You may have seen this post by @engrave detailing how to use a Ledger hardware wallet with a Hive account for Cold Storage while earning 20% interest on your HBD savings. Well I decided to take a look and experiment a little with the HiveLedger.io dapp. Who wouldn't want to keep their Hive keys safu? So I fired up the old Ledger and installed the Hive app:
Finding the app in Ledger Live was straightforward- just enable developer mode and there it is! It takes a minute or two to install onto the device but then you are good to go.
Setting up through the HiveLedger.io dapp was easy enough as well. You will need your Owner private key in order to set up. Admittedly typing and verifying the old key is a bit of a pain! I hope you have your keys recorded accurately! Once you have entered your old key you are given the option to choose which of your keys you'd like to derive from the Ledger device instead.
Be certain you know how you want to use your account with the Ledger!
If you intend to use the device for Cold Storage of HIVE/HBD only you should replace all of the keys to create a true Cold Storage wallet. The account will only be manageable via the HiveLedger.io interface in this case!
If the account has Hive Engine tokens as well I strongly recommend only replacing the OWNER key! If you replace the ACTIVE key you will be unable to transfer Hive Engine tokens as they are not present in the Hive Ledger Dapp at this time. Of course you will be able to do an account recovery and generate new keys if you wish to remove control of the account via the Ledger.
I tested a couple of different variations on some of my accounts in order to properly understand how this would work with Hive Keychain for posting and Hive Engine transactions/transfers.
You can set a full Cold Storage account up by deriving ALL of the account keys from the Ledger- this will ensure the highest possible security for HIVE and HBD but will limit usage of that account for Hive Engine tokens, games, and posts.
You can derive only OWNER and ACTIVE keys from the Ledger- this will allow the account to post content but will not allow transfers of HIVE, HBD, or Hive Engine tokens without using the Ledger. I would have liked to use this except the HiveLedger dapp does not support Hive Engine tokens at this time.
You can derive only the OWNER key from the Ledger- this will allow usage of the account as normal via keychain for posting, transfers, and Hive Engine tokens but keep owner keys secure via the Ledger device. If you intend to use the account as normal but enhance some security I would recommend using this method.
I discussed a little with @engrave this morning in his discord and was informed that Ledger support is being considered for Hive Keychain. This would be an exciting improvement and allow enhanced security for our Hive accounts while still enabling the secured account to retain all functions on chain. I eagerly await updates around this or enhancements to the HiveLedger Dapp for Hive Engine tokens.
For now- and due to my desire to test the various possibilities- I have settled with securing my OWNER keys via the Ledger and retaining regular use via Keychain for my main and community account. Unfortunately I will have to do account recovery in order to regain some functionality on the accounts I did some of my testing with! The price I paid for experimenting a little!
I have to say I very much enjoy the minimal interface and functions of the Dapp though. Everything you could need for HIVE and HBD are here- Staking, Transaction History, Delegation, Powerup/Powerdown, Transfers, Savings, and Witness features are all available... as well as an intriguing Buy/Sell function powered by Changelly that I intend to try out:
This could be an awesome way to bring funds into Hive securely and even appears to support purchase via Fiat- though I have not tested it yet!
Main account page and associated accounts- you can switch between them by clicking Activate on the relevant account.
Savings management tab.
Staking tab
Witness votes and proxy
If you have a Ledger and have been wondering about setting up your Hive account with it I would do some thinking before hand and decide how you want to use it before deriving the necessary keys and securing the account in order to avoid the shenanigan of account recovery that I will have to go through after testing everything!
All in all I am pretty impressed and look forward to seeing how these features are developed and supported in future! Great work by @engrave!