Leading hardware wallet maker Ledger has taken physical crypto wallets in a new direction with its most recent devices, to be used in conjunction with the Ledger Live app. Key features that make the wallets stand out include: stylish exterior design and user-friendly screens, integration with Ledger Live, staking facilities and third-party apps, a huge range of supported assets, and robust security alongside the Ledger Recover service.
Choosing a hardware wallet: there’s a lot more on offer than there used to be, and products are becoming more and more consumer-friendly. That’s especially the case with Ledger wallets, as the leading device manufacturer has been pushing forward in terms of design, usability, and new Ledger functionalities.
So, we’re going to take a look at why Ledger leads the pack, focusing on the most recent Ledger wallet features, 2024 in particular having been a year of change. That’s thanks to the release of the Ledger Stax and Ledger Flex products, which have pushed hardware wallets forward, and we’re going to put the Ledger Stax in particular in the spotlight.
Stax: A New Kind of Ledger Wallet
A long-awaited new addition to the Ledger wallet range, the Ledger Stax was designed by product engineer Tony Fadell, who is especially famous for having designed the original Apple iPod and co-created the iPhone. The Stax wallet started shipping in May this year, and on launch, Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier wrote that combined with the Ledger Live app, the Stax device is “the most intuitive wallet for securing, owning, and managing your digital value”.
The Stax device has sold out initial shipments and enjoyed a positive reception, and this is despite being far from the cheapest product on the market, as it currently retails in the US at $399. So what exactly is it that sets this wallet apart?
Interesting comparison: Ledger Stax vs Trezor Safe 5
Top 5 Ledger Stax Features
Some of the Ledger Stax plus points overlap with one another, but we can roughly break its appeal down into five points, so let’s take a look at those.
1. Device Design and a New Screen
Exactly as you might expect from a product that had Tony Fadell at the helm, what strikes you first about the Ledger Stax is the way it looks and the way it feels in your hand. Size-wise, its length and width are comparable to a credit card, and it’s much thinner than a typical smartphone. When you hold it, it feels very light but solid–it’s constructed with an aluminum frame, and it contains magnets (we’ll come to the purpose of the magnets later, but you could stick it to your fridge if you wanted).
However, what really grabs attention is the first-of-its-kind curved E Ink touchscreen. This takes up almost the whole of the front of the device and wraps around the left side to create a book-like spine, on which is displayed the device name, a lock icon, and the battery level. Over on the right edge of the device is a single physical button.
The screen is grayscale and customizable, so you can set it to display any image you upload or an NFT if you have any stored on the device, and overall, the touchscreen makes the device extremely intuitive when compared to older wallets. While Ledger Nano S/X features were great and the wallets still provide useful options at a lower cost, that Stax screen beats them easily when it comes to ease of use.
By the way, the screen is monochrome (which looks kind of stylish) in order to improve battery life since it’s not uncommon for hardware wallets–as they’re often used for long-term cold crypto storage–to be left untouched for long periods of time. And on the subject of batteries, the Stax is compatible with Qi wireless charging.
What’s more, the wallet comes included with a magnetic shell protection case, offering further physical safeguarding for your device.
2. Ledger Live and Ease of Use
Ledger wallets operate in conjunction with an app called Ledger Live, which itself is one of the best Ledger tools. As mentioned, the Stax screen offers a huge step up from the navigation methods on older USB-like wallets, but additionally, Ledger Live App gives you a cleanly-constructed interface on both PC and mobile.
After purchasing a Ledger wallet–take a look in the Ledger store if you’re interested–you’ll need to download Ledger Live and hook it up with your device as part of the setup process, but the whole procedure–setting up both wallet and app, and synching them together–is straightforward and has been designed so that it’s simple for new users to navigate.
In fact, that underlines a related positive of the Ledger Stax: if the next step for crypto is to become more widely accessible–a progression apparent in the use of terms such as Web3 and consumer crypto that imply mainstream adoption–then the Stax might be an important product contributing to that shift. Both the device and the app feel like they can be easily picked up by newcomers to crypto without requiring too much technical knowledge, although that said, the wider crypto environment itself can still be complex.
To use Ledger Live, the Ledger Stax can connect to other devices using USB-C, Bluetooth, and NFC, and from there, Ledger Live can be the base from which to organize your assets. To read more about this utility, take a look at Understanding Ledger Live: How to Manage Your Crypto Portfolio Effectively.
