How To Use Phantom With a Ledger Wallet

By Mohammad Musharraf

Solana is a blockchain designed for fast and efficient transactions. As such, the chain has provided the perfect environment for countless apps, games, NFTs and more. But to interact with them safely, you need to have the right tools. If you’re new to this network, make sure you check out the guide to What Solana is.

However, if you already own some SOL in your Solana wallet yourself, it’s likely you’ve heard of Phantom. It’s a Solana-friendly crypto wallet designed to handle dApps and DeFi transactions seamlessly.

Here, we explain the wallet, Phantom, what it can and can’t do -plus- the safest way to use it with your Ledger hardware wallet.

What’s Phantom Wallet and Why Use It?

Phantom is a hot wallet designed initially for the Solana network available to use with Ledger, as an extension on both Chrome and Brave browser. It now also extends support to Ethereum, Polygon, and Bitcoin. It’s arguably the most popular Solana hot wallet, boasting over 7 million active users at the time of writing. So why is this Solana software wallet so popular?

Accessibility

Phantom is a hot wallet – available as a browser extension – that’s designed to interact seamlessly with dApps on the Solana blockchain. This enables you to access the expanding world of Solana, including dApps, DeFi, and NFTs on the Solana blockchain. It is now a multichain wallet that interacts seamlessly with dApps across Solana, Ethereum, Polygon, and Bitcoin blockchains, including support for Bitcoin Ordinals and BRC-20 standards.

Ease of use

Phantom’s interface is sleek and intuitive, meaning you spend less time figuring things out and more time getting to know the dApp ecosystem. The wallet provides a simple format for sending, receiving, staking SOL, and swapping your crypto (some swaps can even be done within the wallet itself) and can be easily connected within Solana dApps to make your transactions frictionless. 

Ownership of Your Private Keys

Crypto is about having complete freedom. That means having control over your assets at all times. To that end, one key advantage of Phantom wallet is that it’s non-custodial. What does this mean? 

Many wallet providers retain control of your wallet’s private keys. This really means submitting some of your control over your crypto assets, and putting your trust in the security of the platform. Isn’t this missing the point? 

Phantom allows you to use its interface using your own private keys. As a non-custodial wallet, Phantom will never have access to your data or your funds, meaning you remain in control of your assets. It does leave you responsible for those keys though, and this entails some risk.

Why a Hot Wallet Isn’t Completely Secure

By definition, a hot wallet, or software wallet, always remains connected to the internet, which has its advantages since it’s convenient to use. But as you might be aware, there’s a downside: anything connected to the internet is never entirely secure.

How many links have you clicked on in the last week? The last day even? You might be alarmed to know that one of the most common vectors used by crypto hackers is to deploy malware to your computer via malicious links. 

Once you’ve clicked, this malware can spy on your browser to access your private keys and take control of your wallet and transactions, without you even being aware of their presence. The bottom line is that, as long as your keys are stored on a connected device, they’’ll be vulnerable.

Phantom Embedded Wallet Security Feature

Phantom has introduced several security features in 2024, including the “embedded wallet” option, allowing secure dApp interactions without traditional browser extensions or mobile apps. An embedded wallet keeps your crypto keys safer by integrating directly into your apps, reducing the risk of hacks while simplifying transactions.

This feature, powered by Phantom’s SDK, enhances user security by keeping sensitive operations off the main device. But ultimately, hot wallets do not offer the same level of security as cold wallets—which is where Ledger devices come in.

Why Should I Connect My Ledger Wallet To Phantom?

You might be wondering how you can enjoy the benefits of Phantom wallet without compromising your private keys. There’s a pretty simple way to do that with your Ledger device. Let’s understand how this works.
Adding a hardware wallet, such as the devices Ledger offers, allows you to transact with the seamlessness of Phantom, while never exposing your private keys online.

Moreover, the addition of Ledger’s latest line of secure touchscreen devices, the Ledger Stax and Ledger Flex, means that along with Ledger’s security features, users now get a powerful UI that brings ease-of-use and convenience when interacting with the web3 ecosystem. By connecting your Ledger to Phantom, you benefit from better user navigation combined with the top-tier security of offline key storage, ensuring your transactions are both convenient and protected from online threats.

So, how does all this work?

Your Keys Stay Offline

The Ledger hardware wallet physically stores your private keys, and provides an offline venue for transactions to be signed securely. The device is protected by a Secure Element chip, known to be the most reliable and secure chip on the market.

With your private keys isolated from your connected device, hackers are unable to view them via any sort of malware, even when you sign a transaction.

