The Pomp Podcast - #1459 Pascal Gauthier | Can Quantum Computers Steal Your Bitcoin?!

Episode Date: December 28, 2024

Pascal Gauthier is the CEO at Ledger. In this conversation we discuss, what products they have launched recently, regulatory environment, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and what he is excited about in 2025.  ======================= The Pomp Podcast is powered by BetOnline.ag, the premier crypto-friendly place to gamble on politics and sports, casino, poker and horse racing. BetOnline.ag gives you the ability to use Bitcoin and more than a dozen altcoins to make deposits and withdraw your winnings. There are no crypto transaction fees, and processing is instantaneous and secure. Visit https://promotions.betonline.ag/pomp and use PROMO CODE: POMP100 to receive a 100% matching bonus on any crypto deposit. BetOnline.ag is available in nearly every country around the world, making it the top global gaming destination for crypto users. ======================= Polkadot is a scalable, secure, and decentralized blockchain technology aimed at creating Web3. Created by Gavin Wood, co-founder of Ethereum, Polkadot empowers users to build decentralized applications with ease. Backed by industry leaders, making it a preferred choice for big names, Polkadot stands out as a leading choice for investors seeking a reliable, future-proof solution in the growing world of Web3 technology. Learn more at https://polkadot.com/. ======================= Pomp writes a daily letter to over 265,000+ investors about business, technology, and finance. He breaks down complex topics into easy-to-understand language while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at https://pomp.substack.com/ ======================= View 10k+ open startup jobs: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://dreamstartupjob.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Enroll in my Crypto Academy: https://www.thecryptoacademy.io/

What's up everyone? This is Anthony Pompliano. Many of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, which is my effort to find the most interesting people in the world and sit with them for hours while I ask questions in an effort to learn. So it would mean the world to me if you would subscribe to the show on your favorite audio platform, watch episodes on YouTube, and tell your friends and family about the podcast. My goal is to help millions learn from the world's most interesting people. So let's get into today's episode. What's going on, guys? Today, I got an awesome episode with Pascal Guthair. He is the CEO of Ledger. They are the most trusted brand when it comes to crypto security. In this

conversation, we talk about what products they've launched recently, how the regulatory environment has changed, what's going on with quantum computing and whether that is actually going to break Bitcoin, how we should be thinking about artificial intelligence, both in the hands of the good guys and the bad guys. And then we even get into what he's excited about in 2025. Tons of people have been asking me, will quantum computing actually be a problem for Bitcoin? And Pascal is one of the leading security experts in the industry. He's got a whole company working to prevent anything from happening to your Bitcoin or crypto assets. And he's here to answer all of our questions. I hope you enjoy my latest conversation with Pascal Gouthier.

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. 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. limits in the industry. If you want to get in on the action, do it the smart way with crypto at BetOnline.ag. Head to the website, sign up with promo code POMP100 to get 100% bonus on your crypto deposit today. If you go and you deposit, they'll give you 100% bonus if you use

promo code POMP100. BetOnline. The game starts here. BetOnline.ag. Go check them out today. today's episode is brought to you by polka dot polka dot offers secure scalable and decentralized blockchain technology that perfectly aligns with the needs of innovative projects it was developed by gavin wood one of the co-founders of ethereum and the creator of solidity polka dot aims to build an internet where users have full control over their data and their applications polka dot offers tons of unique features a shared security model along with the new auction model and significant implementations like ASIC banking. Given these characteristics, it's easy to understand why Polkadot is gaining more and more traction in the cryptocurrency world.

Some people even are talking about it as the AWS of Web3. Now, companies such as Mythical Games, Astro Network, and over 50 other independent blockchains with hundreds of applications already leverage Polkadot's technology to power their platforms. If you're looking for a reliable, scalable, and cutting-edge solution, Polkadot seems to be the top choice for industry players. Go check them out today at Polkadot.com. All right, Pascal, I thought a great place to start the conversation is you guys are the leading self-custody provider. You guys have amazing hardware. You've been doing this a long time.

