NEW YORK (InsideBitcoins) — The Ledger Wallet Nano is quickly becoming a popular hardware option for enhanced bitcoin security, but the team behind this product believe that their devices will be used for more than just protecting bitcoin private keys in the near future. Although devices such as the Ledger Nano are currently used for simply securing one’s bitcoins, they could also be used to protect passwords, online identities, and much more.
I was recently able to chat with Ledger CEO Eric Larchevêque about their latest hardware wallet offering and where he thinks these sorts of security solutions are headed over the next few years.
“Our vision is to provide mass market, affordable, open and secure hardware wallets to bring Bitcoin to the next level of adoption.”
Protecting online identities
One of the key points that Larchevêque made during our conversation was that Ledger products aren’t limited to the bitcoin industry. He explained:
“Hardware wallets are in fact not protecting bitcoins directly, but digital identities. The obvious next step is to bring these identities to external services, such as connecting seamlessly to a website through BitID. The Nano is already BitID enabled, and a very simple API will be published in the coming weeks to allow an easy integration.”
[Read More: Making a Case for Bitcoin Security]
The BitID concept mentioned by Larchevêque is the idea that website users can use their bitcoin address to securely log in to websites rather than opting the kind of social media logins that are made available by Facebook, Twitter, and others. This essentially puts the security of a specific online identity in the user’s hands, which is why hardware wallets like the Ledger Nano may become as common as the smartphone over the next decade. By signing a message with the private key attached to a public bitcoin address, a website can know that they are enabling access for the correct user without taking any sort of other information, including a password, from said user.
How secure is the Ledger Wallet Nano?
Eric Larchevêque
Although the Ledger Nano is a much more affordable option when compared with other offerings, such as the TREZOR, there have also been some security concerns from the most cautious branch of the bitcoin community.
For example, a few Redditors pointed out that an earlier version of the hardware wallet could actually be vulnerable to malware-related attacks under certain conditions. These security issues were known by the Ledger team, but they claim they were making a choice between security and convenience.
Ledger says that these past issues have now been cleared up through the creation of a new smartphone application that pairs with a physical card shipped with the Nano for purposes of two-factor authentication. Eric Larchevêque explained the change in the new wallet during our email conversation:
“The security card is clearly a tradeoff, and even if it’s a magnitude more secure than software based wallet, it still has its limitation. This approach is not abandoned, as we’ll always have a security card, but on the next firmware release it will be used only once to pair with a mobile application. This app will then act as an independent screen and button for the chip. We’ll then get the maximum level of convenience and security.”
Bringing hardware wallets to the mainstream
The main goal of Ledger right now is to bring bitcoin hardware wallets to the mainstream. They are working on NFC and bluetooth versions of their products for release in the next six months, and they also have 100 different prototypes currently in development.
These sorts of hardware devices could play a crucial role in onboarding many more bitcoin users over the next five to ten years, and Ledger seems to understand the importance of this combination of security and convenience. Eric Larchevêque outlined this philosophy on mass bitcoin adoption by stating, “Our vision is to provide mass market, affordable, open and secure hardware wallets to bring Bitcoin to the next level of adoption.”
You can follow @kyletorpey on Twitter.
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