Yesterday I wanted to set up my new laptop and configure my crypto apps. Namely Ledger Live for my old Nano S with my Bitcoin and Ethereum remainders and the BitBoxApp for my BitBox02 Bitcoin Only. I already knew that Ledger sucks and wrote a post about it:
But it got even worse. The first thing I noticed was that support for $IOTA (-1.08%) has been discontinued. I can't do an update. But I need the update to use the latest IOTA wallet. Fortunately, there should only be a few IOTA crumbs left on it. So it doesn't matter. But typical Ledger.
I was shown an update for the Bitcoin app. I tried to install the update. After 15 minutes of loading bars, I canceled the process (bad ass, you shouldn't do that). Then tried to install the Ethereum app - same behavior. Ledger is definitely not made for eternity.
Stupid crap. I still had a significant amount $ETH (-2.54%) and $BTC (-0.95%) on the ledger. Sure, I could use the seed phrase with another wallet, but that's time-consuming and I didn't feel like it. So I unpacked my old laptop, started the Ledger Live app there and hoped that it didn't have the latest update yet and could still handle my Nano S.
I had beads of sweat on my forehead when I saw that Ledger had downloaded the latest update in the background. Luckily, Ledger waited until the next reboot to run the update. So I had time (until the next reboot) to move my crypto holdings. That wasn't actually my plan, but hey. I had nothing else planned.
Since my BitBox02 doesn't support ETH, I decided to send my ETH to my Binance account. Yes, I feel that storing ETH on Binance is safer than on a ledger hardware wallet. Of course, first with a test transfer, which was also confirmed in less than a minute. Nice ETH world :).
But of course I wanted to send my Bitcoin to my BitBox02. The amount was larger and made me a little nervous. But well, I would probably also check the IBAN 87 times for a classic transfer of this amount. Again, a test transfer first. It feels like it takes years for a transaction to be confirmed in the BTC network. I actually wanted to wait for 3 confirmations of the test transaction (paranoid, I know) before sending the large sum. But I also wanted to go to bed at some point.
So at some point I decided to put my trust in Bitcoin and my hardware wallets and set the transaction in motion. But I had to check the transaction every 5 minutes to see if it had finally been confirmed 😅. It wasn't a long night for me.
Everything has now arrived and it feels good. It's good to know that I can easily sell my ETH via Binance at any time. It's good that I'm independent of Ledger. It's good that I've realized once again that I can trust the technology. Good that my Bitcoin is now safely stored in my BitBox02.
And good that I could now prepare my Ledger Nano S as a honeypot for a $5 wrench attack. That's cheaper than the BitBox bitcoin insurance.
Where do you store your cryptos and how do you handle the transfer of larger sums?
