Ledger Start — Secure Digital Asset Custody
An official, practical overview of Ledger’s custody principles, onboarding steps, governance guidance, and operational best practices for individuals and organizations managing digital assets.
Design Principles
Ledger Start outlines core principles that prioritize hardware-based key isolation, deterministic recovery, cryptographic integrity, and operational redundancy. Private keys remain confined to secure hardware; cryptographic operations occur locally, and recovery mechanisms are structured to limit single points of failure. These decisions reduce exposure to network threats while preserving usability for routine management.
Onboarding & Verification
Onboarding emphasizes device authentication and verification. Custodians are guided through secure initialization, recovery phrase generation and secure storage, firmware attestation checks, and deterministic address verification. Organizations receive guidance on role definition, policy configuration, and multi-user workflows to ensure responsible access controls.
Security Architecture & Lifecycle
Ledger Start describes layered defenses — secure elements for key storage, signed firmware updates, tamper-resistant hardware, and controlled supply chain practices. Device lifecycle guidance covers provisioning, chain-of-custody documentation, secure storage, transport controls, and secure decommissioning.
Operational Controls & Governance
The content provides practical governance patterns: role-based access, immutable audit trails, configurable transaction thresholds, and repeatable approval workflows. Templates and checklists help organizations translate technical controls into enforceable operational policies.
Advanced Options & Recovery
Advanced options include multi-signature and threshold schemes, air-gapped signing workflows, and integration with validated hardware security modules. Recovery guidance covers diversified backups, split-seed strategies, tamper-evident physical storage, and periodic recovery drills to validate preparedness.
Integrations & Ecosystem
Ledger Start details compatibility considerations and recommended integration patterns for wallets, exchanges, and treasury systems. It encourages participation in standards bodies, coordinated disclosure efforts, and shared threat intelligence to strengthen the custody ecosystem.
Transparency, Audits & Education
Transparency is supported through third-party audits, firmware attestations, and technical documentation to enable verifiable due diligence. Ongoing education—documentation, tutorials, tabletop exercises, and threat-modeling—ensures teams maintain operational discipline and readiness.
Use Cases
- Personal self-custody: single-user key isolation and recovery best practices.
- Developer environments: testnet-first experimentation and staged rollouts.
- Institutional treasury: multi-party approvals, policy enforcement, and audit alignment.