Is a Ledger wallet worth it? An honest review after 6 years

Affiliate disclosure: this post contains a Ledger referral link. If you use it to buy a Ledger, both of us receive up to $20 in Bitcoin. It doesn't change the price you pay.

I bought my first Ledger in 2020 — a Nano S, back when it was the only affordable option in the range. I've used a Ledger device continuously since then, through the 2020 data breach, the 2023 Connect Kit incident, and every cycle of "is Ledger still safe?" discourse that followed. I'm currently on a Nano S Plus.

Six years is long enough to have an honest opinion. This review covers what a Ledger does well, what went wrong, whether the security concerns are justified, and whether I'd buy one again in 2026. The short answer to the last question is yes — but the longer answer has important caveats.

Three things I'd tell you up front

1. The hardware has never been compromised. In six years and over 7 million devices sold, no one has lost crypto through a vulnerability in the Ledger device itself. The security incidents were about Ledger's surrounding infrastructure — their e-commerce database and a third-party JavaScript library — not the wallet hardware. That distinction matters enormously, but I understand why people don't find it reassuring.
2. The Trustpilot score is 3.2/5, and some of those complaints are fair. Customer support has historically been slow. The 2020 data breach led to aggressive phishing campaigns targeting Ledger customers. The company's communication during crises has been defensive rather than transparent. These are real downsides.
3. Despite all of that, it's still the most practical hardware wallet on the market. 5,500+ supported coins, a bank-grade security chip, a polished companion app, and a price point that starts at around £79. The competition is Trezor (fewer coins, no secure element) or going without (which means trusting exchanges). Neither is better for most people.

What a Ledger actually is

A Ledger is a physical device that stores your cryptocurrency private keys offline. Your private keys — the cryptographic codes that prove you own your crypto — are generated on the device and never leave it. When you send a transaction, it's signed on the Ledger itself, so even if your computer is full of malware, your keys stay secure.

This is called cold storage or self-custody. The alternative is leaving your crypto on an exchange like Coinbase or Binance, where the exchange holds the keys on your behalf. The crypto community's shorthand for why that's risky: "not your keys, not your coins."

The case for a hardware wallet is built on a long list of exchange failures: Mt. Gox (2014), QuadrigaCX (2019), FTX (2022), Celsius (2022), BlockFi (2022). In each case, customers who held their own keys in a hardware wallet were unaffected. Customers who trusted the exchange lost some or all of their funds.

The Ledger range in 2026

Ledger currently sells three devices:

The Nano S Plus is the right choice for most people. Same security chip, same coin support, same Ledger Live app — just without Bluetooth and the premium screen. I use one daily and it does everything I need.

The Nano X is worth the extra if you manage your crypto from your phone regularly. Bluetooth means you can approve transactions on the device without plugging into a computer. If you transact weekly or more, the convenience is real.

The Stax is a luxury product. The curved E Ink screen is genuinely beautiful and makes the experience more pleasant, but it doesn't add security. At ~£279, it's for people who want the best-in-class experience and don't mind paying for it.

Security: the full picture

This is the section that matters most, because Ledger's security reputation is complicated. The device is excellent. The company's track record around it is mixed.

The device security (excellent)

Ledger uses a CC EAL5+ certified secure element chip — the same class of chip used in passports and bank cards. Your private keys are generated on this chip and never leave it. The chip is designed to resist:

• Remote hacking — keys can't be extracted over USB or Bluetooth
• Physical tampering — the chip detects and resists hardware-level attacks
• Side-channel attacks — power analysis and electromagnetic probes

In six years and over 7 million devices sold, no user has lost crypto through a vulnerability in the Ledger hardware. That's a strong track record.

The 2020 data breach (bad, but not a device issue)

In July 2020, an attacker accessed Ledger's e-commerce database and stole customer email addresses, names, phone numbers, and shipping addresses for approximately 272,000 customers. A wider set of roughly 1 million email addresses was also exposed.

No private keys or crypto were compromised. The breach was limited to marketing and order data. But the consequences were real: customers received targeted phishing emails, fake Ledger devices in the post, and even physical threats using their leaked addresses. Ledger's initial response was slow and the communication was poor.

The 2023 Connect Kit incident (bad, and more concerning)

In December 2023, a supply-chain attack compromised Ledger's Connect Kit — a JavaScript library used by third-party decentralised apps (dApps) to connect to Ledger wallets through web browsers. A former Ledger employee's account was phished, and malicious code was injected into the library for approximately 5 hours.

During that window, users who interacted with affected dApps and approved transactions on their Ledger device could have had funds drained. Ledger estimated approximately $600,000 in assets were stolen across affected users, and committed to reimbursing victims.

The critical point: this was not a vulnerability in the Ledger device itself. The hardware wallet firmware was not compromised. But it was a failure in Ledger's software supply chain — the ecosystem around the device — and it shook confidence. Reasonably so.

My assessment after six years

The hardware is genuinely secure. The company around it has made serious mistakes in data handling and supply-chain security. If you use a Ledger the way it's intended — signing transactions on the device, never entering your 24-word recovery phrase anywhere except the device, buying direct from Ledger — the security is as strong as any consumer crypto product available.