There's tons of people that are worried about quantum computing. They saw the Google Willow announcement. They think that quantum is going to come. Their Bitcoin may be at risk. Is this something to worry about, or should everyone take a deep breath and calm down? Everyone should take a deep breath and calm down. What Google demonstrated is cool. and it's going into is a step towards quantum computing and you know in that direction

uh but it's not something that's gonna break uh anything uh anytime soon certainly not bitcoin certainly not ledger and this idea that suddenly quantum computing is going to happen one day you know on monday and suddenly uh you know that week it will break everything uh is a fallacy um when you build attack you also build defense at the same time and quantum computing has a long long long long way to be able to do the things that people you know dream uh quantum computing uh of doing especially when it's about about breaking um cryptography and you know uh very strong cryptography and so the short answer is like no, nothing is happening right now. Charles Guimet, our CTO, his handle on Twitter is

at P3B7 underscore, wrote the best thread on the matter. Charles is a hacker. He's the guy who built the dungeon here at Ledger. And he's one of the top hackers in the world. And I appointed him CEO, actually, a CTO. CEO is me, still me. But CTO of the company back in 2019 when I took over. And the reason why is because I thought only a hacker can know what the Ledger technical stack can be. And it's funny when you speak to hackers about those kind of things. It's not like on x.com. The answers are almost boring. And this is why he only had 179 likes on his thread, which is probably the best thread on quantum computing that you can find right now and because the answer is uh calm down there is nothing to see uh when you say on x.com like oh my god like

it's happening you know people are like oh my god like like like but it's not happening and by the way like if it was happening like that like you know we have we have bigger problems you know nuclear war global nuclear war would be problem number one not the fact that quantum computing can hack your ledger um and so no it's not it's not happening but uh but it's good like you know And those kind of things are important to build the future. But like I say, build defense and offense are being built at the same time. So we at Ledger keep an eye on all these things. We have the dungeon, which is not just an attack lab, but it's also a research lab.

And so we have an elite team working on these matters. And when it happens, Ledger will have an answer and similar to a bunch of other companies. One of the interesting things is, as people have asked me about quantum computing over the years, uh there's two things i always said i'd love for you to either agree or disagree the first is that there is no quantum computer yet but uh if there is one that ends up getting created there's a heck of a lot of things that you probably would want to hack or kind of uh you know get into before you did bitcoin because if you hack bitcoin and take all the bitcoin bitcoin loses its value like the whole point is that it's never been hacked before do you agree with that or do you look at it

differently yeah okay i agree that the cia so if you look online cia as a report on quantum computing it pretty much says everything that you need to know right now in the state of quantum computing and what it can or cannot do but like you know even what you're describing is not exactly the way it would happen like you know you will never be in a position where suddenly you have a computer that is so great that you can hack then you can choose what to hack on the planet like you know every defense will be upgraded uh and that's the scenario so you know the day it happens you have offense defense you still have weak spots somewhere so you know you'll be able to hack what has not been upgraded or what is still weak etc etc but again you know read the

thread from charles guimet uh and uh and you understand this better like you know it's uh you know for quantum computing to work the way that you say it would work it would require like years like you know 5 10 15 20 like nobody really knows like because there is something like completely exponential in terms of quantum computing like whatever you do now is nice but you need to do this 250 times more. And every time that you need to increase, it's all the much harder. And so we're very far from having something that makes people freak out. So sorry to disappoint, but no, it's not happening. And Ledger is safe and Bitcoin is safe. Amazing to hear. One of the things that has always been kind of a paradox to me is that

When you think of Bitcoin, when you think of encryption, when you think of Ledger, these are very kind of technical products. They are very secure. They use kind of cutting edge technology. But when you hear about a lot of stolen Bitcoin or people losing their Bitcoin, it's usually social engineering. Right. It's kind of like the least technical thing that you could actually do is what people use. And so talk about, you know, building a company where security is your business. Right.

