The Pomp Podcast - #1062 Pascal Gauthier On Why Everyone Needs To Self-Custody Their Crypto

Episode Date: July 28, 2022

Pascal Gauthier is the CEO of Ledger In this conversation, we discuss self custody, the bear market, regulation coming to Crypto, the latest updates in digital security, and how Ledger has been able ...to build one of the most trusted brands in self-custody. ======================= If you’re trying to grow and preserve your crypto-wealth, optimizing your taxes is just as lucrative as trying to find the next hidden gem.Alto IRA can help you invest in crypto in tax-advantaged ways to help you preserve your hard earned money.   Alto CryptoIRA lets you invest in more than 200 different coins and tokens with all the same tax advantages of an IRA.They make it easy to fund your Alternative IRA or CryptoIRA via your 401(k) or IRA rollover or by contributing directly from your bank account.   There are no setup or account fees, and it’s all you need to do to invest in crypto tax free. Let me repeat that again:You can invest in crypto tax free.   So, ready to take your investments to the next level? Diversify like the pros and trade without tax headaches. Open an Alto CryptoIRA to invest in crypto tax-free. Just go to https://altoira.com/pomp ======================= Bullish is a powerful new exchange for digital assets that offers deep liquidity, automated market making, and industry-leading security. Combining the innovations of DeFi with the regulated environment of traditional finance, Bullish empowers users to trade with certainty and earn passively at scale across variable market conditions, in an environment backed by multibillion-dollar liquidity contributions from the Bullish Treasury. Visit bullish.com/pomp today to learn more.   Note: Bullish is licensed by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission. Virtual assets and related products are high risk. Consult your investment advisor and trade responsibly. Bullish is available in select locations only and not to U.S persons. Visit bullish.com/legal for important information and risk warnings. ======================= Since 2018 Copper has been at the forefront of institutional digital asset development.   From award winning custody solutions, to creating the first truly off-exchange settlement function, Copper pioneers technology, products, and services, in lock-step with a rapidly changing world.    No other infrastructure provider covers as many assets, across as many exchanges, with the speed and security that Copper can offer. To learn how Copper helps the world’s largest institutional investors secure their digital assets, head over to copper.co   Copper - the unfair advantage. =======================

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Starting point is 00:00:00 What's up, everyone? This is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Now let's kick this thing off. Pascal Gouthière is the CEO and founder of Ledger. In this conversation, we talk about self-custody, bear markets, regulation, employment, and what he's seeing right now on the ground when it comes to security. I really enjoyed this conversation with Pascal, and I hope you guys enjoy it as well. Before we get into this episode, though, I first want to talk about our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Alto IRA. If you're trying to grow and preserve your crypto wealth, optimizing your taxes is just as lucrative as trying to find the next hidden
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Starting point is 00:02:51 copper pioneers technology products and services in lockstep with a rapidly changing world no other infrastructure provider covers as many assets across as many exchanges with the speed and security that copper can offer to learn how copper helps the world's largest institutional investors secure their digital assets head over to copper.co again copper the unfair advantage Check them out at copper.co today. Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments.
Starting point is 00:03:26 You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only. Thank you. pascal how are you i'm great thanks i'm i'm uh you're back i'm very interested in uh i'm just gonna start throwing out topics let's just jump right in centralized exchanges contagion lending
Starting point is 00:04:32 all of the things that are not holding your own private keys have been in the news recently what's your take is the entire bitcoin and kind of crypto ecosystem eventually going to end up being 100 self-sovereignty is it going to be hey i keep 90 of my assets in you know uh kind of my own custody and then i might use some of these services at specific times like what's kind of like the the vision that you have as to where the industry goes over time between self-custody versus third parties or even decentralized type platforms or whatever? So, yeah, I mean, I think what just happened
Starting point is 00:05:10 is a reminder of what Bitcoin exists and, you know, sort of Bitcoin exists not to have intermediaries. And so that's a big reminder for everyone that if it's not your keys, it's not your crypto. And also it's a big reminder that people shouldn't be greedy. Like, you know, greed is bad.
