Security is hard. Blockchain security on mobile is even harder.

Managing blockchain assets on phones is not secure

For months I’ve been looking for a way to use my Ledger Nano S on my Android phone. Ledger + MyEtherWallet seemed like a perfect solution, and the missing software was also available, but it was seemingly abandoned and I was too lazy to compile and try it myself.

When half a year later I still could not find a ready-made solution, I tweeted Ledger asking for a solution. Almost immediately I got a response from BTChip pointing me to an APK released in August.

A working solution

It’s amazing. Now I don’t need a laptop to interact with the ethereum blockchain. You can also become amazing by following the steps below:

Have an Android device. Own a Ledger Nano S. Download and install the APK from Ledger’s github repo. Use an USB cable to connect your ledger to your android device

Ledger connected to android device with USB cable

4. Unlock your ledger with your PIN code

5. Open the ethereum wallet on your ledger (make sure that browser support is enabled in the settings)

6. Open chrome on your android device and navigate to myetherwallet.com

7. Select “Send Ether & Tokens”

8. Select “Ledger Wallet”

9. A prompt will appear to confirm that you want to use the U2F bridge. (That’s the APK that you downloaded and installed in step 3). Set it to default and click “ok”

10. After this, everything will work as on the desktop. You will see your addresses, balances, etc. You can transfer tokens, interact with contracts, register ENS names.

Conclusion

Finally there is a secure way to manage transactions on the ethereum blockchain, using a mobile device. Unfortunately it is limited to Android and the Ledger Nano S wallet, but with those, it works perfectly.

If you don’t have a hardware wallet, and you got more than a week’s salary worth in crypto, then owning a hardware wallet is a must. The Nano S was already my favorite, but the ability to use it with my phone made it the only game in town.