고 있습니다. You can read more about the process of submitting an application to us here.
애플리케이션을 삭제하면 암호화폐도 사라지나요?
걱정하지 마세요. 암호화폐에 대한 액세스에는 아무런 문제가 없습니다! 이 글의 초반에 미리 언급했듯이 Ledger 장치는 파생 경로라는 특정 파라미터를 기반으로 24개의 단어 복구 문구에서 개인 키를 계산해 냅니다.
즉, 장치의 복구 문구가 동일하게 유지되면 계산 결과도 동일합니다. 따라서 애플리케이션을 다시 설치하면 이전과 동일한 주소에 액세스할 수 있습니다.
계속 학습하세요! 암호화폐와 블록체인에 대한 학습이 즐거우셨다면 School of Block 동영상도 참고해 보세요. 암호화폐를 안전하게 관리하는 방법.