Starting point is 00:05:29 So therefore, if you have Bitcoin and you've been holding Bitcoin for a long time, you know, the price appreciation is good enough. Like, why would you trust anyone with your Bitcoin for an extra 4%? You know, to me, that never made sense. And what we've seen recently, you know, it was proved that, you know, it didn't make sense.
Starting point is 00:05:48 But also, it's not just that. So I think the future looks different and the same at the same time. You know, I think what just happened is clearly, if you're a centralized value proposition as a consumer, as a customer, what you would want is much more regulatory oversight. You would want to, you should have much more confidence
Starting point is 00:06:09 that the balance sheet of the company that you're giving coins to is good enough so eventually they can cover the loss. You want to make sure that there is clear regulation in terms of how all of this is, how custodians work and so on and so forth. And so I think what the market just triggered is sort of more self-custody for more people,
Starting point is 00:06:30 but also sort of bring more regulation for a centralized value propositions and sort of more of a side from, from, from the regulator. And also a lesson to everyone, which is if you, if you have to absolutely have to trust your coins to someone, you know, make sure that they're the best ones. Yeah. As, as you kind of see this moving forward, one of the big questions and maybe even just observations in the market is that Bitcoin has become more financialized in the last two or three years. We have large Wall Street
Starting point is 00:07:04 firms that are now participating. We have public corporations. And you just get a different type of market participant. Naturally, their business models are financial services, right? And so they create all this stuff around it. Bitcoin was built on the premise of you don't need these third parties. Do you think that we will continue to see more and more financial services built around these assets? Or is it something where we'll kind of obfuscate away credit or lending or, you know, some of these services that are very popular traditional financial system with Bitcoin, given that it's a bearer asset, we might not need them. Yeah, I mean, you know, I think what Bitcoin is and what cryptocurrencies are, you know,
Starting point is 00:07:46 it's just like a public way of exchanging value. And so, you know, before it was cash. And so, So, you know, between you and I, if I wanted to give you $20, I would just hand you cash. And as soon as you went digital, then you had to have an intermediary. And so I think what Bitcoin solved is this. Like now, if I still want to give you something just for me to you, I can use the Bitcoin network. And the beauty of the Bitcoin network is that it's a worldwide public ledger. So actually, before it was, you know, me to you in the U.S. and I give you $20. Now, you know, I'm in Europe.
Starting point is 00:08:20 I'm in the U.K. right now. You're in the U.S. I can actually give you the $20 right now or whatever, like in form of Bitcoin, and that works very well. And so, you know, people always underestimate how powerful that is, but it is only very powerful because it doesn't have any intermediaries and because it's a public ledger. Now, it doesn't mean that, you know, the coins don't have value and it doesn't mean that, you know, Bitcoin is not also a store of value. And so in that regard, it will attract financial institutions. But I think what just happened also shows that it's not so much that not your keys, not your coins, it's also not your keys, not your communities. If you don't have your keys, you can't engage.