kind of trust and privacy and security um but at the end of the day you still have users and so you've got to kind of balance uh how to uh how to handle this that's correct um you know hacking is like sort of offense versus defense uh and so it depends which range you steal but also there is a an opportunity cost right so uh if you're trying to steal one dollar i mean you cannot put like a lot of effort and a lot of money into doing the hacking right like you know you cannot spend a hundred dollars to hack one dollar so uh if you spend a hundred dollar to hike one million dollar then okay that's uh that's a good return right so uh so you don't go hack ledger because that's very expensive what you do is social engineering because you know to send an email to someone and

hope that they will return the 24 words you know that's uh less costly uh and so therefore the return investment is probably greater and so that's what we've seen in the past 10 years right social engineering and phishing emails etc that's that's what uh hackers do um and you know for that ledger we we launched our uh service uh ledger recover to to start to to to take the 24 words out of the equation because the uh the weak point like you say is the user himself and the user sharing the 24 words we have documented everyone ledger please do not share your 24 words that the that this thing that you shouldn't do uh and i was on stage with someone the other day i was like well you know this uh this space doesn't need education anymore like people know everything

i'm like no no people don't know everything and of course we need a lot of vacation to the point where don't share your 24 words but also explain what it means like you know never enter your 24 words on a computer never enter your 24 words on a phone um and you don't people don't understand like i spoke i spoke to ogs the other day like you know i'm in the group alpha group and and people still talk about cold storage and yeah well because story is okay because you know i keep my stuff you know on a piece of paper i'm not clear so what do you do when you need to do a transaction it's like well you know it's easy i go on a computer and then i put my 24 words on the computer okay but this is where you get hacked so cold storage doesn't work and and and what

works is you know sort of ledger internal security because your 24 words are never exposed uh by design and you can connect your ledger online offline doesn't matter like you know and this call storage thing is a real fantasy um but this is it then you as a user you should never enter your your words in the phone or computer and or nor nor share these with anyone but you still have them so with ledger recover we try to remove them out of the equation it's a very secure way of doing it uh we have uh you know tens of thousands of users now that are using it so it's a really good product it's a really good service it's never been like this open source everybody can check what it does and you know that's part of the answer and these answers need to come like you

know you need to be able to onboard easier on on self-custody you need to remove all the friction and so typically you know storing those 24 words on a piece of paper somewhere that has always been something where people have doubts and also if you know that your 24 is on ledger recover and you can recover them like electronically on your device etc then you know the need of inputting the 24 words is sort of removed and so therefore this urge that you should share them you know is somewhat removed that's one of the examples like how you can protect users again themselves but but you're right that you know social engineering is uh is uh is most of the hacks that are happening right now except that's now it has changed and so 24 is a very pivotal year in so in so many ways

but it would be interesting for you to have a conversation with Charles in the dungeon one day, but it seems that the big wolves now are out there. And so for a long time, I was talking with the dungeon about real hacking, not just social engineering, but complex hacking, like what you see in movies. And for a long time, there was not enough money to do this because complex hacking requires engineering, et cetera, and requires a cost. But now it's happening. There have been several hacks in 24 where it was like, these are bad boys hacks, real hackers doing real things. I spare you the details and you have to take my word for now, and maybe we do an episode with Charles, but it's happening. And so the point that we're making at Ledger is,

we were trying to make that point for the past 10 years and people were like, well, but you know nothing is nobody is too sophisticated uh now people are starting to be sophisticated so we believe that you know security and what we do at ledger will be uh you know front and center uh in the 10 years to come much more than it has been in uh 10 years that have passed what hackers will do typically they will deploy at scale on you know through the play store or the app store on your phone and computer apps with malware inside and so as soon as you have a software wallet, or as soon as you flash your 24 words on a phone or computer, you will be sucked. You will be put in a database and

they will extract the private keys from you just like that. Again, people need to remember that neither phone or computers were designed to do security. You need to have a security device with a secure screen because your phone and computer don't have a secure screen. Even everybody that says, well, the private keys are not on phone and computer, but you still have an app running on your phone you never know what you sign and you know blind signing is not good for this industry blind signing means that you know you you cannot trust your phone and computer and so you send the money somewhere and you know hopefully it goes where you send it but you don't

