The cryptocurrency wallet provider Ledger is continuing with their controversial plans to introduce a seed phrase recovery feature within their hardware wallets.
Pascal Gauthier, the CEO of Ledger, shared a post and announced that the company is beginning to countdown to launch Ledger Recover, which was majorly opposed by its users when announced in May.
Gautheir said that the Ledger team has taken action after months of discussion around community feedback. The team has also published code that functionalizes the Ledger Recover feature.
“Since crypto’s inception, many people have lost their digital assets because they’ve lost their Secret Recovery Phrase (SRP),” said the Ledger CEO, adding, “This risk stops people from using crypto, and certainly from using self-custody.”
According to Gautheir, approximately 6 million bitcoins have been lost due to loss of recovery phrase, which amounts to 30% of the total supply. All of these funds are lost forever due to a lack of wallet recovery options. “That’s why we’ve built Ledger Recover,provided by Coincover,” he said.
While the feature was previously introduced, Ledger received significant backlash from users, who claimed that it could be prone to attacks or might be compromised. The company then paused key recovery service and said to relaunch it with audited code.
Ledger Recover encrypts the seed phrase and splits it into three fragmented pieces, which can only be accessed by the wallet owner. This solution is built by Coincover, the blockchain security and innovation firm.
Gauthier further clarifies that Ledger Recover is 100% optional and its hardwallets can be used normally without this feature.
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