Starting point is 00:09:01 What went well in this market was DeFi. Actually, DeFi has shown that it works pretty well, given the circumstances. But suddenly, if you want to engage in DeFi, you need to have your private keys. if you want to engage in nft communities you need to have your private keys and so for us what's happening right now is you know it's just like the proof of this vision that we had from the beginning which is there are a bunch of things in our lives that will become tokenized we will become even more digitalized in a way and everything will be in a form of a private key whether it's your money your wealth your identity your health data whatever data that you have even
Starting point is 00:09:42 you very private communications and you know all of this is moving onto onto a blockchain and security would be sort of first and foremost but also if you want to engage you'll need to have your private keys and so it doesn't go with security and ease of use and so i think what we're really going for at ledger is not so much the financial world it's sort of everything it's for your digital self like how do you protect your digital self and how do you engage with your communities so i want to talk about ledger live because as i've used the product more and more uh it's become fascinating to me i've always thought of when somebody says self-custody or a hardware wallet you basically take the assets off of an exchange you put it into the
Starting point is 00:10:23 hardware device and then you like bury it in your backyard don't touch it you know you can't really do anything uh with it until you move the assets back onto an exchange ledger live is a mobile app that you all have built i think it has desktop as well uh and on it you allow people to do things with their assets while they're still on the hardware device and or at least connected to the hardware device can you explain a little bit more as to how people should think about this is this like an exchange but rather than the exchange hold your keys you're holding your own keys but you still get a lot of the same functionality or how do you kind of think through why you all built this uh kind of interface and also the integrations with the various other services and kind of
Starting point is 00:11:08 functionality that you have here sure the way to think about ledger and the consumer value proposition that we have is the the nano or the hardware part is is the security and the validator like this is where your private keys are and this is how you secure your private keys and how you sign transactions that's all that it does in order to engage with your crypto then you need an interface and the interface is a software interface that is either on your computer or on your phone Actually, what's cool with Ledger is, you know, if you want your interface to be Ledger Live, you can, but equally, if you want it to be Coinbase, Noncustodial,
Starting point is 00:11:40 or various other wallets, they all have like a Ledger integration. So you don't need to use Ledger Live. You should only use Ledger Live if you think it's a better product for you. And actually, we invested a lot into Ledger Live for it to be the best wallet in the space. And the reason why we believe it's becoming the best wallet in the space is that we build it in a very open manner. So now third parties can actually code the apps and apps on top of Ledger Live.
Starting point is 00:12:05 And so when you open your Ledger Live, you have this galaxy of apps. You know, think about like your iPhone and the app store on your iPhone. It's exactly the same thing where from the comfort of your Ledger Live, you can actually use one inch, you can use Ledger Market, you have your Ledger card, et cetera, et cetera. And so what we're really saying is you should never compromise on security, but also what we're trying to bring to you is real ease of use. And so some of the best use cases in the market right now in Ledger Live, like typically if you want to mint an NFT, it's better done on Ledger Market with your Nano. It's actually the best experience, the only experience and the best experience in the market.
Starting point is 00:12:44 So that's really what we are investing in right now a lot is just to make all of this much secure and easier to use for everyone. How does someone build an app to get it on there? Do I have to go through like an application and approval process? Can anyone come in and build something? How does that work? Yeah, everyone can come in and develop something. You go to developers.ledger.com and you follow the instructions
Starting point is 00:13:07 and then we go to Discord, you engage with the team. And then the only thing that we do really is to do the security review. So the dungeon is reviewing every app that goes on Ledger Live and or Ledger. Got it. That was one of my questions
Starting point is 00:13:20 was basically there's some sort of like a fail-safe process or at least a process to review the security so that when I go on, And I know that these have all been vetted by the Ledger team from a security standpoint. Correct. Got it. And when you start to think about building more software interfaces, how much of the aspirations of the company is hardware versus software? Like, you obviously have the leading position when it comes to hardware.
Starting point is 00:13:45 You are essentially synonymous with self-custody. When we gave away a Ledger yesterday, people went absolutely nuts. They loved it. Uh, but then you got the software. So like, where are you planning to take the company? Is it more software moving forward and you'll keep, you know, kind of the hardware that you have, or do you keep investing equally in both? Or how do you think about that? Yeah. So I'll answer your question by asking you a question. Um, what do you think your iPhone is? Is it hardware or software? You want me to say both? So I'll say both. Uh, my guess, what would you say? Yeah. I mean,
Starting point is 00:14:22 it's both but i think majority of the value is in uh actually the software uh but you need the hardware in order to be able to do it yeah exactly no so you know what i would say is iphone is an experience like you know the hardware firmware and software that builds an experience for you where actually the comfort that it gives you is really the experience is like oh now i got my music i got you know my everything on my iphone i got my contacts and and really the way they use your iphone is really an extension of the palm of your hand like you know now you connect to the web like you know people keep on saying like i don't understand bitcoin what they're actually saying is you know they don't understand the underlying technology and what they don't or probably what
Starting point is 00:15:03 they should say as well it's like i don't understand the web but it actually doesn't matter because my iphone does everything for me and so what we are thriving for at ledger is the same that what apple does but we're gonna apple does it for the phone we're gonna do it for your wallet so in the end you know the ledger product will be an extension of the palm of your hand where it's going to be everything that you have in your wallet today because you have a physical wallet on you right now you know you will say yes because everybody has one so that will go into a digital form at some point that will be a ledger and then you will be as easy to use to connect to web 3 as your iphone is easy to use to connect to web 2 that's sort of the vision that
Starting point is 00:15:41 we have and in time like you won't you won't say but you need like hardware because without without hardware software doesn't exist like you know we we need to i think you know people and vcs like think too much about software as if um it was the uh you know they like it because it's simple but but actually if you think about the biggest companies in the world they all have either a hardware component or a firmware operating system component if you think about google they have android if you think about microsoft it's an operating system they have a bunch of hardware. If you think about Apple, I mean, it's the biggest company in the world. They're the best. Why? Because they got a hardware operating system and software environments. If
Starting point is 00:16:21 you think about Amazon, they have AWS, et cetera, et cetera. So if you think about the biggest companies in the world, there is an element of hardware and there is an element of operating system. And why? Because through hardware and operating system, then you can create a software environment around it to build an experience. And so that's what Ledger is trying to do. And it's modest right now. We understand that we are at the beginning of everything.