know because behind the screen there is the hacker that can take your money and then send it somewhere else and so hardware wallet with a big screen where you can do clear signing that's the only way to go in the future. And people sometimes don't believe me, but I say, you should believe me. You know, we know what we're talking about and it's not just to sell products. You know, we have a mission, we have a vision, like, you know, we're here to secure people and we don't compromise at Ledger. We don't compromise on security. And so a secure screen, a hardware wallet secured, that's the only way to actually do a transaction in crypto when you're not taking a risk. When you mentioned a secure screen, what is that? Like, what could possibly happen

behind there well so this is not a secure screen uh in the sense that the screen is not controlled by a secure element or the screen is not controlled by security right when you have a ledger and now wait i'm gonna wait i'm gonna get the ledger and i will show you okay so this is the stack this is uh one of the newest ledger it's a beautiful thing it's been designed by tony fadal he was the father of uh the ipod legend right legend okay turn it on what a ledger okay so what you see here is a secure screen okay means the screen is controlled by the secure elements that is inside the device security sort of what you have on your credit card right like the chip and pin stuff and when you touch the screen uh every touch is secured like so because the screen

uh is linked to the secure elements it means that everything that you do is validated by the in the security enclave so somebody can't be kind of remotely controlling the device and when you touch the screen and you think you're hitting one button it's actually hitting a different button for you correct so in here you might have a secure element or secure enclave but because it's not connected to the screen when you push the screen it's going to send a message to the secure enclave And the secure enclave is like, sure. So whatever is in the enclave is, let's say, secure. But because the enclave doesn't understand the message that is coming to it,

you know, it will sign everything you send it to sign. Here, it will only sign what it knows is secure because it's controlling the screen and the link between. It's more like vertically integrated security for the entire device. Correct. Very interesting. So it's cool that, you know, screen, buttons, et cetera, every action is actually controlled within the secure environment. And so the secure environment controls everything, which is not true for a phone or computer.

One of the things that also is exploding in popularity is artificial intelligence. And I think a lot of people are rightfully so excited about all of the cost savings and efficiencies and things like that that can be gained by this. There's a lot of gen AI that obviously is becoming quite popular as well. But I immediately think this stuff probably can be used for nefarious purposes. and may actually, as much as it will empower good actors to build cool products, I'm assuming the bad guys, they probably will also want to use these same technologies. Are you guys seeing anything there that's noteworthy? Not really.

But, you know, good guys, bad guys, technology is for everyone, right? And often bad guys, they need an edge. So when people say at the beginning, you know, Bitcoin is for criminals, this and that, like, it's not necessarily a bad sign. It was never the case, but even if it was the case, I'd be like, well, but criminals kind of have to use the best technology that is out there to always be on the edge. So Pablo Escobar was using a satellite phone before everybody else was using a satellite phone.

So it's not because satellite phones were designed for criminals. It's just that when you're a criminal in the jungle, you need those kind of technology to stay under the radar and be able to make your phone calls, right? So, yeah, I mean, technology is being used by everyone, and right now we're not seeing like a bunch of stuff that is done with AI that would be a problem for Ledger. And again, you know, differences are being built as offense is being used. But what is certain is cryptography will be an answer to AI in the sense that AI being digital abundance and cryptography being digital scarcity this is the yin to the yang right and so

what we have on the map is sort of you know ledger being not just the security of your cryptocurrency but you know security of everything that is uh important to you uh digitally right like so all your all of your digital secrets uh last year we've launched uh you know passkey and you know a bunch of features where it's not just now about securing your cryptocurrency but other things or secrets that are important to you online you know passkey being your access to your favorite websites um and there is a long list of things that we will do but you know at some point you you will need proof of humanity right like you know are you human are you you know are you a person you know are you american what is your age etc and you know all this mixed

with identity uh and that's definitely on our roadmap for 25 and beyond um and it's something that we'll need because you know with ai with boats etc like you know god knows who's writing what, where. But if it's signed with your ledger, then we know it's you, Pomp, or me, Pascal. And that's happening. And so for us, it's not so much AI being a danger to ledger right now, because it's not really. But it's more like, what can ledger do to be the answer to AI being a danger? And we're working on that. And that's super exciting going forward. What about regulation? Obviously, in the United States, it's probably one of the bigger markets for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. There's a pretty abrasive regulatory environment.

