Ledger and the Metadata Your Hardware Wallet Sends After You Sign - Uneasy Money

Greg Markou argues that Ledger’s signing SDK is sending transaction metadata to Ledger’s servers after a user signs, and he calls that post-signing API call “completely unnecessary.” He says the behavior still allows user-address correlation, even in the newer V2 flow, and that Ledger’s desktop app has long carried extensive telemetry.

The discussion frames clear signing as a long-delayed standard problem rather than a solved one. The host and Greg say the standard exists, but implementation, adoption, and device limitations have left users with a messy experience. Greg says Ledger’s claim that devices lack enough memory is a weak excuse, and argues the company could have preloaded more memory or otherwise made the devices capable of handling clearer signing locally.

They also broaden the point beyond Ledger. Greg says clear signing is hard for dynamic contracts, proxy patterns, and ENS-like addresses, so wallets may still need trusted servers and audit layers to present understandable transaction data. But he concludes that hardware wallets are being used like end-user devices when they should function more like a YubiKey-style interface for a more secure system.