The largest conglomerate out of South Korea and one of the world’s biggest brands Samsung, has invested $2.9 million in crypto hardware wallet manufacturer and custodial service provider ledger in a high profile deal.
The deal will see millions pumped into Ledger barely a week after Samsung ventures led a $4 million round in ZenGo; a startup focused on developing keyless crypto wallets. This week has also seen the South Korean giant as reported by CoindeskKorea test Samsung coin as well as an ERC20-based blockchain protocol on top of the Ethereum blockchain.
According to an anonymous Samsung insider, the company is performing several tests. The insider said;
“Blockchain taskforce made several models and are evaluating them. There are already several platforms that are functioning after some internal tests,”
Samsung’s plans to launch a crypto asset coupled with a move to integrate a crypto wallet into the Samsung Galaxy S10 seems quite aggressive, at a time where most smartphone manufacturers are silently observing, inorder to make more sense of the crypto market.
Samsung’s Ledger approach was most likely informed by Ledger’s popularity in the crypto space, as well as its ERC20 complaint hardware wallets, which were perfect for Samsung’s plans to launch ERC20 tokens mainly focused on business to business operations. The deal with Ledger will also be a huge for the launch of Samsung Coin.
Samsung’s decision to work with Ledger may have also been informed by the company’s outlook; as it seeks to cater to both retail investors and institutional investors as a crypto custody provider. An email by Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier read;
“While countless retail hodlers trust Ledger to secure their crypto, companies who manage huge amounts of crypto, like institutional investors, family offices and exchanges are also starting to trust us,”
This looks like the bait that had Samsung Coin visionaries hooked.
Ledger has come a long way as a company itself having held a successful round of fund raising led by Billionaire Tim Draper last year. This new Funding round that is led by Samsung is expected to help the company make bigger strides.
Samsung’s foray into the crypto space is likely to instill more confidence among institutional investors who are either already invested or are thinking about making a move. It may also ignite other tech manufacturers to do the same. Samsung’s focus seems to be on crypto projects that help ease the process of using cryptos in day to day operations. Based on how aggressive Samsung has gotten into crypto, it looks like the South Korean giant may be open to getting involved in more crypto projects that are geared to eliminating boundaries between crypto and everyday users.
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