I think that it held back a lot of institutional adoption and also retail adoption. But with the new administration coming in with President Trump going to the White House, the new SEC chair, et cetera, it feels like maybe some of that abrasiveness is slowly dissipating. What do you think that does for the industry in general, and is there any impact on Ledger? So first of all, I think the abrasive regulatory environment is in Europe. I think MICA and in general, Europe rushing into regulation before the business even happens is terrible. And the result in Europe is, you know, we don't have any exchange that are moving like sort of any coins. And so, you know, for a zone with 500 million people and, you know, a lot of value captured, you have to wonder why. And so every champion of sort of mica and over-regulation saying that, well, this will be good for business.

Well, now you have your answer, like it's terrible for business. and what you had in the US is an administration that waged war on cryptocurrency but actually had no regulation like the regulation still doesn't exist in the US and I hope

that you stay low on regulation if it moves tax it, if it keeps moving regulate it if it stops moving subsidize it so that's Ronald Reagan so that's what we do in Europe we tax, we regulate and then we subsidize once we have no business

hopefully in the US you won't regulate too much and you will let the business ride and you trust your entrepreneurs to build good companies and not to steal from customers which is, if you look at Coinbase it's a great example of an amazing company that did extremely well in a toxic environment but doing what a good company and a good CEO should do Coinbase build a good business because if you want to survive a long time, you have to build a good business. You don't need regulation, actually, to build

Coinbase, you know, as it seems. And Coinbase has always been sort of gracious in offering help to regulators and, you know, offer ways to regulate the business that is both good for the society in general and good for business. And so I think this is the way it should be done, right? Like, you know, business in partnership with with regulators and the executive power just to build an economy

and, you know, have an economy thrive. And so I think the way Europe did it is the reverse. It's like, you know, people regulating an industry that doesn't even exist with rules that are anti-business, etc. And we've done it over and over again with so many things.

I mean, you know, the GDPR is like probably one of the worst human inventions. Like, you know, nobody cares. Like, you know, the only thing it does is every time you open a website, you have a pop-up which is super annoying and uh and voila and so so it doesn't solve any problem it costs a lot of money it's really ridiculous and so uh yeah i think in the u.s like it's going to be fantastic to watch what this new administration is going to do in the next four

years and you know uh when it comes to bitcoin but other things you know uh you know doge the doge initiative with vivek and and elon is going to be uh interesting to watch to say the least And, you know, I think I'm very intrigued to see what impact is going to have on business and not just for the US, but also like this kind of renaissance movement for the world where, you know, finally we have less governmental control, you know, sort of more trust, you know, power given back to the people, the freedom to be an entrepreneur and to develop a society. and you know i i i don't really like this world where every time you try to do something like

you have to demonstrate that you're not a drug dealer that you're not a criminal that you know before you can actually do anything i think uh i want i prefer that i'm being given trust first and then if i do something wrong then of course like you know you have to pay for your crimes and and it's that but like i think i would like to go back to society where you know uh entrepreneurship is not frowned upon like it was in the past four years in the U.S., you know? When you think of 2024, it seems like one of the big stories was the ETFs getting approved, and that led to lots of inflows. Obviously, the price has done well. We get the halving. How does institutional participation change your focus at Ledger? You know, some of those

institutions either legally are not allowed to or not yet ready for self-custody, so they'll use kind of these custody providers um how do you guys think about being a custody provider for institutions are there some that are starting to do self-custody do you think there's an education gap just talk a little bit about your relationship with these institutions sure but we are a technology player so we provide technology to a bunch of custody providers so today you if you're a financial institution you're probably already using ledger without knowing you use ledger like you don't do self-custody with ledger but you use like Comainu or one of the various custodians that

use Ledger technology and you have your money there and so it's secured by Ledger technology. And so that's the play. And because we have this network of custodians all over the planet, we were able to build this new Ledger Enterprise TradeLink feature, which is an off-exchange trading feature that we've launched in 24 and that we are rolling out in 25. And it's a real success right now.

