Ledger Drops Bombshell: Flex & Stax Wallet Recovery Key Exposed – What Now?
Ledger just pulled back the curtain—and crypto holders aren’t thrilled. The hardware wallet giant revealed recovery keys for its Flex and Stax devices, sparking instant backlash from the ‘not your keys, not your coins’ crowd.
Security or convenience? That’s the debate raging after Ledger’s latest move. Critics call it a backdoor; the company insists it’s a lifeline for forgetful users. Either way, it’s a stark reminder: even ‘air-gapped’ wallets aren’t immune to corporate meddling.
Pro tip: If your cold storage needs a safety net, maybe it’s not that cold. But hey, at least it’s not as bad as that time a certain exchange ‘safeguarded’ $4 billion in user funds—right into bankruptcy court.
Source: Ledger
Moreover, the novel product features a Secure Element at its core, the technology behind Ledger’s security.
Also, anyone can review the Ledger Recovery Key code. A whitepaper will be available upon launch, while info is available on the Ledger GitHub.
Charles Guillemet, Chief Technology Officer at Ledger, says that Ledger Recovery Key “has gone through extensive security testing internally at the hands of the Donjon,” the company’s team of WHITE hat hackers. He claims that it also underwent “a comprehensive internal testing and external security audits,” receiving “extremely positive feedback from security researchers and industry leaders.”
Meanwhile, the Ledger Recover service and the physical Recovery Key are “complementary.” The users can use one, both, or just the 24 words.
The team will launch the new product “in the NEAR future,” the team says.
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Per the whitepaper shared with Cryptonews, Ledger Recovery Key is not a hardware wallet. It’s not a tool to manage assets or sign transactions.
Instead, the team explains, it’s a smart card that stores a copy of the “master secret” – from which stems the Secret Recovery Phrase – from the Ledger wallet. The only condition is that the wallet supports the NFC protocol, as this is how the key and the wallet communicate.
Meanwhile, Ledger launched its touchscreen Ledger Stax and Ledger Flex in 2024. The announcement says that these devices have “contributed to a new sales milestone of over 7.5 million Ledger devices sold worldwide.”
However, the team argues that traditional backup methods are becoming less practical with time. In response, they launched Ledger Recover in 2023 as an optional paid service. It allows users to create encrypted fragments of their recovery phrase. “Since launching, Ledger Recover adoption has been strong, showing a clear demand for more recovery options,” it argues.
Therefore, Ledger Recovery Key is another option in the recovery suite. All these features remain optional. Ledger provides the “fullest set of choices around recovery,” says Ian Rogers, Chief Experience Officer at Ledger. “With Ledger Recovery Key, we are making secure self-custody easy-to-use for everyone.”
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