Here Is How To Transfer Bitcoins From A Paper Wallet To Ledger Wallet

With the popularity of hardware wallets reaching new heights, many are now moving from paper wallets to Ledger Nano S-like hardware wallets.

And why not! Hardware wallets are more superior in terms of security of your bitcoins and also more user-friendly than paper wallets.

Read: How To Make A Bitcoin Paper Wallet & How To Spend Bitcoins

For the uninitiated, hardware wallets are hardware devices that look similar to a flash drive and are used to store your bitcoins, whereas a paper wallet is a piece of paper with a pair of public and private keys printed on it.

Paper wallets were more popular in the early crypto days as there were no hardware wallets. But now with a plethora of options in hardware wallets, it is stupid to risk your coins on a paper. (We like Ledger Nano S wallet the most as it has everything one may need!!)

Many investors have now started to understand this point now and want to migrate from paper wallets to hardware wallets like the Nano S. But the problem is, they get stuck when they try to migrate because there is no direct way to do so.

Confused? Let me explain.

There is no direct way to transfer your bitcoins from a paper wallet to ledger wallet and that’s why many face difficulty.

But there is an indirect way by which you can do the same and that’s what I am here to share with you today.

Sending BTC From Paper Wallet To Ledger Wallet

Note: One cannot send BTC directly from a paper wallet to Ledger as of now. For this, you need to use a third intermediate software/mobile wallet and then send your BTC to Ledger. (In the future you can expect an inbuilt functionality in Ledger Nano S to do so directly).

Step #1. Install a mobile wallet on your mobile if you don’t have it. I installed the Coinomi wallet on my Android smartphone for this tutorial.

Step #2. Create a new wallet with Conomi.

Note: Keep your seed words very safe while setting-up your new wallet for the first time.

Step #3. Now go to ‘Bitcoin’ wallet in Coinomi’s interface, which will look like:

Step #4. After clicking on ‘Bitcoin’, you will see this screen.

Step #5. Now click on the three dots as shown in the image above to see the screen below.

Step #6. Click on the ‘Sweep wallet’ option as shown in the above image to see this:

Step #7. Now select ‘Bitcoin’ in ‘Receive with’ dropdown and scan the private keys from your paper wallet.

Note: Coinomi supports only WIF, BIP38, & mini private key formats.

Step #8. Once this is done and your coins are imported (swept), they will be reflected in your Coinomi wallet.

Remember: It is always advised to sweep your paper wallet into a software wallet instead of importing it. Here are the detailed reasons why to do so: Highlighting The Difference Between Sweeping & Importing Private Keys.

Now your coins are in Coinomi and you need to transfer them to Ledger Nano S. For this, you need to get hold of Ledger Nano’s valid Bitcoin address on which you want to receive your bitcoins. For this, follow the steps below:

Step #9. Launch the Bitcoin Ledger Wallet application on your device.

Step #10. Plug in the Ledger Nano S to your device (PC/mobile) and unlock it using your PIN code. Remember: Don’t share this PIN with anyone because using this PIN, anyone can get into your Ledger Nano S if they have access to the device.

Step #11. Once your Ledger device is connected, open your Bitcoin application on the device. You will be prompted to select Bitcoin or Bitcoin cash. Select ‘Bitcoin’.

Step #12. After you have selected ‘Bitcoin’, the app will prompt you to select ‘Legacy’ or ‘Segwit’ types of addresses. In this case, you need to select ‘Legacy’ if you want your BTC on ‘Legacy’ addresses that start with digit ‘1’ or ‘Segwit’ if you want your BTC on ‘Segwit’ addresses that start with ‘3’.

In this case, I am selecting segwit because using segwit has many benefits that you can read here.

Step #13. Click on ‘Segwit’. The sync should take a few seconds to take you to the Segwit blockchain.

Step #14. After the sync, you will be able to see this screen on your wallet. Here you will see your accounts, balance, send, receive and settings options.

Step #15. Click ‘Receive’ as shown in the image above to see this screen where a pop-up will prompt you to select your ‘Account To Credit’. If you use Ledger Nano S for the first time it will show you only one account.

Step #16. Now click on ‘Display Address On Device’ option as shown above. If you look closely, there is a note that says: only receive funds on this address if it matches the one displayed on your device.

For this, please verify if the address shown in your Ledger app and the address shown on your actual hardware device is same. Once both are verified and matched you are good to go ahead.

Step #17. Once addresses are matched, it means the address shown is safe to receive BTC.

Step #18. Now you can scan the QR code in step #16 from your Coinomi mobile wallet or copy-paste the address shown in the ledger app where you want to receive your bitcoins.

Step # 11. Now you need to enter the relevant details in the below-shown interface of the Coinomi wallet. Once you have put the details and just hit send from your wallet and wait for the transaction to reflect on Blockchain explorer.

Conclusion: Transferring Bitcoin from a Paper Wallet

Always remember that you should wait for six confirmations on the blockchain to consider a transaction successful.

And lastly, if you haven’t started using Ledger Nano S then you should use it as it has many useful features that can make management of multiple cryptocurrencies hassle free.

Always buy Ledger Nano S from the official website and thoroughly learn how to set up and use Ledger Nano S through our exclusive video tutorial series on the same.

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