3. Staking and Third Party Apps
There are many different approaches to crypto–you might simply want to buy some coins and HODL in cold storage, or alternatively, you may be interested in exploring the DeFi landscape, finding experimental ways to earn yield on your tokens and farm airdrops.
And somewhere between those two, there is (depending on the tokens you’re holding) the option to stake your tokens while holding long-term, thereby earning passive returns with minimal risk or active management.
An advantage of using a Ledger device with the Ledger Live app is that you can stake coins from your hardware wallet, while the staking process itself can be clearly navigated through Ledger Live, which, again, has streamlined everything into a user-friendly procedure that beginners should have no problem getting to grips with. And for a full breakdown of the staking process, take a read through How to Stake Crypto with Ledger: A Complete Guide for Beginners and Experts.
Additionally, on Ledger Live you can also look around a section of the app called Discover, within which is a range of integrated third party products, including alternative staking protocols, token swap facilities, and fiat-to-crypto on-ramping services, along with a wallet recovery service that we’ll come to in more detail in the final section.
4. Range of Supported Coins
Crypto is an ever-expanding landscape where new blockchains, platforms and protocols emerge all the time, and development is constant. For sure, some participants like to keep it simple with a minimal portfolio–or maybe even stick to bitcoin only–but for others, diversification in a novel ecosystem is the preferred approach. In that case, then a Ledger wallet coupled with the Ledger Live app is a solid choice, as you’ll get support–in collaboration with over fifty third-party wallets–for over 5,000 coins and tokens along with NFTs across multiple chains.
Also, this takes us back to those magnets that are a unique part of the Stax physical design. There are a huge number of assets available, a wide variety of crypto niches to explore, and many different user approaches–whether it’s plans to HODL long term, utilize DeFi, make payments, or anything else. As such, you might want to organize your portfolio into differentiated baskets on separate hardware devices, and in that case, the Stax is designed–as the name suggests–to let several wallets be physically linked together into a stack, with the magnets enabling you to do this.
That all said, with a lot of wallets this would quickly become a costly way to operate–as mentioned, the Stax device isn’t cheap–but still, it’s an interesting option to have.
Interesting Read: The Best Meme Coins – But be careful!
5. Robust Security and Ledger Recover
We’ve left it until last, but above the various new Ledger functionalities, the most important feature of all is Ledger’s most well-known plus point: enhanced security. The key components in a Ledger Stax that allow for such high levels of security are its Secure Element Chip, the BOLOS operating system, and also, that impressive screen has critical safety features built in.
The first of those items, the Secure Element Chip, runs the OS and holds the wallet’s private keys, and has been ranked at level 6+ in a framework called Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Levels. This system goes up to a maximum rating of 7+, and is used to evaluate the robustness of IT product security features.
As for BOLOS, this was built by Ledger as a security-specialized OS that keeps your device’s various critical data separate from one another, so there’s no single point of vulnerability. And when it comes to the touch screen, this has been carefully secured and uses its own custom-written driver, so that it doesn’t become a potential breach point.
Regarding firmware and in-wallet apps, you’ll get all the crypto wallet updates you need as they become available, and will be prompted to activate these through Ledger Live. And finally, Ledger has also introduced an optional subscription service called Ledger Recover that allows users to restore inaccessible wallets, even without providing a secret recovery phrase.
And perhaps that last service, Ledger Recover, best encapsulates Ledger’s current approach, as it goes about combining crypto security with user-friendly products and services.
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Want to take your trading skills up a notch? Check out the Mastering Trading Course, created by Lark Davis himself. Inside, you’ll find practical, step-by-step guidance on reading market signals and using technical analysis tools. Plus, he talks about setting up your Ledger and keeping your crypto safe—perfect for anyone aiming to become a confident, skilled trader. Whether you’re new to trading or looking to sharpen your strategies, this course has everything you need to trade smarter and with real confidence.
Ps. We compared Ledger to a couple of other hardware wallets:
- Ledger Stax vs Trezor Safe 5
- Ledger Nano S Plus vs Ledger Nano X
- Ledger Nano X vs Trezor Model T
- Ledger Nano X vs Coolwallet Pro
Ps2. Our team also reviewed Ledger products:
Other interesting reads:
How to set up your Ledger wallet successfully.
Features of Ledger & Advanced security features on Ledger
How to recover your Ledger wallet – and how to avoid losing it in the first place
Ledger firmware updates – how it influences your crypto safety
Staking your crypto on Ledger – earn crypto while doing NOTHING
