Unlike other cryptocurrencies, in which sending them from Ledger is a no-brainer, Monero puts obstacles so that it better protects user privacy. In the case of sending Monero from Ledger, going over those obstacles means doing a few extra button presses. Here is how to send Monero from a Ledger: Initiate the transaction from your GUI wallet by clicking the ‘Send’ tab, enter the receiving address and the amount to send, and click ‘Send’, a pop-up window will appear, now you need to go to your Ledger and confirm the details of the transaction by tapping the buttons as prompted, then go back to the GUI wallet, press ‘Confirm,’ and enter your Monero wallet password.
Here's a detailed visual guide on the process, followed by my musings on how it all began and how Ledger might evolve next.
Visual Guide on How To Send Monero From a Ledger
1) Inside your GUI wallet, click the ‘Send’ tab, enter the receiving address, amount to send, and click ‘Send.’
2) A pop-up window will appear, now you need to go to your Ledger.
3) The Ledger will start processing the transaction.
4) Press both buttons to sign the transaction.
5) Press the right button to confirm the amount.
6) Press the right button again to confirm the receiving address.
7) Press both buttons to sign the transaction once again.
8) Press the right button to confirm the amount left in your wallet after the transaction is completed.
9) Press both buttons to sign and approve the transaction once again.
10) Press the right button to confirm the fee.
11) Back to the GUI wallet, press ‘Confirm.’
12) Enter your Monero wallet password.
That’s it! Transaction successfully sent!
That wasn’t easy, but don’t you feel blessed that you have Monero to send? Jokes aside, Monero is a cryptocurrency with the most advanced privacy features that are being refined as we speak. Monero’s features are built from the ground up by the crypto community to prevent any blockchain metadata snooping or transaction analysis and in accordance with cypherpunk principles, but it all started with an obscure prophecy. That prophecy became flesh thanks to community efforts that gave us handy, secure products.
The Evolution of Cryptocurrency Products and Services
This guide on how to send Monero from a Ledger is the perfect example of how far we’ve come when it comes to practical encryption and cryptocurrencies. Mere 40 years ago, Ledger was something out of science fiction, and now it is a secure, permanent, physical extension of the Monero blockchain. Monero stored on a Ledger is thus given physical form, as if words became flesh, representing the closest thing we have to cryptocurrency coins.
For instance, you can send Monero by shipping the Ledger through the mail, which cannot be stopped; even if the Ledger is lost or destroyed, the wallet and all the Monero in it can be restored with ease if you know the words that formed it in the first place. The words represent the wallet and the money, and you can essentially send the wallet and as much money in it as you’d like by sending the seed phrase words to the recipient without paying heavy fees or undergoing financial scrutiny. It’s all in line with the original vision for indestructible, tamper-proof vaults that inspired the blockchain idea in the first place. To explain what I mean, we have to go back to the roots of cypherpunk principles.
Encryption From Theory to Practice
Cypherpunks envisioned a future in which encryption is used in the daily course of business in all kinds of products and services to prevent accidental leakage of information. Without encryption, that leaked information could be gathered through comprehensive surveillance systems and pieced together to discover a person’s association with people, things, and principles, which could then be leveraged to deny individuals their human rights. Cypherpunks knew that it was only a matter of time before that happened but didn’t know what they should do to stop it.
They thought that the comprehensive surveillance problem could be solved through novel software, hardware, or social paradigms, which is why they couldn’t make the conceptual leap from theory to practice. They famously sat around and played social games in which the objective was for certain players to smuggle tokens representing contraband goods between them without other players noticing what they were. Cypherpunks didn’t focus on cryptocurrencies or any other product or service per se, but they rather wanted to define a way of life that is more conducive to privacy in the digital age. Still, they couldn’t make any progress, and they were decades away from things such as how to send Monero from a Ledger.
I wrote about cypherpunk mailing lists that hold tens of millions of messages they sent each other and how they involved more and more people. Despite the volume, their discussions often met a dead end and cypherpunks found themselves chasing their tails because they couldn’t move past antagonistic and inflammatory arguments. Instead of “how do we stop someone from snooping,” their discussions should have been about “how do we make foolproof consumer-grade products that promote encryption?” For that, they needed inspiration that can only come through intense, spontaneous, and repeated brainstorming that happens in a close-knit community.
The Secret of Iterative Design
A product or service has to go through stages of refinement and maturation before it can gain widespread adoption. It starts off as a crude prototype that barely works, but if there’s a vision and a burning desire to make it real, the product can be reshaped to eliminate what doesn’t work and tweak the features until they feel just right. That’s called “iterative design” and is the secret behind any wildly popular product, such as the iPhone. The speed with which iterative design is done is what determines how long it takes for the product to improve. For example, the Windows operating system took about three years to release a major version, with Windows 11 marking the switch to a 6-year release cycle.
The Ledger also underwent an iterative design process, with major Ledger wallets being released roughly once a year since 2014. There are different versions of the Ledger, including those with a touchscreen, but they all have some common elements, such as the tamper-proof Secure Element chip. If you lined up all Ledger wallet models according to their date of release, you’d be able to peek into the minds of the creators and glean their iterative design process. Where they all started was way back in 1982 in David Chaum’s writings that predicted tamper-proof, indestructible cryptocurrency vaults.
