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BTC 
LTC ZachXBT sparks controversy: hardware wallets are "complete garbage"?
ZachXBT claimed on its Telegram channel that hardware wallets are "complete garbage" for serious cryptocurrency usage scenarios, which immediately sparked heated discussions. In his view, people who often handle large assets are more reliable than using a spare iPhone as a signature device.
ZachXBT details the daily dilemma of hardware wallet users
The on-chain investigator's Telegram message was straightforward: "A radical view: all hardware wallets are complete garbage, and I don't recommend using them for important tasks such as signing transactions or storing funds." He further pointed out that a dedicated iPhone used only as a wallet could provide a better experience than any hardware device on the market, and specifically criticized Ledger. "Ledger is the worst, and Ledger Live's UI and applications are updated frequently, ruining simple operations for no reason." ZachXBT wrote.
He then listed several issues on the X platform that hardware wallet users may encounter when conducting typical high-value, time-sensitive transactions, including battery depletion, forced upgrades to equipment and software, interface changes, and website vulnerabilities that prevent multi-signature transactions.
Soon after, security researchers, wallet developers and ordinary cryptocurrency users responded to ZachXBT's posts. Axel Bitblaze agreed with the on-chain detective's criticism of hardware wallets, but also questioned whether phones could really better replace them, as phones would still expose users to the risk of "a single device and a single mnemonic as a single point of failure." He recommends using a 2/3 multi-signature Safe setting and using a separate signature device. He also advised cryptocurrency holders to store mnemonics offline, test them before transferring large assets, and separate wallets they use daily from long-term assets.
Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm also joined the discussion, agreeing with the logic behind ZachXBT's proposal, but noting that mobile wallets are missing an important feature: BIP39 passphrase support. The developer, who faces a long prison term for being convicted in 2025 of operating an unlicensed money transfer business, pointed to the extra passphrase layer as a major advantage of hardware wallets and called on software wallet makers to increase support for the feature so they would be more useful for self-hosting.
The debate also attracted responses from hardware wallet companies. Trezor, one of the largest companies among them, said the phone runs a complete operating system, so there are many potential attack points. A hardware wallet is a dedicated device specifically designed to isolate private keys from the general computing environment. Keystone Wallet took a more balanced stance, with the team admitting that ZachXBT's statement about the potential of isolating mobile phones was "not wrong", but believed that most users would be more suitable for using dedicated devices because the security of mobile phones depends largely on users 'strict self-discipline behavior.
Ledger's Position
As of this writing, Ledger has not directly responded to ZachXBT's remarks. However, it happened to post a post on its X account stating that its core security model is based on isolating private keys from Internet-connected devices. "A private key that has never been exposed to the Internet cannot be stolen by phishing, deep counterfeiting or prompt injection," the post read."That's all the stakes in the hardware solution." Still, such equipment is not completely immune to human error. For example, in an incident earlier this year, a victim lost $282 million in BTC and LTC from his offline equipment due to a social engineering fraud.