And so I think when it comes to financial institutions, again, past 10 years, like, you know, in my mind, nothing has happened. Everything is going to happen in the next 10 years. And again, 24 was very pivotal for this. 24 would be remembered as a very pivotal year for many things. You know, you have these graphs in 20 years where 24 will be, you know, the year.

And we have seen nothing yet. You know, the ETFs of 24 was certainly like a big move, like, you know, BlackRock touching Bitcoin and saying, this is my baby now. You know, that's a big moment. And people underestimate how BlackRock, you know, changed the world when they decided to do that. You know, this moment where the SEC didn't want

to approve those ETFs but still had to do it and fucked up. Their ex-account was hacked only in crypto, right? And that was in January of 24. Crazy. So 24 was really a good year for this. And so we're ready for the next 10 years. I think with Ledger Enterprise, we have the best technology platform to secure digital assets for financial institutions.

And again, we sell to custodians, we sell to banks, and then custodians and banks deliver the service to the end customer. And it's going very well right now. When you think of the ledger business kind of moving forward, you guys have recently launched these products.

You showed us the Stacks product, but it is consumer-friendly. You worked with Tony Fidel, as you mentioned. Security is still at the heart of these things, but it does feel like you are becoming much more of a consumer hardware company, similar to like an Apple, where there's a brand, there's a boldness, there's a user experience that's at the center of these devices. You're smiling because I think that that's been a big focus for you guys.

How does that evolve over time, right? You're still dealing with crypto, you're still dealing with encryption and security and like very technical things, but it feels like the device today is light years ahead of where it was, you know, even four or five years ago. Oh, 100%. Look, you know, the graveyard of great technology innovations is full of French companies. You know, we are amazing at building great technology. And we are, we come short when it comes to taking it to market and making it a product, right. And so, you know, Ledger and companies usually start with technology innovation, right? Like, it's very natural. So if the founding team at Ledger didn't have this idea and it was a very technical idea, we wouldn't be here today. But at some point, if you want to reach the mass market and the consumer market, you have to think product first. To understand that, it's not very difficult. You open YouTube, you watch three videos of Steve Jobs.

You read one book of Steve Jobs and you understand the concept. Even if the concept is quite actually easy to understand in a way, it's really pragmatic, right? Think product and technology after. it's very hard to do because you always have the tension between you know engineering and product etc etc um and uh and people like their gadgets right like you know people like you know i want this technology to be in etc etc and so for me it was really when i took over seo in 19 it was really the moment where i was like okay so how do you go how do we go into like a real product a real experience and and ledger was always designed to become this product but

but the difference between wanting something and doing it is perfect execution, and that's very difficult. So for me, perfect execution is always about the people. Who knows how to do this? And so with Tony Fandelli, I've done my best, and I cannot find better than Tony to help me do this. Anybody knows anyone that is greater, please let me know. I say this as a joke, but it was wonderful to work with tony because he knows how to do this and so typically uh watching him think about the

product and the experience first and then from there go to technology was was very interesting and you know there was friction at the beginning when we tried to pivot from technology model first to product model first uh but in the end it works super well and of course you know the stacks was late to come to market because tony being tony uh apple being apple like you know you're not gonna do the easy thing like you take the you do it hard so you uh what you're gonna do is you invent a screen that doesn't exist and that no one has never done that even inc didn't think it was possible to do you know inc is the company that produces this but they thought it was not possible to do we have actually a few videos and and things that ian rogers and ariel or vp marketing like did