David Chaum’s Vision of a Vault
The one and only crypto prophet David Chaum gave the initial spark for the creation of “vaults” in his 1982 doctoral dissertation, which is an idea that various parties interpreted in their own way. I interpret it as a vague description of the principle of safeguarding data, which we today know can be applied to hardware wallets and cryptocurrencies. Like cypherpunks, Chaum didn’t know how to move from the idea stage to the prototype, but his 129-page text set the stage for one and provided the vision for practical ways in which we use encryption, such as in cryptocurrencies. At its core, his dissertation described the existence of a computer system managed by mutually distrustful or adversarial parties. The data in the system can be trusted thanks to encryption, but how do parties ensure that at least some data survives network disruption and elimination of nodes?
Indestructibility and Resistance to Tampering
Chaum described a small physical device called “vault” that can be used to restore some or all of the data in the network in a way that all parties can trust and rely on. One special property of the vault is that it can be remade if destroyed and that the network of vaults would basically make the network immune to disruption and data tampering. That sounds like blockchain, where data is kept in multiple redundant copies, but now that I think about it, that applies to Ledger as well; the confirmation of it is the description of the vault’s features.
In Chapter 3, the dissertation detailed the idea of installing verification systems inside the vault to make them tamper-proof and resilient to attacks. In short, a vault should be able to function inside a hostile environment and provide enough feedback that users can independently verify if, when, and how it’s been compromised. That matches the description and function of the Secure Element component currently used in Ledger wallets. The reconstructive property of the vault is in line with Ledger’s 24-word seed phrase that is basically the divine process in which the word becomes flesh or a new reality.
Multiple Constructors and Customizability
In Chapter 9, Chaum suggested that a vault can be made from the ground up by all the parties in the network, each of which would supply a module to build it. The modules would be made according to a universal standard so that no party can supply a defective module and thus sabotage the vault. For instance, if the vault needs to have a random number generator, which is a known weak point of any encrypted system because random number generation needs wacky methods to be truly random, each party can supply a different part that does it. Their outputs can be combined, with Chaum admitting that his idea is fairly crude and that others have suggested a more refined approach to that particular problem.
So far, modular hardware has not caught on. In 2016–17, Google and LG produced modular smartphones that would, in theory, function like Lego blocks — if you need a different camera or screen, just swap it out. Users could easily replace damaged parts without having to pay for expensive repairs, upgrade the phone, or ditch the parts they don’t need, just like they do with a desktop computer. However, the initial interest quickly waned, primarily because module manufacturers couldn’t agree on a single standard; none of them wanted to lose autonomy or prestige by being associated with what they saw as a standard they don’t control. A modular phone was also not rigid enough and tended to fall apart when in use, in addition to draining the battery way too quickly.
Open to Tinkering and (Possibly) Mass-Produced
Modular phones failed, and it’s likely that modular Ledgers would fail too, but a DIY Ledger might succeed. It would be a zero-trust device, meaning something each Ledger owner makes from scratch, buying components separately, and testing them independently. Nobody would know that you’re interested in having a hardware wallet, let alone that you’re making one. It wouldn’t be easy, and you’d probably not have much help from people online, who generally think tinkering with crypto hardware wallets is a sure path to ruin and that there are already Raspberry Pi boards that can host hardware wallets. The biggest problem is ensuring the security of the wallet, which in Ledger is done by the Secure Element chip, the Ledger’s heart and soul.
In Chapter 10, Chaum noted that initial entry to the market is always the hardest and the most expensive. Only a small subset of customers in any market is willing to invest their money into an unproven or prototype product; others will follow the path of least resistance. That certainly turned out to be true when it comes to modular smartphones, because people have high expectations of them working out of the box. But, there are no such expectations with a Ledger; a cryptocurrency geek is already a tinkerer and an innovator who could go through the iterative design process on the spot and brainstorm solutions with other geeks. That was ultimately where cypherpunks failed, because it’s not enough that people buy into your ideas — they should also buy your products and services, and you should be able to supply them with those they want.
PlasBit’s Iterative Process
What you probably didn’t realize is that anyone can do the iterative design process, including you and me, to arrive at an answer to any problem, or at least a working prototype of it. I do that on my PlasBit articles with my PlasBit team, including this one on how to send Monero from a Ledger. We organize regular brainstorming sessions to arrive at inspiration, perspectives, and concepts related to how old ideas come to life in new technologies. That builds our PlasBit community spirit and makes the team believe that they can overcome any obstacles and reach new heights with ease.
From what I’ve seen so far, having a transparent, innovative, iterative design process is the secret to attracting people’s attention. They need to start believing in an idea and create a community around making it real. Any kind of iterative design process that includes a strong community has a bright future; when a cryptocurrency dies, it’s because the vision behind it wasn’t strong enough to compel people to come together and start solving problems. Monero is one example of a community-driven project that’s shown unusual resilience, and PlasBit is another.
You can join the PlasBit community too by contacting us through the support chat with your money and cryptocurrency questions and problems, including help with how to send Monero from a Ledger. We can’t promise anything, but we’ll do our best to get you closer to solving your problems and building the kind of future you want to live in.
