• Ledger’s PR Struggle Reveals Uncomfortable Trade-Offs for Crypto Storage
• After a week of controversy, Ledger has announced changes to their approach, including open-sourcing the code and adding additional security features.
• Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier emphasizes that nothing is 100% trustless for an average user.
Ledger’s Controversial Key Recovery Service
Ledger, a French wallet-maker, recently faced criticism about its upcoming key recovery service which would allow users to keep an encrypted backup of their wallets with a set of three custodians – one of them being Ledger itself. Many raised concerns regarding the safety of this proposed service, worrying about potential hacks, data leaks and Ledger’s abuse of trust.
Ledger Promises Changes
In response to these criticisms, Ledger has promised to make changes to its approach moving forward. The company plans to open-source the relevant code before launching the service and will offer additional security measures such as allowing users to create passphrases which would protect against potential collusion between the custodians.
Trust and Safety Tradeoffs
Despite these additional measures, Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier emphasized that nothing can be completely trustless when it comes to hardware wallets used by average users. He likened it to a tradeoff between trust and safety – while you can increase safety by reducing trust in third parties, there is always some level of risk involved in any kind of digital storage system.
Rebuilding Trust with Open Source Code
Open sourcing the code for the key recovery service is seen as a way for Ledger to rebuild its reputation within the crypto community after facing significant backlash from its initial announcement. By making their code freely available and accessible for review by experts in cryptography and computer security, they hope to build back confidence among current users as well as attract new ones who may have been turned off by previous events.
Striving For Improvement
At the end of day, Gauthier stressed that despite any mistakes or missteps taken along the way, Ledger remains committed to improving their services and striving be good servants of the crypto community at large.