Starting point is 00:16:46 It's the beginning of crypto. It's the beginning of ledger. But in the future, we think it's going to be much bigger. You need hardware to connect to Web3. You need secure hardware to connect to Web3. Otherwise, Web3 doesn't work.
Starting point is 00:16:58 And so we need to build an experience. As you think about kind of building that entire experience, how much of the team comes from the finance world, the tech world, or they're like what i'll call crypto native i'm fascinated by the types of experiences the types of expertise
Starting point is 00:17:15 that you put on the team uh goes back to like the team you build is the company you build right and in some way the team you build is the product you build where where do you think about finding these individuals and how much does that infuse into like how you're thinking about building going forward yeah that's a great question and my answer could be i mean it's my answer is uh how do you build Ledger, you know, the strategy of, you know, building a company, you know, Ledger is a very unique company in the space because we're trying to like, we have the probably the deepest technology stack in the sense that you need
Starting point is 00:17:49 to do hardware security, hardware, operating system, software, software ecosystem, design, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, if you think about it, like, you know, FTX is a much easier job. Like they have a, they have an exchange, et cetera. I mean, you know, Sam's business is amazing, but if you think in terms of technology and, you know, what they have to develop, like, it's no wonder where they can be still like a hundred people being such a
Starting point is 00:18:15 big exchange because from a technology and, you know, software standpoint, there's not much to develop actually. But the problem at Ledger is this, like, and so every piece of the puzzle needs to have experts. So security hardware engineers, it's a very specific kind of engineers like there aren't many people on the planet that actually understand this like you know the chip and pin technology and hsms and you know all of this so they have to come from a very very specific background that understand security very well
Starting point is 00:18:48 and these are very rare engineers when you do the hardware around then you're going to design and right now we're working with a bunch of apple people and so actually the the future of ledger is to deliver devices where apple and ledger would have made a baby where it's going to be as beautiful as your iphone but you know as secure as your as your ledger and this is sort of what we're working on and then you're right and then so and so and then you have like the operating system engineers that's your the base of your secure platform on top of it now you need to build software and the software is is of different kind and so for this you try to find the the people and the engineers that are specific to the vertical right now you know we have very strong
Starting point is 00:19:32 NFT vertical and we're starting to have people that are very, very specialized into the NFT and the NFT communities, etc. So it's a very complex puzzle. It's like a thousand pieces. They're very small and it's a complex puzzle, but basically that's all that there is. Building a business is just the people and the war for talent. So you need to find experts. Where Ledger is very strong is the deep tech, the cultural aspect. And where we need to get better is the financial aspects.