that that show the the story of how we build stacks and uh and the ceo of the ink says yeah you know it was not possible to do and when we did it was like okay so you did it but uh so that was really the the hard way to do it uh and we were late etc and you know it's uh it's difficult for a small company when your product is late but i guess this is how you achieve greatness and you know looking back i'm glad we did it uh being late actually has no impact because no one did anything of significance uh in the meantime and now we are redefining uh the space and i'm glad that you made the comment that you make and we're seeing these comments on on x.com and the feedback usually that we get on our from our customers like you know as soon as

you use this and by the way i can only use this now you know i love our nanos but this is a greater experience and we've designed it to be a greater experience and you know security has to be easy to use you know uh if you want to onboard the next generation of people on self-custody uh you know it's digital property like you know if you make digital property too hard to use like you can't on board like too many users but this feels really like uh well so now now okay now it works like now now i want to use it like i want to use it every day like you know sometimes i don't have a transaction to do and i'm like man what could i do and uh but it's uh it's a thing of beauty but what we have to come is uh you know it's amazing like now we have a we have a strong team

we have uh we have an amazing roadmap for the next three years like you know i was watching the first time at ledger that we have a three-year roadmap that actually makes sense when we know what we're going to do, etc. But we came a long way, but it's difficult. 10 years, that was the 10 years anniversary for Ledger this year. I remember the first three years were very difficult. Can you imagine? 14, 15, 16. It was a different market. But now these products are selling little pancakes or

little breads. And the results that we're seeing in terms of usage are amazing too like you know it's not just that uh we sell more products it's like you know people once they have these products they do more things uh and and what's happening is uh there is a world of connectivity uh that is coming now that hasn't really happened in the past 10 years but now you know this idea of having your private keys why you know because you're a sovereign individual okay because philosophically you know you want money to be yours sure but you don't convince everyone with this and and by the way you know what is the product again so the product is this like now you have public blockchains that are you know

protocols just like the web is a protocol but the web is not a product facebook is a product and so you're going to use facebook and facebook connects to the web protocol right and so defy is a product now to do defy how do you do defy well with these little babies you know clear signing what three check directly on this connect to d5 well that's that's the product and only if you do that you can have a secure transaction because on d5 if you don't secure the endpoints then you're at risk of losing your money uh and uh and it's coming fast now like you know the next five years will be uh you know applications that run on top of blockchain even bitcoin uh layer twos on bitcoin are coming so can you imagine like you know so much liquidity so much security

and you build an applicative layer on top so that's the product and so we designed this to be to be ready uh for people to be able to engage with the protocol to connect to the web if you want uh if you're on an exchange you're on an intranet if you want to come to the internet you need to be on ledger what is the thing you're looking forward to most in 2025. well that uh actually uh you know at ledger we have an investment fund as well with cat innovation and we've been investing in uh you know bitcoin layer twos and uh basically the applicative layer a bunch of defy stuff etc and you know i think uh in general defy and uh you know this is the big push for us and it seems a little backwards like people say well you know

we already know everything about defy i'm like i don't think we know everything about defy like you know i think defy exists and actually in uh 22 23 uh and 24 define has shown that it was a resilience when everything went down not defy so very resilient that is gaining traction that is gaining market share against c5 and that it is the future but the future takes time you know it was one of our former president francois we say in french you need to give time to time you know so uh so i think defy is the uh is something very exciting for for 25 and the years to come but it's going to be a big push for ledger we integrated recently uh tor swap uh this was one of the integration that was the most acclaimed by users like you know everybody was super excited and

and uh and and the tor swap integration with ledger is a huge success uh it's online so everybody can see uh how much transactions we're pushing into tor swaps and so it's pretty uh pretty amazing i think that um you all more so than only probably any company i know in the space has uh the seat at the intersection of consumers institutions security and what i'll call kind of the financialization of all these assets and talking about connecting to the internet and you know it's almost like this kind of uh headquarters if you will for somebody in both digitally and also in the physical world and it's a very unique position uh but the one One thing that I tell people behind closed doors, I've never told you before, but I figure

this is a good place. You guys continue to innovate. And throughout the years, I think Ledger could have just sat on its hands and said, hey, we got a good business. Things seem to be working. We're the leader. Now, all of a sudden, as you guys continue to innovate, you can see that the business is pushing kind of the pace of the innovation and kind of what's possible.

