Surprising fact: most successful cryptocurrency thefts do not come from breaking cryptography but from breaking the environment that holds the keys. That counterintuitive reality — attackers rarely brute-force cryptographic primitives; they target the human and system around those primitives — is the starting point for any practical discussion about secure storage. For users in the US deciding whether to buy a Ledger Nano or another hardware wallet, the question is not simply “Is the device secure?” but “Which threats does it mitigate, which does it leave exposed, and how do my choices outside the device change the result?”
This explainer walks through the mechanism-level reason Ledger Nano-style hardware wallets reduce risk, the trade-offs they impose, common mistakes that negate their protections, and practical heuristics to choose and operate one. It also integrates a recent product context: Ledger’s emphasis on connecting hardware keys to DeFi and Web3 through com…