Crypto Wallet Company Ledger Resumes Services

By Debarun Gupta

Cryptocurrency hardware wallet Ledger has resumed its Bitcoin Cash (BCH) services, according to an announcement on 23rd November. Ledger had previously suspended its BCH services on 14th November to prepare for the cryptocurrency’s radical change in algorithms (called a “hard fork”) to prevent security breaches and attacks. The suspension of service meant that BCH services could not be used during that time.

The BCH network underwent the upgrade on 15th November which consequently resulted in an internal conflict, splitting the blockchain in two – BCH ABC, supported by crypto evangelist Roger Ver and BCH SV led by Craig Wright.

In today’s announcement, Ledger confirmed that BCH services including adding accounts and trading the altcoin have resumed. The wallet’s Twitter account confirmed the same, saying that the BCH service has resumed under the name BCH ABC.

To explain in simple terms, Ledger wallets are a series of wallets that are used to store private keys for cryptocurrencies offline. These wallets support multiple cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and thus they’re also called multicurrency wallets.

Cryptocurrency transactions are carried out through cryptographic keys. When stored online, these keys are susceptible to hacking and theft, leaving the user’s accounts vulnerable. Cryptocurrency users have devised ways to keep this from hapoening by using wallets of different types. These include hot wallets (online wallets), mobile wallets (wallets on smartphones) and paper wallets (stored on paper).

Hardware wallets are a form of offline wallets that use a physical drive to store the keys, separating them from the internet making them more difficult to access for hackers and more secure than online wallets.

Ledger noted that BCH SV is not supported in Ledger Live as of now. As such, user’s accounts are now vulnerable as they could lose their BCH SV if an attacked replays their transaction on the BCH SV chain or vice versa.

In October, crypto software company Blockchain.com partned up with Ledger to develop a new hardware device called “Blockchain Lockbox” that integrates with its existing wallet.