Starting point is 00:20:08 You don't have many people that come from the financial industry at Ledger, but we're hiring more and more. So I guess where we need to get better is this. As you look at the bear market, there's lots of people who get disenfranchised who aren't as excited as maybe they were last year when prices are going up. You've been around for a while. What do you take as lessons learned from past bear markets and what are you telling your team now uh as you guys are kind of building through this one first i told my team that i like bad weather i prefer when the market is there because actually this is where this is when you you can build i hate when the market is too hot and like any company can raise like 100 million dollars and you know it's just just crazy and you
Starting point is 00:20:46 don't know how to make a difference between good and bad companies etc bear market actually good because you can see who is resilient in the market and who is failing so i welcome bear markets also especially that in this bear market ledger is doing extremely well we're growing year on year actually quite rapidly now we had 15 percent growth year on year in h1 and i think we're going faster in h2 right now and july is a killer month especially that we launched the ledger market yesterday that that was such a beautiful launch we sold 10 000 passes in less than 24 hours which is the first time ever like this is this is actually the biggest achievement overall in the industry and so our business is actually thriving right now and it's time to
Starting point is 00:21:34 build and i like when the market gets gets bearish right now because it's time to build this is what i told my team i say it's time to build we're not firing anyone but we will be very strict on performance we want everyone to be at 120 right now in the company and the team appreciate that like people understand that we need to work hard this is the moment where we need you need to work at your hardest so when the market picks up again then you're ready and so what we're doing right now is to get ready for the the bull market that's going to come in uh like anything between 6 12 18 months god knows when but it doesn't matter like when it's when it's going to come we'll be ready as you think of uh kind of that market what do you think will turn it around
Starting point is 00:22:13 what what will bring the uh the bull market back if you will but you know what like you know for me like this is not really a bearish market because you asked me and so i've been in this game for a long time and i've seen every bear market since like mongox to now this feels great like you know i remember post mongox like 15 16 you know it was horrible it was it was a nuclear winter of crypto like nothing was happening it was uh it was very very difficult uh the bear market of 18-19 was also very difficult. You remember
Starting point is 00:22:50 in 17, it was the start of financial institutions looking at this and a bunch of funds being created, etc. And everyone disappeared in 18-19. They were like, okay, bye-bye. We'll see you later. Actually, it was a mistake. We didn't think we would do this. In this market,
Starting point is 00:23:07 nobody is leaving. You haven't heard any major financial players saying oh you know okay like we thought crypto was good but fuck it like we're not going to do it anymore actually everybody's in the market everybody's investing big banks uh uh small players uh there are new companies being created every day so you know it doesn't really feel like a bear market and also the phenomenon is just getting bigger now like you know it was bitcoin only in uh in 14 uh it was sort of bitcoin and ethereum in 17 and right now it's bitcoin ethereum like every other coin every other layer nfts i mean you know so that's why you know i think ledger
Starting point is 00:23:46 is growing year on year because there is so much happening in the market even if it's a bear market that i don't really fit it's a teddy bear market as you we watch regulation and regulators around the world get closer and closer to figuring out what that framework's going to look like is that a tailwind for self-custody like will more and more people just say you know what I just want to buy assets and hold them for a long period of time. Some of these things that regulators are worried about, I just don't want to deal with it. The tax regimes are too onerous in the United States or elsewhere
Starting point is 00:24:18 if I spend it or if I send kind of these assets to other people. So does it lead to more just like buy and hold and self-custody? Or how do you think about regulation as a tailwind or a headwind for your business? no i think as we go like the buy and hold thing that was very true in 14 and the years after it's going to be less and less true because now as soon as you get coins like you want to engage into communities into defy into lightning into the different things that you can do with your coin so i think the buy and hold strategy will definitely still exist but what's what's going to happen more and more is like people will sort of engage with their coins and make payments and
Starting point is 00:25:02 and do this and do that etc so which is a which has an impact definitely on our strategy i mean if you think about the nano s and when you're going to see the future of our products you'll be like oh okay so the future of ledger products is not to just buy and hold like you know you take an nos you put one bitcoin on it and then you put it in the safe deposit box and you never look at it again it's actually you will want to engage with that bitcoin into you know sort of different things whether it's staking or not for bitcoin but whether it's staking for your eth or whether it's DeFi, NFT, Lightning for Bitcoin and various other projects that are being built
Starting point is 00:25:37 on top of Bitcoin right now. I think that's what's happening. Your coins will always be in movement. You always want to be doing something with them. But again, I don't think centralized value propositions will disappear. It's just that they will need to give you something that you don't have otherwise.
