Ledger Postpones Recover Launch, CEO Confirms

Hardware wallet maker Ledger has decided to delay the release of its new firmware update. This is the tool known as “Recover” (Recover, in Spanish), whose recovery function allows you to make a backup copy of the seed phrases.

The decision to postpone the rollout was made in the face of widespread criticism for giving the company access to customer seed phrases. This point, among others, is considered to serve the purpose of a coin purse. hardware.

The CEO of Ledger, Pascal Gauthier, has published in the last hours a letter addressed to the users of the firm. Over there ensures that the company will “accelerate the roadmap for the project to be open source”.

“We will include as much of the Ledger OS as possible, starting with the core OS components, and Ledger Recover, which will not be released until this work is complete. In addition, we will open source the Ledger Recover protocol, allowing the community to have as many options as possible about their self-storage, plus the service is completely optional. This roadmap will be shared and updated by our CTO and engineering team.”

This point was claimed by the user community and by references such as Charles Hoskinson, founder of Cardano (ADA).

Another aspect that had remained in the eye of the storm was the process of dividing the phrase into 3 fragments to subsequently send those sets of words to 3 different trusted custodians. By combining those pieces of information correctly, it was possible to access or recover the wallet. To execute that option, the user had to reveal information about your passport or national identity document.

That part of the recovery path was the subject of much criticism, because the application requires KYC registration. Know Your Costumer. That point violates the privacy values ​​held by many in the cryptocurrency community. Although at first, representatives of the company they explained that it was an optional character toolthe landscape changed radically.

Pascal Gauthier alleges a communication error in the launch of Recover

In the aforementioned letter, the Ledger CEO attributes to an error in communication everything that has originated from the release of the new functionality. Ledger’s former CEO, Éric Larchevêque, was one of those who pointed precisely against the firm’s miscommunication by ensuring that “this entire collapse is a total failure of public relations, but not a technical one. There was a communication error, Recover was presented in the worst possible way.”

Pascal Gauthier apologized for the communication errors.

“Our inadvertent communication error caught everyone by surprise and impacted our client’s ability to accurately understand Ledger Recover, its role to the growing cryptocurrency community, and to Ledger’s future offering. We apologize for the way you communicated. We never wanted to surprise you. In fact, this is exactly why we have been talking publicly about this product for over a year now. We have learned a lot from this experience and you will see it in future communications”.

The company closes the statement by thanking the returns and highlighting its commitment to transparency.

“We are doing all of this to move forward together in bringing security and self-custody to the next wave of cryptocurrency users. We have listened to our customers; we are accelerating a roadmap that has been in progress, and despite everything, the security of your Ledger remains unchanged. Remember: we’re doing this for more transparency in the future; this does not change the security of your device.”

According to the news communicated by Ledger, the implementation of firmware 2.2.1 does not have a specific release date. It will depend on the progress of the work to offer an open source and, of course, a much more polished preparation in terms of communication.