Ledger Nano Gen5: what it is, how it works and who makes it

What the Nano Gen5 is and who makes it

The Ledger Nano Gen5 is a hardware wallet, which Ledger calls a "signer". It holds the private keys for a crypto wallet inside a secure chip and signs transactions only after you approve them on its own screen. It is the first model in the Nano line with a touchscreen; the older Nanos in Ledger's comparison guide use small OLED or two-line screens. Ledger announced it on 23 October 2025 at $179, together with the renaming of its Ledger Live app to Ledger Wallet.

Ledger is the brand of Ledger SAS, a French company registered at 106 rue du Temple, Paris. Its company page says it started in 2014, has more than 700 employees in eight offices, including Paris, Vierzon, London, Portland and Singapore, and has sold more than 7 million devices. These figures are Ledger's own. Ledger makes devices for individuals and also sells security products to businesses.

Where the Gen5 sits in Ledger's range

Ledger's comparison guide (updated 5 October 2026) places the Gen5 as the entry point of its touchscreen line, below the Flex and the Stax:

All three connect by USB-C, Bluetooth and NFC, and Ledger lists Clear Signing, Transaction Check and a Recovery Key in the box for each. The Gen5's own product page specifies an ST33K1M5 secure element certified to Common Criteria EAL6+, a 300 × 400 pixel monochrome E Ink screen under scratch-resistant glass, and Bluetooth Low Energy 5.2. It comes in four colors: Jet Black, Cherry Red, Matcha Green and Glacier White.

How it works with Ledger Wallet

1. Set up the device. The Gen5 generates a 24-word secret recovery phrase, which you write on the included recovery sheets, and a PIN protects the device itself.
2. Pair with Ledger Wallet. Ledger Wallet, formerly Ledger Live, runs on a computer over USB-C or on a phone over Bluetooth. It installs apps on the device for each blockchain, shows balances and builds transactions. Ledger says its code is open source under the MIT licence.
3. Review and sign. Each transaction appears on the Gen5's screen. Ledger says its Clear Signing and Transaction Check features "show you exactly what you are signing", and it presents them as protection against scams.
4. Use other wallets if needed. The product page lists more than 500 assets supported through Ledger Wallet. Ledger's supported-assets page speaks of thousands. For assets outside the app, Ledger points to third-party wallets, while saying it does not guarantee their compatibility.

The October 2025 launch post also added direct connections to decentralized apps and a cash-to-stablecoin on-ramp funded from a bank account to Ledger Wallet. These are app services, separate from the device's job of holding keys. Our explainer on hot and cold wallets covers where a signer like the Gen5 fits.

Backup options: recovery sheet, Recovery Key and Ledger Recover

The Gen5 ships with three ways to back up the same wallet, and two of them are optional:

• Recovery sheets (included). The written 24 words remain the base backup. Our guide to backing up a seed phrase covers how to store it.
• Ledger Recovery Key (included). An NFC card with its own secure element that stores a copy of the recovery phrase behind a 4- to 8-digit PIN. Ledger says too many wrong PIN entries wipe the card, and it calls the card "a complement" to the paper sheet, not a replacement.
• Ledger Recover (optional subscription). An identity-based backup service provided by Coincover. The device encrypts the wallet's entropy and splits it into three fragments, which Coincover, Ledger and EscrowTech each hold. Restoring needs two of the three, plus an identity check with a passport or national ID (a driver's licence also works in the US and Canada). It is billed in euros after a free trial, does not work with the original Nano S, and is available only where Ledger accepts the user's ID document.

Ledger Recover works because the device firmware can export encrypted key material when the owner asks it to. Owners who do not subscribe keep the wallet backed up only by what they hold themselves.

Security model and the open-source question

Ledger's design depends on its secure element, a chip built to resist physical attacks such as side-channel analysis and fault injection. Its own explainer on open source (updated 20 October 2026) sets out what can and cannot be inspected:

• Public: Ledger Wallet, the Wallet API, the Secure SDK and its crypto library, the on-device blockchain apps, and the entry points used by Ledger Recover.
• Partly public: the device operating system, which Ledger calls "partially reviewable and verifiable."
• Closed: the low-level code that drives the secure element's hardware blocks, which Ledger says its agreement with chip maker STMicroelectronics prevents it from publishing.

Ledger says a third-party lab audits the whole operating system before each release, and that a genuine check lets users confirm a device is authentic. The practical difference from fully open-source wallets is that the firmware cannot be rebuilt and compared byte for byte by outsiders. Users rely on Ledger and on certification labs for that layer instead.

Track record: data leaks and the Connect Kit attack

Ledger's main security incidents have hit its customer data and its software supply chain rather than the keys on its devices:

• 2020 customer data leaks. In July 2020 an attacker used a third party's API key to reach Ledger's e-commerce and marketing database, taking more than 1 million email addresses and about 9,500 detailed customer records. In December 2020 the stolen database was posted on a forum, exposing about 272,000 names, postal addresses and phone numbers. Separately, rogue staff at Shopify exported transaction records covering about 292,000 Ledger customers. Ledger said its hardware wallets remained uncompromised and warned that the leaked data was being used for phishing, a pattern our phishing guide describes.
• December 2023 Connect Kit attack. According to Ledger's incident report, an attacker phished a former employee, took over that person's account on npm (the JavaScript package registry), and published malicious versions 1.1.5 to 1.1.7 of Ledger's Connect Kit library. Decentralized apps that loaded the library prompted users to sign transactions that drained their wallets. The malicious file was live for about five hours, and Ledger says a "low volume of users" signed and were drained. The report describes losses from signing malicious transactions; it does not describe any compromise of the devices or their keys.

Both incidents point the same way: the device protects keys, but the user still has to read what is on the screen before approving.

Alternatives by function

These are categories, not recommendations.

• A bigger touchscreen from the same maker: Ledger Flex or Stax, with the same chip certification.
• Fully inspectable firmware: hardware wallets that publish all device firmware, some of them Bitcoin-only. The hardware wallet ratings list the ones we cover.
• No subscription-based backup: any device, including the Gen5 without Ledger Recover, backed up with paper or metal only.

The device is also reviewed separately in our Ledger Nano Gen5 review; this profile describes the device and its maker without grading them.