Ledger Nano Gen5 feels like Flex for less

Ledger is recasting its companion app from a portfolio viewer into the primary interface for its hardware.

Ledger Live is becoming Ledger Wallet, with native dapp logins (starting with 1inch) and integrated cash-to-stablecoin rails.

Front and center is the goal is to remove Ledger owners’ need to use a third-party wallet like Rabby to as an interface for their signer.

At the same time, Ledger is targeting institutional workflows with Enterprise Multisig. The new offering is “built on Safe’s open source tech, but with Clear Signing natively integrated,” Sebastien Badault, Ledger’s VP of Enterprise, told Blockworks.

The company says it will be simple to migrate from Safe to Ledger Multisig to make use of Clear Signing features not yet available in the Safe Wallet.

“The industry told us they want Multisig, but the last year of hacks told us they also need Clear Signing (see Bybit, Swissborg etc), so we built it,” Badault said.

For Safe, it’s “a validation” of the infrastructure provider’s role as “the industry standard,” according to Lukas Schor, President of Safe Ecosystem Foundation.

“We are collaborating with Ledger as well as the wider ecosystem on making clear signing the standard,” Schor told Blockworks, noting that the feature should make its way into “all products build on Safe,” soon.

On the hardware side, Ledger is pitching its new Nano Gen5 signer as a step-up for budget conscious users looking for features found in the company’s pricier hardware.

“The goal was to offer the experience of Ledger Flex and Ledger Stax at a more affordable price point,” Ledger spokesperson Ariel Wengroff told Blockworks. The device lists at $179/€179 and includes Bluetooth 5.2, NFC and an E Ink touchscreen.

It could also be seen as a replacement for the aging Nano S line.

DEX trading volume, which was steady throughout the summer, has spiked sharply in October. | Source: Blockworks Research

Currently, few dapps offer direct Ledger connections, and many users prefer connecting hardware signers through a browser-based wallet such as MetaMask, Rabby or Phantom. On-ramping from fiat rails is getting a boost via global payments firm Noah, to provide instant USD/EUR top-ups into USDC with no additional fees from Ledger. 

Under the hood, Ledger continues to emphasize its audit posture and the maturity of its secure-element stack, which has a spotless record in an increasingly crowded hardware signer market.

Rival Trezor just unveiled its Safe 7 (no relation to Safe Wallet), an all-wireless, “quantum-ready” device using Tropic Square’s TROPIC01 open, auditable chip with a $250 price, according to my colleague Kate Irwin at The Drop.

While Ledger’s hardware has remained secure, its software connections and customer data have been the target of hackers in the past, a persistent industry problem.

Competition beyond incumbents like Trezor, Keystone, GridPlus and Keycard, include a new wave of mobile-first signers — such as Solana’s Seeker and the Ethereum-focused dgen1. These devices target a bespoke dapp experience, for users on-the-go.

For Ledger users, the Nano Gen5 pairs with Bluetooth 5.2 for signing and NFC for Ledger Security Key (FIDO2 passkeys) for logins, alongside USB-C when you want a wired link.

Under this paradigm, the hardware becomes less a dongle and more an identity-and-approvals layer that spans uses from retail swaps to policy-gated multisig.

Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters: