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I got this thing because I made a decent bit off flipping bitcoin before Robinhood let its mask slip and everybody jumped ship, so I rolled the profits from that into a Ledger Nano X because I figure why not reinvest those earnings and trade the right way?

I've been meaning to get crypto to get my assets out of USD so I'm insulated from the coming hyperinflation, but now that I've got one and I'm looking into how it works it seems like more trouble than it's worth. I set me Ledger up with Ledger Live, did all the seed word bullshit, then when I went to actually trade I saw how high the transaction and "handling" (excuse the fuck out of me?) fees were and if I didn't know any better I'd say this whole Bitcoin thing was a scam.

I did some looking into it and apparently Electrum is a better solution, but then I'd have to create a new wallet with new seed words, I don't even know if it'll use my Ledger for authenticating transactions, and this is turning into a shit show pretty fast. Which is why I'm here asking for advice from people who already trade crypto with a Ledger.

I got this thing because I made a decent bit off flipping bitcoin before Robinhood let its mask slip and everybody jumped ship, so I rolled the profits from that into a Ledger Nano X because I figure why not reinvest those earnings and trade the right way? I've been meaning to get crypto to get my assets out of USD so I'm insulated from the coming hyperinflation, but now that I've got one and I'm looking into how it works it seems like more trouble than it's worth. I set me Ledger up with Ledger Live, did all the seed word bullshit, then when I went to actually trade I saw how high the transaction and "handling" (excuse the fuck out of me?) fees were and if I didn't know any better I'd say this whole Bitcoin thing was a scam. I did some looking into it and apparently Electrum is a better solution, but then I'd have to create a new wallet with new seed words, I don't even know if it'll use my Ledger for authenticating transactions, and this is turning into a shit show pretty fast. Which is why I'm here asking for advice from people who already trade crypto with a Ledger.

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[–] [deleted] • 0 pt

You seem really confused about the basics.

Imagine your ledger (recently hacked company btw) as a wallet. Bitcoin is the cash you put in the wallet. The seed words are the key and lock for your wallet.

None of those really involve trading bitcoin or altcoin, you generally trade on an exchange like binance or a decentralized peer to peer trading platform like bisq.

Your ledger is a safe, not a market kiosk. The transaction fees on bitcoin are quite high because of the recent interest in bitcoin driving fees higher and higher (miners can ask for more money because there are less miners and more users)

Hope it helps, but I would seriously suggest trying to learn the fundamentals of the currency before becoming your own bank and losing it by fucking up one step a long the way.

[–] • 1 pt

It's less that I'm confused about the basics and that I'm overly-cautious as a result of underestimating the complexity.

Isn't the Ledger not the wallet, but instead the key to access the wallet? I went to setup Electrum, but the setup instructions seem to suggest it's going to give me a set of seed words different from the ones I got when my Ledger first got here. I was under the impression I'd be using Electrum to trade and my wallet would be separate from that, but it's looking like Electrum is a wallet and I'll just be using the Ledger to access it. Is there a way of going about it without having to set up an entirely new wallet with new seed words? I read that I'll still be using the 24-word seed I got with my Ledger will still be used, but I'm still not 100% on why I'd need a new set of seed words with setting up Electrum.

[–] • 0 pt

Think of your seed words as the same as your wallet. A wallet is just a collection of private keys. The private keys for your wallet are generated from the seed words. Your seed words/private keys are what allows you to transact the crypto that is yours on the public blockchain.

Ledger and Electrum are both wallets. You can import your seed words from your Ledger into Electrum if you’d like. However, using a hardware wallet like a Ledger is generally more secure, unless you know how to use Electrum with a cold-storage wallet (high difficulty). Hardware wallets generally are the best combo of security and ease of use. If you want to trade the crypto that is on your Ledger, or any other wallet, you must transfer that to a crypto exchange, such as Coinbase.

[–] • 0 pt

Is it like having crypto on a wallet is your cryptocurrency, but having it in a crypto exchange is like owning Bitcoin on Robinhood?

[–] • 0 pt

Wallets and seed words are not two separate things!

The seed words ARE your wallet! A wallet is just a collection of private keys. The private keys for your wallet are generated from the seed words. Your seed words/private keys are all that is necessary to transact the crypto that is yours on the public blockchain.

[–] • 0 pt

This was my biggest hang-up. I messed with seed words when I first started using my Ledger which was also when I setup my Ledger Live wallet, so I couldn't remember if the seed words were for the Ledger device or the Ledger Live wallet.