TL;DR: Using a Ledger hardware wallet also means using Ledger Live, which is a Ledger app needed in order to interface with a wallet. Along with being part of the security Ledger is famous for, Ledger Live allows users to efficiently manage a crypto portfolio, and comes with a suite of useful features including facilities to stake tokens, and to buy, sell and swap crypto, while there are also third-party products integrated, along with a referral offer and a wallet recovery service.
When you buy a Ledger hardware wallet, rather than thinking about Ledger Live, you’re more likely purchasing for security reasons: hardware wallets keep your crypto in cold storage offline, and Ledger is renowned for its security (to find out in more detail about security, take a look at this feature: Advanced Security Features of Ledger).
However, another big advantage of using a Ledger wallet is that you can use Ledger Live for crypto asset management, and for a variety of other useful features too. This is an often overlooked aspect of what you actually get when you purchase a Ledger wallet, but it’s a valuable component if you use it effectively, so let’s run through the most important aspects of managing crypto on Ledger Live.
What Exactly Is Ledger Live?
When you set up a new Ledger wallet–which you can shop for at the Ledger store–you’ll need to download Ledger Live, which is an official app from Ledger that acts as an interface for wallets.
Also though, Ledger Live functions as a well-designed tool for crypto asset management, providing a variety of services, features and third party integrations. Ledger portfolio management is cleanly easy to navigate, and that’s important: the crypto markets can be complex and volatile, and it’s an ever-expanding landscape, making it potentially difficult to keep track of your tokens.
That in mind, Ledger Live can be of huge assistance by letting you manage your portfolio all from one place, and with a direct connection to, and control over, your safely-secured holdings.
Key Features for Ledger Portfolio Management
In the first part of this Ledger Live guide, we’ll look at the key features you most need for Ledger portfolio management. The critical part of the interface from which to navigate is the sidebar menu on the left, where you’ll find all the most important facilities.
Portfolio
At the top of the sidebar, and first in this Ledger Live tutorial is the portfolio tab, which is very straightforward: click here to get a view of your total balance overall, along with a breakdown of the individual coins that you’re holding, and with information on each token’s current price, your portfolio allocation, the amount of each token you hold, and the fiat value of your stack.
Accounts
This is the second icon down on the sidebar–it looks like a wallet–and it’s where you can view all the accounts you’ve created across different coins, while immediately viewing your holdings. From here, you can also create new accounts as you need them, remembering that you can have multiple accounts for each token.
If you want to custody a new token you’ll need to make sure you have the relevant token app installed. So for example, if you want to hold SOL, you’ll need the Solana app. To get these apps, click on the My Ledger tab at the bottom of the sidebar, and then select what you need from the app catalog there.
Market
This is the second icon on the sidebar, between Portfolio and Accounts, and it’s useful for checking price changes across different assets. Click on the price chart for a particular coin, and you’ll get a more detailed view with additional data. This is great if you just want an instant view of the market, but if you need more advanced charts with Technical Analysis tools, you’ll need to leave Ledger Live and switch over to a dedicated site such as TradingView or CoinMarketCap.
Discover Third Party Apps
Not everything in Ledger Live is made by Ledger itself, and if you click on the Discover tab in the side menu, you’ll find a variety of third party apps that you can use in parallel with Ledger Live from within the app (although keep in mind that Ledger does not itself operate these products). There are many to explore, but some suggestions that may be practical from the outset include:
- Yearn. This is a DeFi platform containing a yield aggregator that can help you to earn the highest rates of interest on your assets.
- 1inch. This is a DEX aggregator that will scan DeFi protocols and look for available routes to perform token swaps. If you ever want to trade one asset for another, this has you covered.
- CoinLedger and Zenledger. Nobody enjoys paying tax on their crypto gains but–unless you’ve been prescient enough to relocate to a tax haven–capital gains tax is a component of trading and investing that you’ll have to deal with. However, there is now plenty of crypto-specialized tax software to help you with your accounting, of which CoinLedger and Zenledger are both directly accessible from within Ledger.
- CL Card. If you really want to move away from traditional banking and use crypto all the time for everyday transactions, then take a look at CL Card. Operated by Baanx, this provides a working Mastercard that is linked to your Ledger balance and auto-converts from crypto to fiat whenever you make a purchase. (There’s also a direct link to the CL Card offer through the Card tab, near the bottom of the main navigation sidebar).
Besides these apps, you’ll also find multiple options for buying and selling crypto, and there are several third party services that you can use to stake tokens.
Send and Receive
Below the Discover tab, you’ll find the Send and Receive tabs. There’s not much mystery with these but they’re very important as they allow you to–you guessed it–send and receive crypto via your Ledger hardware wallet. For a step-by-step guide on how to do this and more, take a look at this walk-through guide: How to Set Up Your Ledger Wallet.
Other Useful Ledger Live Features
As well as the components that are most central to managing crypto on Ledger, there are plenty of other features that are useful to know, even if you don’t use them all the time, so let’s focus now on the other parts of Ledger Live you might want to check out.
Buy/Sell and Swap
You can actually buy and sell crypto through Ledger Live itself. If you click on the Buy tab and enter the amount you want to spend–or the amount of BTC you need–you’ll then be prompted to enter your location, your method of payment, and you’ll then be given a list of third-party providers to select from, and having made your choice you’ll need to complete KYC.
Click on the Sell tab and it’s a similar process: basically, you can off-ramp BTC from your Ledger account if you need to, and Ledger will hook you up with payment service provider Coinify to do this.
You can also swap tokens from Ledger Live. Select this option and enter the details of your swap, and the app will get you quotes from various providers, although be warned that some (but not all) of these providers will require registration.
However, while these are all useful options to have as part of your crypto asset management suite, they aren’t core to Ledger’s main utilities: crypto security and safe storage. So if you’re used to buying, selling and swapping on particular exchanges and DEXes, you may want to carry on with those methods, transferring tokens to and from your Ledger wallet as required.
Earn
You can stake your crypto through Ledger Live, and a big advantage of earning in this way is that you keep everything in one place, making it very easy to track how you’re using your tokens for passive income.
Click on the Earn tab and any eligible assets (as in, anything that can be staked) will be listed, along with APYs and estimated earnings, and you can then click on the Stake button for any of these assets, after which you’ll have to click through the delegation process in order to get started earning.
However, at the same time, DeFi is a constantly evolving sector in which substantial returns can be made through experimenting early with new protocols, and also by gaining eligibility for airdrops. That in mind, if you want to be more hands-on and active in the DeFi space, you may wish to put your tokens to work in other ways.
Also, don’t forget that you can find third-party staking apps listed in the Discover tab, so you can go via that route too if you want to explore other options.
Refer a Friend
This is a simple feature but definitely worth taking advantage of to get some free crypto: basically, if you refer a friend to Ledger wallets, you can receive a BTC reward up to the value of $20. Ledger Live will provide you with your own referral link, and anyone who clicks through to Ledger from your link and buys a wallet will trigger a reward for you.
Ledger Recover
This feature allows users to recover wallets even if the Secret Recovery Phrase is not available, but Ledger Recover is not free–you’ll be charged $9.99 a month if you choose to use it. Also, critics will point out that Ledger Recover makes you reliant on third parties, but if you’re comfortable with that and you’re willing to pay, this service ensures that you can restore access to your accounts even if your wallet and its recovery phrase are both lost.
