TL;DR: The ledger live “Binance Chain (BNB)” App has had its name changed to “Tendermint Binance Chain”.
How many times have I heard, in crypto circles, something along the lines of: “Digital Ledger Technologies (DLT) don’t progress at normal speed, they progress at warp speed!”. These quick developments can be good and bad, recently causing me to have a frantic panic attack!
Be a hodler at your own peril!
The other day with Radix unlocking all their tokens (a great project, for which I will write more about another day), I wanted more exposure and so wanted to sell some of my Binance (BNB) tokens. I’d got to the point where I was comparing Coinbase’s share marketcap (~ $50B) to Binance’s (~ $70B) and starting to wonder if it would be likely that Binance could see significant gains in the future (again, another article for the future). Cut a long story short, I’d decided that Radix offered a much better risk-reward opportunity in the short term (imo of course!) so decided to move more exposure across.
This is where the trouble started! Being the typical hodler, I got out my trusty ledger and decided to sell some of the BNB I had held for around 2 years. Opened “Ledger Live” to install the “Binance Chain” app, and lo-and-behold, it wasn’t there! Commence the panic attack! There was an app called “Binance Smart Chain”, damn; being a hodler and not having kept up to date with this particular technology I thought: “that must be it…”. Starting to worry, I downloaded the app, but to my dismay, the wallet addresses all started with “BSC” not the expected “BNB”, went to a few binance pages to see if I could still use, nada! Nothing seemed to work. Performed numerous web searches to try and figure out. Nothing! Typical of crypto, things moving at warp speed meant the documentation on the differences between BNB chain and the “new” BSC were not well documented, well not when you are frantically trying to get answers. What could I do!? Found some documentation stating that the original “Binance Chain” app was not actually fully supported by Ledger when I used it back then. Started to worry in case they had discarded it, since not fully supported, Argh! Had I lost all my BNB???
Lightbulb moment…, perhaps it was possible to install an older version of ledger live? No…, I couldn’t see a way to do this through the software.
Head in hands moment!
Another idea… sent a quick email to Ledger support as to whether there was a back-door way to install older ledger live / older ledger apps… With my heart in my mouth, I eagerly awaited a response…
Wait a minute…, I had used one of my kid’s computers a year ago when I was having trouble using Metamask (for whatever reason… there seems so many with Metamask!). Maybe, just maybe, an older ledger live was still on there. With fingers crossed, I kicked my kid off Fortnite, grumbling along the lines of “sorry must do this as pays for your keep” (am I turning into my Dad with age? Shock - haha!!!).
Thankfully, it was still there!!! Punching the air, and a huge sigh of relief I promptly installed the app. Then I had the trouble of finding the webpage where I could send the BNB from, as was not possible directly through the ledger live software. It is here btw, if anyone finds themselves with the same predicament!
Several hours later (cue Spongebob)…, I received an email back from Ledger Support, who I have only good praise for considering their quick and informative response: “the Binance Chain App has had its name changed to Tendermint Binance Chain”!!! There are that many apps now in ledger live, I would have never thought to scroll through to the bottom in case there was a rename… also typing in the word “binance” in the search only brought back “Binance Smart Chain” as their search doesn’t consider “mid” words… I haven’t actually tried Tendermint Binance Chain App out, but assume this is correct and may help someone in the same predicament, hence this article.
Lessons learned
Keep up to date with your crypto investments, it is difficult to hodl when the crypto markets are crashing, and often the best strategy is to try and forget about and stop looking at prices etc. Well, perhaps it is worth swallowing the pain from time to time to ensure you are not left behind when a significant change is implemented.
Really consider which apps to delete from your ledger when memory is low. If you have the privilege of several computers, perhaps have several versions of ledger live installed, otherwise, don’t be too keen to update to the latest version!
