Artist’s guide to migrating to Ledger - auxiliadorarock/Ledger-Wallet-Guides-134 GitHub Wiki

At Ledger, we understand that it can be difficult for artists to migrate to cold wallet storage – especially if you have everything already set up in MetaMask.

Nevertheless, this is an especially important step for artists because if your private key is compromised, you will lose your funds and NFT but most importantly your future royalties on the secondary market and your access to your favorite marketplaces.

If you’re an artist or digital art collector wanting to maximize your crypto security with a hardware wallet, this article is for you. Here, we’ll show you how to safely migrate your funds and non-fungible tokens from your hot wallet accounts to Ledger. 

In addition to showing you how to migrate, this article also aims to show you how to generate a fresh receive address so you can safely drop mints and manage your NFTs. Once you create your new seed phrase (also referred to as a “Recovery phrase”) and deposit/receive address – everything you do under that seed phrase is now fully protected and secured.

Please download the last update of Ledger Live Application:

1.Ledger Live for Windows 10/11

2.Ledger Live for MAC

3.Ledger Live for Android

Before you begin

  • Ensure your Ledger device runs the latest OS (firmware) version.

What is cold wallet storage? 

A crypto wallet (also referred to as “hot” and “cold” wallets) is a system that lets you manage your blockchain assets and keeps them secured. The wallet you’re using can impact how secure your funds are and also how much control you have over them.

Hot wallets such as MetaMask, MyEtherWallet, Phantom, and Keplr, store the private keys to your cryptocurrencies on internet-connected software, while cold wallets keep them offline, and disconnected from the internet altogether. 

Software wallets have multiple flaws that make them unsafe to use for long-term storage of crypto funds. The reason behind this is:

  • Hot wallets are connected to the internet most of the time which means they are vulnerable to hacks deployed via your internet connection.
  • Hot wallets display your recovery phrase on your computer or phone screen – since this is also always connected, there is no way of knowing if someone can see those words as they appear. Once online – always online.

(The Ledger Nano S Plus and X – our most popular wallets for cold storage)

Is it safe for me to restore my Ledger device with my 12-word MetaMask seed phrase?

No, it’s not safe to restore or import your MetaMask 12-word secret recovery phrase into your Ledger device.

Malware infecting your phone or computer could easily spy on software wallets to log your keys or extract your recovery phrase. You can learn more here.

Seeding your MetaMask recovery phrase into your Ledger device defeats the purpose of using a Ledger wallet because the security of your funds now hinges on a recovery phrase that may have been compromised from the moment it was created by your MetaMask wallet. It’s indeed possible that your keys or recovery phrase have already been compromised, without you even knowing it, and that the hacker is waiting for some weeks or even months before acting to steal your precious digital assets.  

As a result, the only way to create a safe recovery phrase is to generate it completely offline. Your Ledger 24-word phrase is safe from hackers because it doesn’t have a digital copy. Therefore, your Ledger device should only be seeded with a recovery phrase generated by a Ledger device or another hardware wallet.

You can learn more about Ledger recovery phrases and how to keep them safe here.

How to safely migrate funds from MetaMask accounts to your Ledger accounts

  1. Download Ledger Live via this link.
  2. Create your Ledger accounts in Ledger Live. More on this here.
  3. Use Ledger Live to generate deposit addresses for your Ledger accounts. More on this here.
  4. Send funds from your MetaMask accounts to your Ledger accounts using the Send button in MetaMask. More on this here.

How to transfer your Ethereum NFTs from MetaMask to a Ledger account

  1. Connect your Ledger device to your computer and unlock it.

  2. Open Ledger Live, navigate to the Accounts tab, and click +Add account.

  3. Select Ethereum (ETH) then follow the onscreen instructions to add an Ethereum account to Ledger Live.

  4. Open your Ethereum (ETH) account and select Receive.

    images/7228129432221.png

  5. Follow the onscreen instructions to generate your Ethereum deposit address then click the copy button to copy the address to your clipboard.

    images/7242401439261.png

  6. On your Ledger device, use the right button to verify that the address on the screen matches the address in Ledger Live. If all looks good, select Approve and press both buttons simultaneously to confirm the address.

  7. Go to OpenSea, connect your MetaMask Ethereum account, and go to your Profile and your collection.images/7229297057053.png

  8. Select up to 20 NFTs you’d like to transfer.

  9. Paste your Ledger Ethereum (ETH) deposit address and click Transfer.

  10. Accept the on-screen messages on your device and set allowance for all.

    images/7229678578205.png  

  11. Confirm the transfer in MetaMask. You’re done! Once your transaction is confirmed on the Ethereum network, your NFTs will appear in the NFT Collections section in your Ethereum account in Ledger Live.

    images/7236928907805.png

So… What now?

Take a breath. We know this is a lot to take in for the first time! Just to recap some main points:

  • A Ledger device is also known as “cold wallet” storage. The Ledger device creates a 24-word cryptographically and offline seed phrase. This seed phrase is quite literally the master key to your crypto.
  • Once you go through the setup process and “+add accounts” – you can generate a receive address and start sending your NFTs to the newly created account. Remember: The NFTs live on the blockchain itself. All you’re doing by transferring assets is just updating the ownership of that NFT to the newly generated public wallet address (attached to your newly generated, offline, and secure 24-word and private keys).
  • Don’t import your 12-word MetaMask seed phrase account to Ledger. Create the new seed phrase and send everything of value from MetaMask to Ledger. 
  • Once you’ve generated your new 24-word seed phrase and receive address, you can do things like launch new mints and NFTs – all within the security of the Ledger ecosystem. 

If you’re ever unsure about a process or have general questions, always feel free to reach out to Ledger customer support . We are here to help artists and collectors with everything web3 has to offer, giving you the peace of mind to keep creating and collecting.