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Ledger Hardware Wallet

The Ledger Nano S hardware wallet offers secure storage of your Velas private keys. The Velas Ledger app enables derivation of essentially infinite keys, and secure transaction signing.

Before You Begin​

Use Ledger Nano S with Velas CLI​

  1. Ensure the Ledger Live application is closed
  2. Plug your Ledger device into your computer's USB port
  3. Enter your pin and start the Velas app on the Ledger device
  4. Press both buttons to advance past the "Pending Ledger review" screen
  5. Ensure the screen reads "Application is ready"

View your Wallet ID​

On your computer, run:

velas-keygen pubkey usb://ledger

This confirms your Ledger device is connected properly and in the correct state to interact with the Velas CLI. The command returns your Ledger's unique wallet ID. When you have multiple Nano S devices connected to the same computer, you can use your wallet ID to specify which Ledger hardware wallet you want to use. If you only plan to use a single Nano S on your computer at a time, you don't need to include the wallet ID. For information on using the wallet ID to use a specific Ledger, see Manage Multiple Hardware Wallets.

View your Wallet Addresses​

Your Nano S supports an arbitrary number of valid wallet addresses and signers. To view any address, use the velas-keygen pubkey command, as shown below, followed by a valid [keypair URL].

Multiple wallet addresses can be useful if you want to transfer tokens between your own accounts for different purposes, or use different keypairs on the device as signing authorities for a stake account, for example.

All of the following commands will display different addresses, associated with the keypair path given. Try them out!

velas-keygen pubkey usb://ledger
velas-keygen pubkey usb://ledger?key=0
velas-keygen pubkey usb://ledger?key=1
velas-keygen pubkey usb://ledger?key=2

You can use other values for the number after key= as well. Any of the addresses displayed by these commands are valid Velas wallet addresses. The private portion associated with each address is stored securely on the Nano S device, and is used to sign transactions from this address. Just make a note of which keypair URL you used to derive any address you will be using to receive tokens.

If you are only planning to use a single address/keypair on your device, a good easy-to-remember path might be to use the address at key=0. View this address with:

velas-keygen pubkey usb://ledger?key=0

Now you have a wallet address (or multiple addresses), you can share any of these addresses publicly to act as a receiving address, and you can use the associated keypair URL as the signer for transactions from that address.

View your Balance​

To view the balance of any account, regardless of which wallet it uses, use the velas balance command:

velas balance SOME_WALLET_ADDRESS

For example, if your address is 7cvkjYAkUYs4W8XcXsca7cBrEGFeSUjeZmKoNBvEwyri, then enter the following command to view the balance:

velas balance 7cvkjYAkUYs4W8XcXsca7cBrEGFeSUjeZmKoNBvEwyri

You can also view the balance of any account address on the Accounts tab in the Explorer and paste the address in the box to view the balance in you web browser.

Note: Any address with a balance of 0 VLX, such as a newly created one on your Ledger, will show as "Not Found" in the explorer. Empty accounts and non-existent accounts are treated the same in Velas. This will change when your account address has some VLX in it.

Send VLX from a Ledger Nano S​

To send some tokens from an address controlled by your Nano S device, you will need to use the device to sign a transaction, using the same keypair URL you used to derive the address. To do this, make sure your Nano S is plugged in, unlocked with the PIN, Ledger Live is not running, and the Velas App is open on the device, showing "Application is Ready".

The velas transfer command is used to specify to which address to send tokens, how many tokens to send, and uses the --keypair argument to specify which keypair is sending the tokens, which will sign the transaction, and the balance from the associated address will decrease.

velas transfer RECIPIENT_ADDRESS AMOUNT --keypair KEYPAIR_URL_OF_SENDER

Below is a full example. First, an address is viewed at a certain keypair URL. Second, the balance of tht address is checked. Lastly, a transfer transaction is entered to send 1 VLX to the recipient address 7cvkjYAkUYs4W8XcXsca7cBrEGFeSUjeZmKoNBvEwyri. When you hit Enter for a transfer command, you will be prompted to approve the transaction details on your Ledger device. On the device, use the right and left buttons to review the transaction details. If they look correct, click both buttons on the "Approve" screen, otherwise push both buttons on the "Reject" screen.