Starting point is 00:25:57 But it's going to be a challenge for me. It's a challenge between weak tech and strong tech. If self-custody does everything that centralized value proposition can do but better, then self-custody wins and people won't need intermediaries anymore. It's not completely the case today. It might be the case tomorrow where you actually don't need a bank anymore and you can just manage your funds yourself. Yeah. Yeah. The promise of it is, I think, becoming more obvious day in and day out that this is where we are, that we're headed. When you look back over your career so far in the industry,
Starting point is 00:26:33 what's the thing that surprised you the most? Like, as you look to see where we are now, is there something that sticks out in your mind as to, I can't believe this happened, or I can't believe we're already here in only 2022? I think the thing that surprises me the most is that sometimes I feel that the industry is a bit to focus on top line growth and grid actually you posted something yesterday about like you know the speed always wins uh i can't remember exactly what was your post but you said something around like the upstart ceo he basically said all things uh held equal the company that like iterates the fastest wins yeah correct and so you've seen my answer i saw it i would love for you to explain
Starting point is 00:27:14 your thought process yeah no so so so i think this is i think this is kind of wrong and i think this is specifically wrong for the crypto industry i think the crypto industry should sometimes sort of slow down and and and not be focused on top line and greed but like more focus on building the right product for the user and like sort of long term and always having like the security of the user the protection of the user like at heart like you know and i know it's hard sometimes because you have this temptation to grow grow grow etc and so my point is like for security companies typically you know being the fastest in the market uh you know move fast break thing is is the the worst thing you can do for for your consumer base like this is actually you need to
Starting point is 00:27:56 do the opposite and i you know there is a tale of the tortoise and the hare uh and that's our tale and you know the the tortoise wins in the end like you know and why because um if you want to go too fast and you break things when you do security it just doesn't work like you know security needs to be absolute do you know how many coins ledger lost since we created ledger how many zero no but you know and it's important yeah well yeah and this is why ledger is ledger this is why people trust ledger we have five million devices in in the wild right now and people are trying to hack our devices every day actually there was the note from the ira i think and they were they were recruiting people to hack ledger or to hike like hardware wallets including ledger
Starting point is 00:28:44 so you can be sure that the NSA or there are a bunch of people that are trying to hack ledger till now like you know and we looking at everything and every dashboard of the dark web etc to see for exploits and if someone has found a way to break our products but
Starting point is 00:29:00 so far you know nobody has managed to break a ledger product and we actually make sure that it doesn't happen because this is why we have a dungeon and this is why we're playing defense but this is our role and so sometimes I rather me i always prefer to be right than to be first and in the end like if it means that i lose the
Starting point is 00:29:19 business okay then then it means that i'm not the best businessman but that's okay like you know my my my customers will always be safe and this is this is the promise so so that's why i feel that sometimes the market where i'm surprised is like the market keeps on doing the same mistakes if you look at the nft market you know these guys came out after bitcoin and so you would have imagined that they would look at you know all the mistakes done in bitcoin and not do the same mistakes actually they do the same mistakes over and over again they don't protect the users so people get wrecked get hacked etc and actually when nfts came to market they were you know you could have told your user like use a ledger from the beginning so to avoid being you know wrecked
Starting point is 00:29:58 and and hacked and not just ledger like you know other products in the market i don't care all the hardware wallets but uh but i don't know going too fast like you know going too fast and that's and it's still happening today and that i don't really understand you know that every software wallet that you have on your phone right now, or every software wallet that you have on your computer, you can have your private keys drain in less than 30 seconds. The only thing that it takes is you download the malware, and it's happening already, and it will happen at scale. You download the malware on your phone or your computer, and your coins are as good
Starting point is 00:30:29 as gone. It's crazy. When you connect to most software wallets in the industry, do they give you a big red warning to say, be careful, pair your software wallet with a ledger or with a hardware wallet, whatever it is, et cetera. Actually, not really, because people are shooting for ease of use. So let's make it very easy to use. And yes, there is a risk, but okay, it's a small risk. So we're willing to take that risk. I think the industry should be willing to take zero risk or the minimum possible risk because once your private keys are gone everything is gone and so you
