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Best Hardware Wallets · Rank 06 of 8
Broadest asset and application support
Last verified August 15, 20264 scored axes
Documented, with gaps
Ledger Nano X scores 8.3 out of 10 and ranks #6 of 8 in the best hardware wallets table, strongest on usability (9.4) and weakest on openness (6.6).
The best-supported device in the industry, with certified secure elements and integrations almost everywhere you might need to sign. The 2023 recovery-service announcement revealed that the firmware could always export key material under the right instruction, and trust in the category has not fully recovered.
4 axes, weighted as published in the table’s methodology. Each score below is read from the fact printed under it.
8.8/ 35% of the score
Certified secure element with the PIN verified inside it and no published extraction of a seed from a current model; the 2023 Ledger Recover announcement confirmed the firmware can be built to export encrypted key shards, which is an architectural fact about closed firmware.
6.6/ 25% of the score
Firmware is closed source and only parts of the surrounding stack are published, so builds cannot be independently reproduced.
8.6/ 20% of the score
BIP-39 seed with optional passphrase, plus an optional paid recovery service using encrypted shards held by third parties; a 2020 e-commerce database breach exposed customer contact details and produced years of targeted phishing.
9.4/ 20% of the score
Widest chain and application support of any device, with clear-signing on major protocols and a mature companion app.
No competitor comes close on chain and application support, and the clear-signing implementation on major protocols is mature. If your holdings span a dozen ecosystems, this is often the only device that covers all of them, and the companion app is the most polished in the category.
Ledger announced a paid recovery service that splits an encrypted seed into shards held by third parties. The backlash was not about the service — it was about what its existence proved: the firmware can be built to export key material, which many owners had assumed was impossible. Nothing changed technically that week; what changed was public understanding of a closed system, and the trust cost was permanent.
The firmware is closed source and only parts of the surrounding stack are published, so builds cannot be independently reproduced. The certified secure element is strong and no extraction of a seed from a current model has been published — you are trusting the vendor's word about the layer above it.
An e-commerce database leak exposed customer contact details, and the resulting phishing — including counterfeit devices mailed to real addresses — has continued for years. Treat any unsolicited Ledger communication as hostile.
The 2023 Ledger Recover announcement confirmed the firmware can be built to export an encrypted, sharded seed for users who opt in. Ledger states this requires consent; because the firmware is closed, that assurance cannot be independently verified.
For chain coverage, it is unmatched, and no seed extraction from a current model has been published. Users who need auditable firmware should choose Trezor Safe, BitBox02 or Keystone instead.
A 2020 breach of Ledger's e-commerce database exposed customer contact details, including postal addresses. That data has fuelled years of targeted phishing and counterfeit-device scams.
8 services in best hardware wallets