ADA holders on Ledger affected by Glacier Drop airdrop bug

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has spoken out about the issue affecting some Cardano users ($ADA ) using Ledger hardware wallets who are unable to participate in the Glacier Drop airdrop event organized by the Midnight Foundation. The cause is a software limitation of the Ledger wallet.

Technical error from Ledger

According to Hoskinson, the problem arises from the implementation of CIP-8 (a secure message signing protocol) of #Ledger . The current firmware of the wallet only supports messages with a maximum size of 31 bytes, while the data packet for Glacier Drop is up to 251 bytes. This is a bug that the Cardano team reported to Ledger back in July, but Ledger has yet to provide a specific timeline for an update.

Temporary solution and advice for users

To address the issue, developers #Cardano are implementing a temporary solution by using a null transaction containing the Glacier Drop data packet as metadata. The Midnight Foundation, the organization hosting the airdrop, has confirmed this issue and assured that all affected users will not lose their participation rights.

Although this issue only affects a small number of users, it highlights the challenges in the interaction between hardware wallets and new blockchain protocols. Developers have warned users not to use unofficial solutions to avoid the risk of scams.