Starting point is 00:31:09 imagine in the future with so much wealth that's going to be put on public blockchains with your identity with all of these on public blockchains you can't play the game of like oh it's it's good enough no no it has to be absolutely secure uh it will never you know you can't have this good enough strategy it has to be certain and so i think what's troubling me right now is like the industry even after everything happened you know still doesn't think about real security real governance security all of these things most of the big largest exchanges on the planet run a bunch of the security on nano s's and nano x and i don't think that's good enough last question for you is the uh dungeon i think is how you pronounce it uh that you all have is
Starting point is 00:31:56 a team of uh white hat hackers explain what this is i don't think a lot of people know that you that you all have this and what they do on a day-to-day basis well you know the black hats and the white hats the black hats are the guys that are trying to steal from you and the white hats are the guys that are trying to uh protect you from the guys that are trying to steal from you they're all from the same sort of pedigree uh except that some choose the light and other choose darkness and so when you build a security company you absolutely want to have hackers in your company because this is the only way that you can find ways of hacking your product before it actually happens and so what you want is to have the best hackers in the world trying to hack
Starting point is 00:32:43 your own products in order to further secure it and so what the dungeon done is what the dungeon does is this like we hack ledger product but we hack every other product in the market and we hack every other product in the market not because we're assholes but because we want everybody to raise the security bar so actually our goal when we hack another wallet and we have we hacked a bunch of other wallets is uh to tell them how to fix it it's not just to hack them and to laugh at their face because this we don't do that like we're not interested in that what we're interested in it. Whoever uses another wallet tomorrow, Ledger is doing the job to make everything more secure
Starting point is 00:33:26 and not just Ledger product, everybody else in the market. So that's our mission, actually. We want to make Web3 secure and easy to use. But not just with Ledger product, with everything else in the market. So everybody gets tested in the Ledger lab and sometimes most of the times we crack open most of the products or chips or everything that exists in the market and the reason is most hardware technology that exists prior to crypto was not designed to protect crypto secrets and was not designed to protect bitcoin eth etc etc and so there is a lot of r&d that goes into okay how do
Starting point is 00:34:03 we solve this big problem for the future and if nobody is trying to solve this for the industry uh then then the industry won't exist so this is the role of ledger and it's not just the ledger products is just like we're trying to help the whole industry do better with security where can we send people to find you on the internet or find out more about ledger well ledger.com our youtube channel instagram tiktok we serve everywhere and honestly we have great content on youtube we have a great ledger academy etc we're investing a lot into content and education so people should definitely check that out i'm on twitter somewhere uh you can easily find me i think it's yeah that's that's that um um and uh
Starting point is 00:34:49 and i tweet so it's not always very interesting but sometimes i i reply to you so you know people can like my my comments when i reply to you on twitter um and uh yeah that's it i love it man i'm a i'm a big fan of ledger i enjoy doing all the uh different things we do together and uh obviously as you said probably the single most important thing is you guys have lost zero coins. So keep up the great work. Anyone who, uh, who has not looked into self-custody, I keep saying it, go check it out. If you want to use some of the platforms, generate yield, all that, that's fine. And you got to put a hundred percent in self-custody, but you should definitely understand how it works. And, uh, the best way to get started is just take $5, take $5 of Bitcoin,
Starting point is 00:35:29 $5 or whatever, stable coin, whatever, just go put in self-custody, move it back and forth, learn how to use it. And, uh, and you'll be off to the races. So thank you so much for, uh, for coming on pascal and uh we'll definitely do it again in uh in the future all right bye buddy thanks so much for listening to today's episode i really hope you enjoyed this one make sure you're subscribed on apple spotify or your favorite podcast player and if you're looking to transition into a brand new job in the bitcoin or crypto industry we've got you covered head over to thecryptoacademy.io my team and i have been working with the top hr teams in the industry to develop an intensive three-week training program
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