The risk isn't the device. The risk is everything around it: phishing, fake apps, social engineering. That's true of any hardware wallet, but Ledger's data breaches made their customers more targetable.

What Ledger does well

Coin support is unmatched. Over 5,500 cryptocurrencies on a single device. If you hold Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Avalanche, and a handful of DeFi tokens, a Ledger handles all of them. Trezor supports around 1,200 — serviceable for mainstream coins, limiting for anything else.

Ledger Live is a genuinely good app. You can view balances, send and receive crypto, stake certain assets, and access DeFi integrations — all from one interface. The mobile app works well with the Nano X over Bluetooth, and the desktop app is clean and functional.

The setup is straightforward. Unbox, connect, write down your 24-word recovery phrase (on paper, never digitally), set a PIN, and you're running. The process takes about 15 minutes and Ledger Live walks you through it.

FCA-equivalent compliance. Ledger is a French company registered with the AMF (France's financial regulator). While not directly FCA-regulated (it's a hardware manufacturer, not a financial service), Ledger complies with EU regulatory standards for crypto custody devices.

Where Ledger falls short

Trustpilot is 3.2/5. That's mediocre, and the negative reviews cluster around two themes: customer support response times and the data breaches. Both are legitimate criticisms.

Customer support has historically been slow. Ticket response times of several days are commonly reported. For a company selling security products — where customers may be panicking about a potential compromise — slow support is a significant weakness.

The data breaches damaged trust permanently for some users. The 2020 customer data leak and the 2023 Connect Kit incident are part of Ledger's history now. Some crypto users switched to Trezor or other alternatives specifically because of these events, and that's a rational decision.

The recovery phrase is a single point of failure. If someone gets your 24-word recovery phrase, they have your entire crypto portfolio. Ledger has introduced Ledger Recover — an optional service that splits your recovery phrase into encrypted fragments stored by third parties — but this feature is controversial in the crypto community because it introduces trust assumptions that hardware wallets are designed to eliminate.

The closed-source firmware debate. Ledger's secure element firmware is proprietary, meaning the security community can't fully audit the code running on the chip. Trezor's firmware is fully open-source. For most users this is academic, but for security purists it's a philosophical issue.

Ledger vs Trezor: the practical choice

I've written a full Ledger vs Trezor comparison, but here's the summary:

Choose Ledger if: you hold a wide range of coins, you want the bank-grade security chip, and you're comfortable with the company's history while trusting the device hardware.

Choose Trezor if: open-source firmware is non-negotiable, you primarily hold Bitcoin and major coins (Trezor's 1,200 coin support covers the mainstream), or Ledger's data breach history is a deal-breaker for you.

My position: I use Ledger because I hold coins Trezor doesn't support, and because the CC EAL5+ secure element gives me more confidence against physical attacks than an open-source design without one. But I respect the case for Trezor, and if Trezor supported everything I hold, I'd consider switching.

The referral: what you actually get

When you buy a Ledger through a referral link, you receive up to $20 in Bitcoin after your order is delivered. The exact amount depends on the device you purchase. The referrer gets the same reward.

It's not the most generous referral in absolute terms, but on a £79 purchase the $20 Bitcoin bonus is effectively a ~20% discount — one of the better ratios on this site.

Important: always buy directly from Ledger's official website. Never from Amazon, eBay, or any third-party reseller. Tampered hardware wallets are a known attack vector — devices have been intercepted and modified to steal recovery phrases.

Who Ledger is best for

Best for:

• Anyone holding more than a few hundred pounds in cryptocurrency
• Investors who hold a wide range of coins and tokens (5,500+ supported)
• People who want bank-grade chip security (CC EAL5+ secure element)
• Long-term holders who want to take crypto off exchanges permanently
• Users who want a polished companion app (Ledger Live) for portfolio management

Less ideal for:

• People who primarily hold only Bitcoin and want fully open-source firmware (Trezor is better)
• Anyone deeply uncomfortable with Ledger's data breach history
• Crypto beginners with very small holdings (the device cost may exceed the security benefit)
• Users who need responsive customer support (Ledger's is historically slow)
• People philosophically opposed to closed-source security firmware

The bottom line

After six years of daily use, the Ledger hardware wallet remains the most practical way to store cryptocurrency securely. The CC EAL5+ secure element, 5,500+ coin support, and polished Ledger Live app make it the strongest all-round option on the market. Over 7 million devices sold and zero private-key compromises through the hardware itself is a track record that speaks clearly.

The company around the device has stumbled. The 2020 data breach and the 2023 Connect Kit incident are real marks on Ledger's record, and the 3.2/5 Trustpilot score reflects genuine customer frustration with support and communication. If those events are a deal-breaker for you, Trezor is a credible alternative — just with fewer supported coins and no secure element chip.

For most people holding crypto in 2026, the choice isn't really Ledger vs Trezor. It's hardware wallet vs exchange. And on that question, the answer is clear: if losing your crypto would hurt, get a hardware wallet. A Ledger at £79 is a small price for the peace of mind.

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