But also, there is this back and forth between the hardware and the software. the more that people are able to hold their assets and engage in the DeFi applications or engage in various things that allows the opportunity for the software developers to build certain types of products, et cetera. And so, you know, it's kind of a friendly competition of who can go faster, but it makes the whole space better. And I think that people don't appreciate how important the security is of these hardware devices, not just for the defense, but also for the kind of what is possible with this technology as the industry continues to uh kind of develop look i appreciate you saying this uh i will second you of course uh

and it's uh it's been a hard uh shift from hey i'm buying a ledger and i put it in a drawer to actually my ledger is my gate to enter my world of crypto and i think it has been that way because crypto has evolved a lot you know in 2014 what could you do apart apart from uh you know i buy i hold bitcoin that's it you know and i send and receive okay fine but then that's it uh and now you can do more and you will be able to do more etc so it's funny because we have cohorts of users so all new users when they come when they buy a ledger they connect to everything because now that's what ledger is old users uh have to figure out what ledger is and sometimes uh and it's very difficult because we are privacy first business and so therefore like we don't have a way to reach

out to our users and say hey mister we know you have ledger and so now this is everything that you can do with it so we have a lot to do in terms of education and reaching out to our users and say hey now this is what's possible uh but again i mean these groups with original gangsters and they're like well the ledger is only called storage am i no no no the ledger is exactly what you describe and ledger is now connectivity and you know secure connectivity uh and uh and that is the future the future of crypto is not to be on a vault somewhere and uh stay still uh some of it will do that of course like you know uh but you're gonna want to engage uh i was talking to a friend it's funny like you know he got into crypto sort of with me but that's not his business uh but

his business was i don't know like you know uh sort of finance in like sort of regional france uh and he was telling me the other day that now he was only boring money on uh on d5 it was like crazy crazy he's like who needs the banks anymore like you know he was so excited he's like and because like his life was always talking to the banks and trying to get those loans etc he's like i go on uh ave i think you know i do my thing i do that boom i got my loan okay and then it's automated etc it was so exciting but he got it like it was like who needs who needs the banks anymore and so uh but he has a ledger right so he understands that too because okay he has me but like you also understand the need now that if you're going to do this

online like okay it's great but only if you can secure the endpoint and only if you do it with a with a with a ledger or something secure like like ledger that doesn't exist but okay you see my point uh well so i think this world is super exciting and as soon as people see it they're like oh my god like you know it's it's very powerful where can we send people to get a ledger if they're interested ledger.com uh and now we have a fierce distribution network uh everywhere in the world depends where you live in the world you know sometimes to order on ledger.com you have maybe cost to import etc and uh but most countries now have local distributors and resellers etc it's it's pretty well done that's that's actually you know to see that the industry has evolved um

what was it uh yes so 2017 2017 bull run and then crash in uh 1819 pick up again in 20 bull run 21 1819 we lost all of our distribution uh after the bull run you know people were not convinced etc And so this crash of 22, 23, we gained distribution. So no one walked away from crypto, which was interesting. And so now we have a very strong distribution network everywhere in the world. And next year we are going to localize more ledger. And we have like a few regions, countries where we want to press more in terms of local distribution, having a marketing presence, presence with people, et cetera, et cetera. I think you guys are doing a fantastic job. So I appreciate all the hard work.

I think every single person who's got a ledger and got anything on there, they're thankful for all the security you guys provide as well. So thank you for taking the time to do this. Consider me a huge fan as always, and we'll definitely do it again in the future. Pleasure, as always. Merci beaucoup.