Protect Your Tokens! How To Secure ERC20s With A Hardware Wallet + MyEtherWallet (Ledger Or Trezor)

This is all a lot simpler than it looks.

I regularly preach the need for hardware security for all of your cryptocurrency on my blog, but I rarely make more than a passing comment about how to do this for ERC20 tokens. The truth is, it's actually quite easy, and once you setup a hardware wallet Ethereum address, you won't need to even plug in your hardware wallet unless you are wanting to send tokens out. In other words, you can stash tokens (and Ethereum) for hodl'ing from exchanges in a hardware-secure manner by simply withdrawing to an address encrypted via your hardware wallet, while it sits in your safety deposit box.

I am only familiar with one interface that allows you to secure your ERC20s via hardware wallet: MyEtherWallet. Despite some hubbub recently about a potential disagreement between the founders and an unscheduled rebrand, MEW has always remained secure if your tokens are hardware-wallet secured. MEW is only an interface to an ethereum wallet - they do not hold any tokens.

Note the support for both Ledger and Trezor.

MyEtherWallet isn't exactly winning any interface awards. I have always found it confusing (particularly, the interface for sending Eth/tokens out from a wallet), and I have spoke with a number of other otherwise-intelligent crypto users who feel the same way. However, it is secure. As long as you are using a hardware wallet, the staff of MEW could go completely rogue and the worst thing they could pull off is some sort of phishing attack / transaction address swap, which we will address later.

Once you have setup an account, all you need to do to access your hardware wallet is choose the option for your brand. With a Ledger, it's very simple. You install the Ethereum app on your Ledger with the Ledger Manager (if necessary). Then, you simply connect your Ledger, unlock it, and load the Ethereum app. Having a connected and unlocked Ledger essentially serves as your password - you will be able to simply tick "Ledger" and login to a hardware secured wallet.

The interface you will be greeted with upon login (more or less.)

All the key functions of MEW are visible here. At the left, you have your address - both in "0x" form and in QR scan-code form. In the top right, you have network status and your gas price settings. These determine how much of a fee you pay for sending tokens on the Ethereum network, and are a bit confusing and clunky. You can ignore these until you need to send tokens out from MEW.

At the bottom right you've got the meat of what most of us are here for - the token interface. Here you can see all the ERC20 tokens you have sent to this address. As you can see, I have rather pathetically small amounts of both Civic (I'll cover this another time) and EOS.

You can even add a custom token, if you so choose. It works, I've done it.

If you wish, you can always view your address without logging in via your hardware wallet. You cannot perform any functions, but you can check balances.

You can do the same at the following address, just add your Ethereum address before "#tokentxns"

https://etherscan.io/address/#tokentxns

If you religiously use hardware wallets, you can only lose your tokens if your are attacked via a transaction address swap. That's when a piece of malware intercepts the address you are attempting to use to send, capturing it between your PC and your hardware wallet, and changing it such that it sends to the attackers address instead of the one you intended. If you religiously check the transaction address on your hardware wallet (every character!) to confirm it matches your intended sending address, you will foil all of these type of attacks.

Be safe with your crypto hoard!

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Sources: Google.com, Pinterest, MyEtherWallet, Etherscan.io, Discord
Copyright: Swoopify.com, Pinterest, MyEtherWallet