What is a cold wallet? Ledger Stax review

What is a cold wallet? Ledger Stax review originally appeared on TheStreet.

Cold wallets have revolutionized crypto security by keeping your private keys offline and away from hackers. They’re the digital equivalent of a safe deposit box, robust, reliable, and designed for peace of mind.

Today, we’re exploring Ledger’s latest innovation in this space: the Ledger Stax, a sleek, magnetized, curved e-ink powerhouse that takes your crypto protection to the next level.

Designed in collaboration with Tony Fadell, the inventor of the iPod, it features a first-of-its-kind 3.7-inch curved e-ink touchscreen that wraps around the edge, combining aesthetic elegance with high-contrast readability and ultra-low power consumption.

This isn’t just a cosmetic upgrade. The e-ink display allows you to scroll through transactions and addresses with minimal battery drain, giving you up to ten hours of active use on a single charge and weeks on standby.

What is a cold wallet?

Before diving further into the device, let’s start by understanding hardware wallets. Hardware wallets are a form of cold storage, keeping your private keys offline and safe from online threats. In contrast, hot wallets, like mobile apps or web services, are always connected and vulnerable to hacks, phishing, and malware.

A device like the Ledger Stax uses a secure element to store and sign transactions internally, so even if it’s plugged into an infected computer, your keys never leave the protected chip.

Unboxing

Opening the box, you’ll find the Ledger Stax device itself, a magnetic protective shell, three recovery phrase sheets, a quick-start guide, and a USB-C to USB-C cable.

Powering on the Stax reveals the Ledger logo, and provides an overview of the basic functions of the device. As an extra touch, you can personalize your Stax by assigning it a name like ‘Home Stax,’ ‘Travel Stax,’ or whatever helps you differentiate multiple wallets.

The device then prompts you to choose a PIN between four and eight digits. This PIN guards against unauthorized use: after three incorrect attempts, the device wipes itself to thwart brute-force attacks.

Right after the pin selection, you can choose how you’d like to set up your Ledger Stax. You can either restore a previous wallet or start a new one. Now comes the most critical step: generating your 24-word secret recovery phrase. These words are the only backup of your private keys.

Write each word in the exact order on the provided sheets, store them offline in separate secure locations, never photograph or copy them digitally, and never share them with anyone. Anyone with your phrase can take your funds.

To verify you’ve recorded the phrase correctly, the Stax will quiz you on all 24 words. Once confirmed, your wallet setup is complete, and the device initializes your secure environment.

Ledger Live

To manage your crypto assets, you’ll link your Ledger Stax to Ledger Live via the mobile or desktop app. Ledger Live provides a unified dashboard where you can add and organize multiple accounts, check real-time balances, portfolio performance, and send or receive over 5,500 supported coins and NFTs.

You can also access built-in features like buying, swapping, and staking, as well as connect to decentralized apps — all while preserving your private keys offline on the Stax device.

By keeping private keys offline in a secure element and leveraging an intuitive yet power-efficient curved e-ink touchscreen, the Ledger Stax represents a significant leap in both form and function for hardware wallets. Your digital assets stay protected, and your user experience is smoother and more engaging than ever.

What is a cold wallet? Ledger Stax review first appeared on TheStreet on Jul 11, 2025

This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Jul 11, 2025, where it first appeared.