~$ velas-keygen pubkey usb://ledger?key=42
CjeqzArkZt6xwdnZ9NZSf8D1CNJN1rjeFiyd8q7iLWAV

~velas balance CjeqzArkZt6xwdnZ9NZSf8D1CNJN1rjeFiyd8q7iLWAV
1.000005 VLX

~velas transfer 7cvkjYAkUYs4W8XcXsca7cBrEGFeSUjeZmKoNBvEwyri 1 --keypair usb://ledger?key=42
Waiting for your approval on Ledger hardware wallet usb://ledger/2JT2Xvy6T8hSmT8g6WdeDbHUgoeGdj6bE2VueCZUJmyN
✅ Approved

Signature: kemu9jDEuPirKNRKiHan7ycybYsZp7pFefAdvWZRq5VRHCLgXTXaFVw3pfh87MQcWX4kQY4TjSBmESrwMApom1V

After approving the transaction on your device, the program will display the transaction signature, and wait for the maximum number of confirmations (32) before returning. This only takes a few seconds, and then the transaction is finalized on the Velas network. You can view details of this or any other transaction by going to the Transaction tab in the Explorer and paste in the transaction signature.

Advanced Operations​

Manage Multiple Hardware Wallets​

It is sometimes useful to sign a transaction with keys from multiple hardware wallets. Signing with multiple wallets requires fully qualified keypair URLs. When the URL is not fully qualified, the Velas CLI will prompt you with the fully qualified URLs of all connected hardware wallets, and ask you to choose which wallet to use for each signature.

Instead of using the interactive prompts, you can generate fully qualified URLs using the Velas CLI resolve-signer command. For example, try connecting a Ledger Nano-S to USB, unlock it with your pin, and running the following command:

velas resolve-signer usb://ledger?key=0/0

You will see output similar to:

usb://ledger/BsNsvfXqQTtJnagwFWdBS7FBXgnsK8VZ5CmuznN85swK?key=0/0

but where BsNsvfXqQTtJnagwFWdBS7FBXgnsK8VZ5CmuznN85swK is your WALLET_ID.

With your fully qualified URL, you can connect multiple hardware wallets to the same computer and uniquely identify a keypair from any of them. Use the output from the resolve-signer command anywhere a velas command expects a <KEYPAIR> entry to use that resolved path as the signer for that part of the given transaction.

Install the Velas Beta App​

You're invited to help us test the latest pre-release version of our Ledger app on one of the public testnets.

You can use the command-line to install the latest Velas Ledger app release before it has been validated by the Ledger team and made available via Ledger Live. Note that because the app is not installed via Ledger Live, you will need to approve installation from an "unsafe" manager, as well as see the message, "This app is not genuine" each time you open the app. Once the app is available on Ledger Live, you can reinstall the app from there, and the message will no longer be displayed.

WARNING: Installing an unsigned Ledger app reduces the security of your Ledger device. If your client is compromised, an attacker will be able to trick you into signing arbitrary transactions with arbitrary derivation paths. Only use this installation method if you understand the security implications. We strongly recommend that you use a separate Ledger device, with no other wallets/apps sharing the same seed phrase.

  1. Connect your Ledger device via USB and enter your pin to unlock it
  2. Download and run the Velas Ledger app installer: 
    curl -sSLf https://github.com/solana-labs/ledger-app-solana/releases/download/v0.2.1/install.sh | sh
  3. When prompted, approve the "unsafe" manager on your device
  4. When prompted, approve the installation on your device
  5. An installation window appears and your device will display "Processing..."
  6. The app installation is confirmed

Installing the Velas Beta App returns an error​

If you encounter the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/Library/Frameworks/Python3.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/runpy.py", line 193, in _run_module_as_main
  "__main__", mod_spec)
 File "/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/Library/Frameworks/Python3.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/runpy.py", line 85, in _run_code
  exec(code, run_globals)
 File "ledger-env/lib/python3.7/site-packages/ledgerblue/loadApp.py", line 197, in <module>
  dongle = getDongle(args.apdu)
 File "ledger-env/lib/python3.7/site-packages/ledgerblue/comm.py", line 216, in getDongle
  dev.open_path(hidDevicePath)
 File "hid.pyx", line 72, in hid.device.open_path
OSError: open failed

To fix, check the following:

  1. Ensure your Ledger device is connected to USB
  2. Ensure your Ledger device is unlocked and not waiting for you to enter your pin
  3. Ensure the Ledger Live application is not open

Troubleshooting​

Keypair URL parameters are ignored in zsh​

The question mark character is a special character in zsh. If that's not a feature you use, add the following line to your ~/.zshrc to treat it as a normal character:

unsetopt nomatch

Then either restart your shell window or run ~/.zshrc:

source ~/.zshrc

If you would prefer not to disable zsh's special handling of the question mark character, you can disable it explictly with a backslash in your keypair URLs. For example:

velas-keygen pubkey usb://ledger\?key=0

Support​

Check out our Wallet Support Page for ways to get help.

Read more about sending and receiving tokens and delegating stake. You can use your Ledger keypair URL anywhere you see an option or argument that accepts a <KEYPAIR>.