Ledger · PIN versus phrase
Ledger Live: losing the PIN is not the same as losing the phrase
With a Ledger there are two secrets and almost everyone thinks they are the same thing. The PIN protects the device in your hand. The twenty-four words are your money. You can lose the whole device and lose nothing; you can keep the device and have lost everything.
The four scenarios
| Situation | What happens |
|---|---|
| You have the device and the words | All fine. You have lost nothing |
| You lost the device, you have the words | Buy another device, restore and you’re done |
| You have the device, forgot the PIN, have the words | It locks after three wrong tries and wipes. Restore with the words |
| You have the device, forgot the PIN, no words | This is the hopeless case |
Look at the last row, because it is the one people don’t expect. The device is in your hand, it works, and there is still nothing to be done: after the failed attempts it wipes itself, by design, precisely so nobody who steals it can get in. And without the words there is no way to put your wallet back into it.
What Ledger cannot do for you
Ledger does not hold a copy of your twenty-four words. It does not exist at the company, it does not exist on their servers, and there is no back door. That is why their support will never unlock you, and why any message offering «Ledger recovery» is fake. Leaks of Ledger customer data have made those scam attempts particularly common: I cover it in fake technical support on social media.
If you are missing a word or two of the 24
There the work is possible, and rather good. A recovery phrase has a built-in check that discards almost every wrong combination, so rebuilding one missing word is a matter of seconds and two is workable. The detail is in I lost one word of my 24-word seed.