How to add EOS account to your Ledger Nano X/S using Anchor wallet (easiest and fastest way)

Sami Kujanpää
4 min readFeb 11, 2021

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Easy, step-by-step guidance for newcomers/novices that may find EOS account setup confusing. I’m keeping this as simple as I can.

All you need is a little patience, a Ledger device, and a crypto exchange or other account with 0.3112 EOS (~$0.95 USD as of this writing) to pay for your new Ledger EOS account.
I’ll also cover this later in the article.
On EOS, you have to use resources, and this is the minimal amount of what is needed to create an account for now. The good news is after this, EOS mainnet is free to use if you use the best wallets available. Little hint: The Power Up model is currently launching. After it’s live, all the transaction fees will go directly to token holders. After the update it’s still free to use and you get profits also!

First of all, you need to set up your Ledger in order to make a new account in it. If you need more info on Ledger setup, you can find it here.
You need also to update your Ledger’s firmware.

After you’ve successfully completed your Ledger setup, you want to open the Ledger Live software on your computer and click the “Manager” tab so you can download the EOS app, and add it to the Ledger.

After successful installation, you need to find the EOS public key on your Ledger in order to make a new account with that key.
(Ledger can’t make an account on your behalf)
For that, you need to download the Anchor wallet. It’s the best desktop EOS wallet for many reasons: it has the best developers from Greymass, which is a trusted EOS block producer that has Block.one’s support. The wallet is going to be soon live on Android (already is on iOS). It’s the only wallet that provides free transactions and Ledger support, and it’s quite easy to use.

Before you set up any wallet, go to tools tab and then click the Ledger hardware wallet support tab.

Close Ledger Live (for me, it causes EOS app on Ledger Hardware wallet to crash, and still, it may take two times to connect to Anchor Wallet). Then start the EOS app on Ledger Hardware Wallet, click the green button-Enable Ledger Support.

Confirm that your public key matches with the one that is shown on your Ledger’s screen, then copy your public key.
Paste your public key to this bloks.io site, into the “public EOS key” field, and then you need to come up with 12 characters for your account name, which is attached to your public key. (This is the main account address.) Now you’ve two options how to pay for your account creation or just use existing account to pay for it, if you already have one.

You can skip this section if you already are level 99 EOS Wizard, otherwise follow these steps carefully. The best, easiest and frictionless way to pay for your account creation is to download the Wombat wallet. Wombat will give you a free account as I’m currently writing this. Also, Wombat doesn’t require KYC (know your customer) documents for identity verification, so you can directly buy EOS on MoonPay via Wombat wallet.

It’s super easy to create a free EOS account on Wombat wallet, they also cover transactions!
At first go to wallet section and cash in some funds for your wallet (1, 2). After successful buy, just click the EOS coin option (3).

Then you just need to send those 0.3111 EOS to that address that bloks.io gave you. Don’t forget the memo! After confirming your transaction (tx), your Ledger account will be fully functioning.

Then again, unlock your Ledger and open EOS app on it. Open the Anchor wallet, click “setup a wallet”, choose your password and select EOS blockchain.

Click the “Enable Ledger support” in the next window. Once your Ledger is connected, the button changes to “Load from Ledger”.
This window pops up next, and the final step is to load your account from Ledger to Anchor wallet. This doesn’t expose your keys to anyone, it’s still secure in the Ledger device. Ledger just allows you to contact with the blockchain with your keys. Remember to allow Anchor to interact with apps and allow Greymass Fuel, which will give you good amount of free transactions on EOS mainnet.

Congratulations! Now you can be 100% sure that you’re secure from viruses, hackers and phishing sites, so nobody can connect to this wallet without your Ledger. You can also connect your Ledger by using your smartphone.

Be safe and sound, the blockchain space is full of scammers and hackers who try to steal your hard-earned crypto. Best of luck to you all.

Credits to Blockchain Alchemist for editing work, you rock!

Sincerely yours
Sami Kujanpää

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