Ledger Nano S - Mini Review and Mini Guide

Hello Fellow ALT community,

I'm a crypto newbie and wanted to share my experience with the Ledger Nano S. This write-up will be more of a 'box-opening' guide as opposed to a full on review as I haven't really had my Ledger for more than a couple days. I will post additional info in this thread as soon as I get some time to fiddle with it more.

After reading many reviews and doing alot of due diligence research, my decision came down to purchasing either the Trezor, The Ledger Nano S and the KeepKey. Based on Amazon, Reddit and crypto forum reviews, the Ledger Nano S seemed to be the best bang for the buck. To start, I encourage everyone to buy direct from the Ledger website and NOT on Amazon! There are a handful of reviews where people received their units perviously opened which is definitely the first sign of security breach. Please do not trust 3rd party sellers with your assets even if it means you can't get your Ledger quickly or cheaper.

That being said, I ordered mine a few months back when they were on preorder as the units sell out pretty fast. When ordering from the US, you can pay with your credit/debit card or Paypal. I recommend that you pay with your credit/debit as Paypal charges higher fiat exchange fees (+/- an additional $4 which is like 100 TRON!). These are coming direct from France so from the day I got my first notification it was sent out to my doorstep was 9 days.

Start up is pretty easy and it took me about 30 minutes as I was really careful and also applied the update. It's best to download both the wallet app and manager app before you start, also install Chrome if that isn't your default browser.

Just follows the instructions for startup and most importantly, jot down your recovery phrase. I personally wrote my down in (2) different places and then took a couple Instax photos (instant photos). I recommend that you do NOT take a photo with a phone, digital camera or type your word phrases on a computer that isn't cold and offline which would leave your very important keys vulnerable to a savvy hacker to access. I am currently thinking of some ideas to make the pass phrases more secure and durable and will update you with any ideas I end up using.

Once your setup is complete and phrases are written away and secure, you will want to update you wallet. You can follows the guide here:

Update takes about 10 minutes and when it's complete, make sure you reinstall the Bitcoin and Ethereum Apps via the Ledger Manager and install any additional coin apps you plan on using.


You can access your wallets via navigating directly through the Ledger. I performed a test transfer of my ETH from my MEW wallet to the Ledger with no hiccups! Now I have a little peace of mind and can start pulling more of my crypto off exchanges. My next steps will be move my altcoins (i.e. Stellar, Ripple, etc.) to the Ledger and then will move some of my erc20 tokens onto the ledger as well. I will keep you guys posted on how that goes.


Hope this helps!