Secure Screens

Further to this, by keeping your keys within the Ledger hardware wallet, you will now need to physically sign all transactions on the device itself. All Ledger devices benefit from a Secure Screen – a screen that cannot be tampered with by malware to falsify the transaction details. This means the maximum possible transparency for every transaction you make, as well as enhanced security via two-step verification.

This security is driven one notch higher when paired with Ledger’s secure E-ink touchscreens on the latest Ledger Flex and Ledger Stax devices. As we’ve previously covered on our deep-dive into crypto wallets, your everyday screens are not so safe when it comes to trusting information while signing transactions. Moreover, not all hardware wallets drive their secure screens with secure element chips, but Ledger devices do.

This means when you’re holding a Ledger Flex or Ledger Stax in your hand you have peace of mind knowing that what you see on the secure screen is what you are signing.

But to navigate transactions on your Ledger device for Solana dApps like Phantom, you would need to enable ‘blind signing’. This means you’re signing transactions whose full details cannot be displayed or verified on the Ledger’s secure screen due to their complexity or size. Essentially, you’re trusting the dApp or smart contract to send you a legitimate transaction, even though you can’t read all the details directly on your device. While this bypasses some of the security benefits of the secure screen, it’s often necessary to interact with advanced dApps or smart contracts on the Solana network.

While blind signing does introduce a risk by not showing all transaction details, the secure touchscreen of the Ledger Flex or the Ledger Stax still plays a crucial role by allowing you to verify what you can about the specific transaction and by providing a secure environment. The key is to use this feature judiciously, do thorough research on the contracts you may be interacting with, and have full awareness of the risks involved.

Better UX

Phantom Wallet continues to enhance its user experience with cross-chain swap functionality, enabling seamless asset transfers between blockchains directly within the wallet. Its intuitive mobile apps for iOS and Android have gained widespread popularity, allowing users to manage digital assets conveniently on the go and further broadening its appeal.

Navigating Solana—a fast-paced ecosystem where updates move faster than memecoins—demands staying ahead of the curve. 

The safest way to achieve this is by pairing Phantom with a Ledger device. With the extended battery life of the Ledger Stax lasting up to several weeks or the Ledger Flex supporting up to 10 hours (or 150 transactions), Ledger ensures secure, hassle-free crypto management wherever you go, combining unmatched convenience with state-of-the-art security.

Simply put, when you pair the convenience of a Phantom wallet with the hardened security of a Ledger device, you’re getting a web3 experience like no other!

If that sounds good to you, follow the step-by-step guide we’ve made below to find out how to connect your Ledger wallet to Phantom.

How to Connect Phantom Wallet To Your Ledger

In case you’re new to Ledger, let’s start with a step by step of how to set up your brand new device. You’ll find easy to follow instructions on how to set up your Ledger on our support pages. Once that’s done, we can get into it.

Step 1. Make sure you have the SOL app installed on your Ledger device. If you don’t, you can do this via the Manager section in Ledger Live. Simply search for the SOL application and follow the prompts on the screen to install it. Once the application is installed, close the Ledger Live interface, as it can conflict with Phantom.

Now, open the Phantom wallet on your browser.

Step 2: Click on the top-left menu of the Phantom wallet and find and click on “Connect Hardware Wallet” in the drop-down menu that appears.

Step 3: When you click “Continue,” Phantom will look for a Ledger device connected with. Make sure your SOL app is open on your Ledger device to allow Phantom to connect.

Step 4: Once this is done, you’ll be prompted by Phantom to choose the Ledger account that you want to connect. This is because, when you set up your Ledger wallet, it automatically creates a “tree” of accounts for you. Then, you simply need to select the one you use habitually.

You will now be able to view the Solana balance held by your Ledger hardware wallet within the Phantom interface. This means you can interact with Solana-based dApps and DeFi services seamlessly, while your private keys remain completely secure within your hardware device.

If you’re having any trouble or feel a bit lost, this support page might answer your tricky questions.

Explore Solana in Complete Security

The golden age of dApps offers more options for using your crypto than ever before. However, along with those new options comes some risk. By taking the time to really understand the ins and outs of self-custody you’ll be truly free to enjoy the fast-growing Solana-based ecosystem. These simple steps can help maximize your security, ensuring you protect your private keys effectively. 

Now your Phantom Wallet is connected to your Ledger device, you’re ready to go! 

If you’re using dApps, blind signing is an important concept and one you should get familiar with. Check out our School of Block episode for your guide on how best to manage it.